enough for such short reckonings as yours would be, on the profit
side at least. No, no--I'd sooner carry lime all my days from Cauldy to
Bideford, than pass another twelve-month in the land of Ire, among
the children of wrath. There is a curse upon the face of the earth, I
believe."

"There is no curse upon it, save the old one of man's sin--'Thorns and
thistles it shall bring forth to thee.' But if you root up the thorns
and thistles, Amyas, I know no fiend who can prevent your growing wheat
instead; and if you till the ground like a man, you plough and barrow
away nature's curse, and other fables of the schoolmen beside," added
he, in that daring fashion which afterwards obtained for him (and never
did good Christian less deserve it) the imputation of atheism.

"It is sword and bullet, I think, that are needed here, before plough
and harrow, to clear away some of the curse. Until a few more of these
Irish lords are gone where the Desmonds are, there is no peace for
Ireland."

"Humph! not so far wrong, I fear. And yet--Irish lords? These very
traitors are better English blood than we who hunt them down. When Yeo
here slew the Desmond the other day, he no more let out a drop of Irish
blood, than if he had slain the lord deputy himself."

"His blood be on his own head," said Yeo, "He looked as wild a savage as
the worst of them, more shame to him; and the ancient here had nigh cut
off his arm before he told us who he was: and then, your worship, having
a price upon his head, and like to bleed to death too--"

"Enough, enough, good fellow," said Raleigh. "Thou hast done what was
given thee to do. Strange, Amyas, is it not? Noble Normans sunk into
savages--Hibernis ipsis hiberniores! Is there some uncivilizing venom in
the air?"

"Some venom, at least, which makes English men traitors. But the Irish
themselves are well enough, if their tyrants would let them be. See now,
what more faithful liegeman has her majesty than the Inchiquin, who,
they say, is Prince of Themond, and should be king of all Ireland, if
every man had his right?"

"Don't talk of rights in the land of wrongs, man. But the Inchiquin
knows well that the true Irish Esau has no worse enemy than his
supplanter, the Norman Jacob. And yet, Amyas are even these men worse
than we might be, if we had been bred up masters over the bodies and
souls of men, in some remote land where law and order had never come?
Look at this Desmond, brought up a savage amon