Below it, to the south, between firm green banks and meadows, wound a beautiful river, and to the north rose one of the most picturesque hills, probably, in the kingdom; at the hip of which was a gloomy, precipitous glen, which, for wildness and solitary grandeur, is unrivalled by anything of the kind we have seen.  On the top of the hill is a cave, supposed to be Druidical, over which an antiquarian would dream half a life; and, indeed, this is not to be wondered at, inasmuch as he would find there some of the most distinctly traced Ogham characters to be met with in any part of the kingdom.

On entering the house, our nameless friend found the good priest in what a stranger might be apt to consider a towering passion.

“You lazy bosthoon,” said he, to a large, in fact to a huge young fellow, a servant, “was it to allow the pigs, the destructive vagabonds, to turn up my beautiful bit of lawn that I undertook to give you house-room, wages, and feeding—­eh? and a bitther business to me the same feeding is.  If you were a fellow that knew when he had enough, I could bear the calamity of keeping you at all.  But that’s a subject, God help you, and God help me too that has to suffer for it, on which your ignorance is wonderful.  To know when to stop so long as the blessed victuals is before you is a point of polite knowledge you will never reach, you immaculate savage.  Not a limb about you but you’d give six holidays to out of the seven, barrin’ your walrus teeth, and, if God or man would allow you the fodder, you’d give us an elucidation of the perpetual motion.  Be off, and get the strongest set of rings that Jemmy M’Quade can make for those dirty, grubbing bastes of pigs.  The Lord knows I don’t wondher that the Jews hated the thieves, for sure they are the only blackguard animals that ever committed suicide, and set the other bastes of the earth such an unchristian example.  Not that a slice of ham is so bad a thing in itself, especially when it is followed by a single tumbler of poteen punch.”

“Troth, masther, I didn’t see the pigs, or they’d not have my sanction to go into the lawn.”

“Not a thing ever you see, or wish to see, barring your dirty victuals.”

“I hope, sir,” said the stranger, much amused in the meantime, but with every courtesy of manner, “that my request for a short interview does not come at an unseasonable hour?”

“And, do you hear me, you bosthoon,” proceeded his reverence—­this, however, he uttered sotto voce, from an apprehension lest the stranger should hear his benevolent purposes—­“did you give the half crown to Widow Magowran, whose children, poor creatures, are lying ill of fever?”

Not a word to the stranger, who, however, overheard him.

“I did, plaise your reverence,” replied the huge servant.

“What did she say,” asked the other, “when you slipped it to her?”

“She said nothing, sir, for a minute or so, but dropped on her knees, and the tears came from her eyes in such a way that I couldn’t help letting down one or two myself.  ‘God spare him,’ she then said, ’for his piety and charity makes him a blessin’ to the parish.’  Throth, I couldn’t help lettin’ down a tear or two myself.”