My jarvey was rather taciturn at first, but turned out to be something of a politician.  He wanted Home Rule, one of his reasons being that then they “wouldn’t let the Americans come and ruin them altogether, driving out the grain from the markets.”  About this he was very clear and positive.  “Oh, it doesn’t matter now whether the land is good or bad, America has just ruined the farmers entirely.”

I told him I had always heard this achievement attributed to England.  “Oh! that was quite a mistake!  What the English did was to punish the men that stood up for Ireland.  There was Mr. O’Brien.  But for him there wasn’t a man of Lord Lansdowne’s people would have had the heart to stand up.  He did it all; and now, what were they doing to him?  They were putting him on a cold plank-bed on a stone floor in a damp cell!”

“But the English put all their prisoners in those cells, don’t they?” I asked.

“And what of it, sir?” he retorted.  “They’re good enough for most of them, but not for a gentleman like Mr. O’Brien, that would spill the last drop of his heart’s blood for Ireland!”

“But,” I said, “they’re doing just the same thing with Mr. Gilhooly, I hear.”

“And who is Mr. Gilhooly, now?  And it’s not for the likes of him to complain and be putting on airs as if he was Mr. O’Brien!”

“Yes, it is a fine country for hunting!”

“Was it ever put down here, the hunting?”

“No, indeed!  Sure, the people wouldn’t let it be!”

“Not if Mr. O’Brien told them they must?” I queried.

“Mr. O’Brien; ah, he wouldn’t think of such a thing!  It brings money all the time to Athy, and sells the horses.”

As to the troubles at Luggacurren, he was not very clear.  “It was a beautiful place, Mr. Dunne’s; we’d see it presently.  And Mr. Dunne, he was a good one for sport.  It was that, your honour, that got him into the trouble”—­

“And Mr. Kilbride?”

“Oh, Mr. Kilbride’s place was a very good place too, but not like Mr. Dunne’s.  And he was doing very well, Mr. Kilbride.  He was getting a good living from the League, and he was a Member of Parliament.  Oh, yes, he wasn’t the only one of the tenants that was doing good to himself.  There was more of them that was getting more than ever they made out of the land."[24]

“Was the land so bad, then?” I asked.

“No, there was as good land at Luggacurren as any there was in all Ireland; but,” and here he pointed off to the crests of the hills in the distance, “there was a deal of land there of the estate on the hills, and it was very poor land, but the tenants had to pay as much for that as for the good property of Dunne and Kilbride.”

“Do you know Mr. Lynch, the magistrate?” I asked.  “If you do, look out for him, as he has promised to join me and show me the place.”

“Oh no, sorr!” the jarvey exclaimed at once; “don’t mind about him.  Hell have his own car, and your honour won’t want to take him on ours.”