ll galloped off over the downs toward Marsland, while Sir Richard
ceremoniously walked in again, and professed himself ready and happy to
have the honor of an audience in Mr. Leigh's private chamber. And as we
know pretty well already what was to be discussed therein, we had better
go over to Marsland Mouth, and, if possible, arrive there before Will
Cary: seeing that he arrived hot and swearing, half an hour too late.

Note.--I have shrunk somewhat from giving these and other sketches (true
and accurate as I believe them to be) of Ireland during Elizabeth's
reign, when the tyranny and lawlessness of the feudal chiefs had reduced
the island to such a state of weakness and barbarism, that it was
absolutely necessary for England either to crush the Norman-Irish
nobility, and organize some sort of law and order, or to leave Ireland
an easy prey to the Spaniards, or any other nation which should go to
war with us. The work was done--clumsily rather than cruelly; but wrongs
were inflicted, and avenged by fresh wrongs, and those by fresh again.
May the memory of them perish forever! It has been reserved for this
age, and for the liberal policy of this age, to see the last ebullitions
of Celtic excitability die out harmless and ashamed of itself, and
to find that the Irishman, when he is brought as a soldier under the
regenerative influence of law, discipline, self-respect, and loyalty,
can prove himself a worthy rival of the more stern Norse-Saxon warrior.
God grant that the military brotherhood between Irish and English,
which is the special glory of the present war, may be the germ of a
brotherhood industrial, political, and hereafter, perhaps, religious
also; and that not merely the corpses of heroes, but the feuds and
wrongs which have parted them for centuries, may lie buried, once and
forever, in the noble graves of Alma and Inkerman.

CHAPTER VI

THE COMBES OF THE FAR WEST

"Far, far from hence
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
Among the green Illyrian hills, and there
The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,
And by the sea and in the brakes
The grass is cool, the sea-side air
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers
More virginal and sweet than ours."

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

And even such are those delightful glens, which cut the high table-land
of the confines of Devon and Cornwall, and opening each through its
gorge of down and