sation still in full swing among us, and keeping
regular books for settlement when they have the power. I was
determined not to be beat, so I went to Limerick, nearly thirty miles
away, to get a float or wagon. The news was there before me, not a
wheel to be had in the city. At last, by means of powerful influence,
I got a cart, on condition that the owner's name should be taken off,
and my name painted on. Then I returned to Newcastle and bore away the
goods in triumph. Alas! my troubles were only beginning! I had been
told that the goods were not the debtor's, but belonged to someone
else. The cow, they said, was a neighbour's, who had 'lent' it to my
debtor. The watch, they said, was the property of a friend, who had
handed it to my debtor that he might take it somewhere to be repaired.
The landlord of the house claimed that he had previously seized
everything, but had allowed things to remain out of kindness. I was
cited in four actions for illegal distraint, all of which were so
evidently trumped-up that they were quashed. But the time they took!
And the annoyance they caused. The expense also was considerable, and
the idea of getting expenses out of these people--but I need add
nothing on that score.

"There were six witnesses in one case, and they could never be found,
so long as the judge could have patience to wait. Every lie, trick,
subterfuge you can imagine, was practised on poor me. At last all was
over, but at what a cost! The big chap who had threatened me with the
bill-hook came humbly forward and said: "Plase yer honner's worship,
I'm very deaf, an' I'm short sighted, and I'm very wake intirely, an'
ye must give me toime to insinse meself into the way of it." And that
rascal had everything repeated several times, until I was on fifty
occasions on the point of chucking up the whole thing.

"Before the Home Rule Bill had implanted dishonest ideas in his head,
before the promises of unscrupulous agitators had unsettled and
demoralised the people, that man was a straightforward, good, paying
fellow. Only he thought that by waiting till the bill was passed he
would have nothing to pay. The ignorant among us harbour that idea,
and the disloyalty of the lower classes is so intense that you could
not understand it unless you lived here at least two years."

English friends who praise the affection of the Irish people, and who
speak of the Union of Hearts, may note the lectures of the popular
Miss Gonne, who