“Well, well; how easy it is to frighten the police!” remarked the Chairman, following them with a regretful eye.  “I suppose, afther all, we’d betther put a price on the sheep and have done with it.  In my opinion, when there’s a difficulty like this—­what I might call an accident—­between decent men like these (for they’re both decent men, and I’ve known them these years), I’d say both parties should share what hardship is in it.  Now, doctor, what shall we give Darcy?  I suppose if we gave him 8s. compensation and 2s. costs we’d not be far out?”

Dr. Lyden, already in the act of charging his pipe, nodded his head.

Sweeny began to fumble in his pockets, and drawing out a brownish rag, possibly a handkerchief, knotted in several places, proceeded to untie one of the knots.  The doctor watched him without speaking.  Ultimately, from some fastness in the rag a half-sovereign was extracted, and was laid upon the table by Sweeny.  The clerk, a well-dressed young gentleman, whose attitude had throughout been one of the extremest aloofness, made an entry in his book with an aggressively business-like air.

“Well, that’s all right,” remarked Dr. Lyden, getting lazily on his legs and looking round for his hat; “it’s a funny thing, but I notice that the defendant brought the exact sum required into court with him.”

“I did!  And I’m able to bring more than it, thanks be to God!” said Sweeny fiercely, with all the offended pride of his race.  “I have two pounds here this minute—­”

“If that’s the way with ye, may be ye’d like us to put a bigger fine on ye!” broke in Mr. Heraty hotly, in instant response to Sweeny’s show of temper.

Dr. Lyden laughed for the first time.

“Mr. Heraty’s getting cross now, in the latter end,” he murmured explanatorily to the general public, while he put on an overcoat, from the pocket of which protruded the Medusa coils of a stethoscope.

* * * * *

Long before the arrival of the mail-car that was to take us away, the loafers and the litigants had alike been swallowed up, apparently by the brown, hungry hillsides; possibly also, some of them, by Mr. Heraty’s tap-room.  Again we clambered to our places among the inevitable tourists and their inevitable bicycles, again the laden car lumbered heavily yet swiftly along the bog roads that quivered under its weight, while the water in the black ditches on either side quivered in sympathy.  The tourists spoke of the vast loneliness, unconscious of the intricate network of social life that lay all around them, beyond their ken, far beyond their understanding.  They spoke authoritatively of Irish affairs; mentioned that the Irish were “a bit ’ot tempered,” but added that “all they wanted was fair play”.

They had probably been in Ireland for a week or fortnight.  They had come out of business centres in England, equipped with circular tickets, with feeling hearts, and with the belief that two and two inevitably make four; whereas in Ireland two and two are just as likely to make five, or three, and are still more likely to make nothing at all.