He is watching American politics, too, very closely, and inclines to sympathise with President Cleveland.  Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia, he tells me, in his passage through Ireland the other day, did not hesitate to express his conviction that President Cleveland would be re-elected.

Dr. Dillon was so earnest and so interesting that the time slipped by very fast, until a casual glance at my watch showed me that we must make great haste to catch the Dublin train.

We left therefore rather hurriedly, but before reaching the station we saw the Dublin train go careering by, its white pennon of smoke and vapour curling away along the valley.

I made the best of it, however, and letting Mr. Holmes depart by a train which took him home, I found a smart jarvey with a car, and drove out to Glenart Castle, the beautiful house of the Earl of Carysfort.  This is a very handsome modern house, built in a castellated style of a very good whitish grey marble, with extensive and extremely well-kept terraced gardens and conservatories.

It stands very well on one high bank of the river, a residence of the Earl of Wicklow occupying the other bank.  My jarvey called my attention to the excellence of the roads, on which he said Lord Carysfort has spent “a deal of money,” as well as upon the gardens of the new Castle.  The head-gardener, an Englishman, told me he found the native labourers very intelligent and willing both to learn and to work.  Evidently here is another centre of useful and civilising influences, not managed by an “absentee."[23]

CHAPTER XIV.

DUBLIN, Friday, March 9th.—­At 7.40 this morning I took the train for Athy to visit the Luggacurren estates of Lord Lansdowne.  Mr. Lynch, a resident magistrate here, some time ago kindly offered to show me over the place, but I thought it as well to take my chance with the people of Athy who are reported to have been very hot over the whole matter here, and so wrote to Mr. Lynch that I would find him at the Lodge, which is the headquarters of the property.

Athy is a neat, well-built little town, famous of old as a frontier fortress of Kildare.  An embattled tower, flanked by small square turrets, guards a picturesque old bridge here over the Barrow, the bridge being known in the country as “Crom-a-boo,” from the old war-cry of the Fitz-Geralds.  It is a busy place now; and there was quite a bustle at the very pretty little station.  I asked a friendly old porter which was the best hotel in the town.  “The best?  Ah! there’s only one, and it’s not the best—­but there are worse—­and it’s Kavanagh’s.”  I found it easily enough, and was ushered by a civil man, who emerged from the shop which occupies part of it, into a sort of reading-room with a green table.  A rather slatternly but very active girl soon converted this into a neat breakfast-table, and gave me an excellent breakfast.  The landlord found me a good car, and off I set for the residence of Father Maher, the curate of whom I had heard as one of the most fiery and intractable of the National League priests in this part of Ireland.