y around became of wildest grandeur. High mountains
hemmed us in on every side, rising one over another, huge masses of
rock impending over untrodden passes, unknown to any guide-book, and
leading no man knows whither. Some mountain sheep on the line scaled
the embankment and leaped the five-foot wall like squirrels. Then a
group of obstinate black cattle, one of which narrowly escaped sudden
transformation into beef. Then the station of Mulranney, or rather its
site, for the foundations are not yet dug out. Some neat wooden
cottages attested the contractor's care for his workmen, and the
beautiful bay with its extensive sands and lovely surroundings came
into view far below. A steep descent brought us to the hotel, an
unlicensed house kept by a Northern Protestant. A quaint and charming
place, known and prized by a select few. The Board of Works gave
Mulrannoy a pier, but the whole bay boasted only a single boat. The
people make no use of their pier. It stretches into the sea in a
lonely, melancholy way, and, so far as I could see, without a boat
near it, without a soul upon it or within half-a-mile. The Mulranians
cannot do anything with the pier until they get Home Rule. In Limerick
one day I saw a dead cat before a cottage door, in a crowded part of
Irishtown. A week later pussy was diffusing an aromatic fragrance from
the self-same spot. The denizens of this locality are waiting for Home
Rule. They cannot move their dead cats while smarting 'neath the cruel
English yoke.

The Home Rulers of Mulranney are not original. They say the same
things over and over again, merely echoing what they have been told by
others. They believe that their country has unlimited good coal, and
that the English Parliament prevents the mines being sunk for fear of
losing Irish custom. "We wish it were trap," said Mr. Bennett. "We are
always looking for it, but although we have made a million's worth of
railway, we have never seen a vestige of coal. It is safe to say that
there is no coal in Ireland, except in one or two well-known spots,
where it exists, and is mined, in small quantities." Another
enlightened Irishman, of wide experience in many lands, expressed the
conviction of the majority of his countrymen that the proposed
Parliamentary change will never take place.

"The thing is too ridiculous to be possible. The respectable portion
of the community were alarmed at first, as well they might be, knowing
as they do precisely what