only dyes used are got by the women also from the
sea-weeds and the kelp, which must be counted among the resources of the
place. The browns and ochres thus produced are both soft and vivid;
while nothing can be better than a peculiar warm grey, produced by a
skilful mingling of the undyed wools.

"What, then, causes the distress for which the name of Gweedore is a
synonym?" I asked.

"It doesn't exist," responded my Galwegian; "that is, there is no such
distress in Gweedore as you find in Connemara, for instance;[14] but
what distress there is in Gweedore is due much more to the habits the
people have been getting into of late years, and to the idleness of
them, than to any pressure of the rents you hear about, or even to the
poverty of the soil. Go down to the store at Bunbeg, and see what they
buy and go in debt for! You won't find in any such place as Bunbeg in
England such things. And even this don't measure it; for, you see,
two-thirds of them are not free to deal at Bunbeg."

"Why not? Is Bunbeg 'boycotted'?"

"No, not at all. But they are on the books of the 'Gombeen man'--Sweeney
of Dungloe and Burtonport. They're always in debt to him for the meal;
and then he backs the travelling tea-pedlars, and the bakers that carry
around cakes, and all these run up the accounts all the time. Tot up
what these people lay out for tea at four shillings a pound--and they
won't have cheap tea--and what they pay for meal, and what they pay for
interest, and the 'testimonials,'--they paid for the monument here to
O'Donnell, the Donegal man that murdered Carey,--and the dues to the
priest, and you'll find the L700 or so they don't pay the landlord going
in other directions three and four times over."

"Then they are falling back into all the old laziness, the men
sauntering about, or sitting and smoking, while the women do all the
work."

The maid having told us Mass would be performed at noon, I walked with
Lord Ernest a mile or so up the road to Derrybeg, to see the people
thronging down from the hills; the women in their picturesque fashion
wearing their bright shawls drawn over their heads. But the maid had
deceived us. The Mass was fixed for eleven, and I suspect her of being a
Protestant in disguise.

On the way back we met Mr. Burke, the resident magistrate. He has a neat
house here, with a garden, and had come over from Dunfanaghy to see his
wife. He meant to return before dark. The country was quiet enough, he
s