guage used in the speech of a sort to excite the people
against the law. He was selected for this duty for three reasons: he is
a Donegal man who has lived at Gweedore for sixteen years; he is a fair
stenographer; and he speaks Irish, in which language Father M'Fadden
made his speech.

"I speak Irish quite as well as he does," said the Sergeant quietly,
"and he knows I do. What I did was to put down in English words what I
heard said in Irish. This I had to do because I have no stenographic
signs for the Irish words." He tells me he taught himself stenography.

"As for Father M'Fadden," he said, "he told the people that' he was the
law in Gweedore, and they should heed no other.' He spoke the truth,
too, for he makes himself the law in Gweedore. He dislikes me because I
am a living proof that he is not the only law in Gweedore!" Of the
business shrewdness and ability of Father M'Fadden, Sergeant Mahony
expressed a very high opinion, though hardly in terms which would have
gratified such an ecclesiastic as the late Cardinal Barnabo. Possibly
Cardinal Cullen might have relished them no better. "Certainly he has
the finest house in Gweedore, sir, and what's more he made it the finest
himself."

"Do you mean that he built it?"

"He did, indeed; and did you not notice the beautiful stone fences he is
putting up all about it, and the four farms he has?"

"Then he is certainly a man of substance?"

"And of good substance, sir! The Government, they gave him a hundred
pounds towards the house. But it was the flood that was the blessed
thing for him and made a great man of him!"

"The flood?" I asked, with some natural astonishment; "the flood? What
flood?"

"And did you never hear of the great flood of Gweedore? It was in
August 1880. You will mind the water that comes down behind the chapel?
Well, there was a flood, and it swelled, and it swelled, and it burst
the small pipe there behind the chapel: too small it was entirely for
carrying off' the great water, and nobody took notice of it, or that
there was anything wrong, and so the water was piled up behind the
chapel, and at Mass on the Sunday, while the chapel was full, the walls
gave way, and the water rushed in, and was nine feet deep. There were
five people that couldn't get out in time, and were drowned--two old
people and three children, young people. It was a great flood. And
Father M'Fadden wrote about it--oh, he is a clever priest with the
pen--and they mad