r people. From the earliest days of the famine
her house and her stores were ever ready to supply the wants of the
homeless, the poor, the suffering; her wealth was freely spent for
food for the starving while supplies could yet be bought either near
or in distant baronies; and when known supplies failed her lavish
offers tempted the churlish farmers, who still hoarded grain that they
might enrich themselves in the great dearth, to sell some of their
garnered stores. When she could no longer induce them to part with
their grain, her own winter provisions, wine and corn, were
distributed generously to all who asked for relief, and none ever left
her castle without succour.

Her Wide Charity

Thus passed the early months of bitter starvation, and the Countess
Cathleen's name was borne far and wide through Ireland, accompanied
with the blessings of all the rescued; and round her castle, from
every district, gathered a mighty throng of poor--not only her own
clansmen--who all looked to her for a daily dole of food and drink to
keep some life in them until the pestilential mists should pass away.
The wholesome cold of winter would purify the air and bring new hope
and promise of new life in the coming year. Alas! the winter drew on
apace and still the poisonous yellow vapours hung heavily over the
land, and still the deadly famine clutched each feeble heart and
weakened the very springs of life, and the winter frosts slew more
than the summer heats, so feeble were the people and so weakened.

Lawlessness Breaks Out

At last, even in the Isle of Saints, the bonds of right and wrong were
loosened, all respect for property vanished in the universal
desolation, and men began to rob and plunder, to trust only to the
right of might, thinking that their poor miserable lives were of more
value than aught else, than conscience and pity and honesty. Thus
Cathleen lost by barefaced robbery much of what she still possessed of
flocks and herds, of scanty fruit and corn. Her servants would gladly
have pursued the robbers and regained the spoils, but Cathleen forbade
it, for she pitied the miserable thieves, and thought no evil of them
in this bitter dearth. By this time she had distributed all her winter
stores, and had only enough to feed her poor pensioners and her
household with most scanty rations; and she herself shared equally
with them, for the most earnest entreaties of her faithful servants
could not induce her to fare b