About his people, and with his people, Father Maher said he “felt most strongly.”  How could he help it?  He was himself the son of an evicted father.

“Of course, Father Maher,” I said, “you will understand that I wish to get at both sides of this question and of all questions here.  Pray tell me then, where I shall find the story of the Luggacurren property most fully and fairly set forth in print?”

Without a moment’s hesitation he replied, “By far the best and fairest account of the whole matter you will get in the Irish correspondence of the London Times.”

How the conflict would end he could not say.  But he was at a loss to see how it could pay Lord Lansdowne to maintain it.

He very civilly pressed me to stay and lunch with him, but when I told him I had already accepted an invitation from Mr. Hutchins, he very kindly bestirred himself to find my jarvey.

I hastened back to the lodge, where I found a very pleasant little company.  They were all rather astonished, I thought, by the few words I had to say of Father Maher, and especially by his frank and sensible recommendation of the reports in the London Times as the best account I could find of the Luggacurren difficulty.  To this they could not demur, but things have got, or are getting, in Ireland, I fear, to a point at which candour, on one side or the other of the burning questions here debated, is regarded with at least as much suspicion as the most deliberate misrepresentation.  As to Mr. Town send Trench, what Father Maher failed to tell me, I was here told:  That down to the time of the actual evictions he offered to take six months’ rent from the tenants, give them a clean book, and pay all the costs.  To refuse this certainly looks like a “war measure.”

But for the loneliness of her life here, Mrs. Hutchins tells me she would find it delightful.  The country is exceedingly lovely in the summer and autumn months.

When my car came out to take me back to Athy, I found my jarvey in excellent spirits, and quite friendly even with Mr. Hutchins himself.  He kept up a running fire of lively commentaries upon the residents whose estates we passed.

“Would you think now, your honour,” he said, pointing with his whip to one large mansion standing well among good trees, “that that’s the snuggest man there is about Athy?  But he is; and it’s no wonder!  Would you believe it, he never buys a newspaper, but he walks all the way into Athy, and goes about from the bank to the shops till he finds one, and picks it up and reads it.  He’s mighty fond of the news, but he’s fonder, you see, of a penny!