ig House--I've never been
inside it. I'd like to see what it is like.'

Joycetown House was the last link between the present time and the past.
In the beginning of the century a duellist lived there; the terror of
the countryside he, for he was never known to miss his man. For the
slightest offence, real or imaginary, he sent seconds demanding redress.
No more than his ancestors, who had doubtless lived on the islands, in
Castle Island and Castle Hag, could he live without fighting. But when
he completed his round dozen, a priest said, 'If we don't put a stop to
his fighting, there won't be a gentleman left in the country,' and wrote
to him to that effect.

The story runs how Joyce, knowing the feeling of the country was against
him, tried to keep the peace. But the blood fever came on him again, and
he called out his nearest neighbour, Browne of the Neale, the only
friend he had in the world. Browne lived at Neale House, just over the
border, in County Galway, so the gentlemen arranged to fight in a
certain field near the mearing. It was Browne of Neale who was the first
to arrive. Joyce, having to come a dozen miles, was a few minutes late.
As soon as his gig was seen, the people, who were in hiding, came out,
and they put themselves between him and Browne, telling him up to his
face there was to be no fighting that day! And the priest, who was at
the head of them, said the same; but Joyce, who knew his countrymen,
paid no heed, but stood up in the gig, and, looking round him, said,
'Now, boys, which is it to be? The Mayo cock or the Galway cock?' No
sooner did he speak these words than they began to cheer him, and in
spite of all the priest could say they carried him into the field in
which he shot Browne of the Neale.

'A queer people, the queerest in the world,' Father Oliver thought, as
he pulled a thorn-bush out of the doorway and stood looking round. There
were some rough chimney-pieces high up in the grass-grown walls, but
beyond these really nothing to be seen, and he wandered out seeking
traces of terraces along the hillside.

On meeting a countryman out with his dogs he tried to inquire about the
state of the road.

'I wouldn't be saying, your reverence, that you mightn't get the car
through by keeping close to the wall; but Christy mustn't let the horse
out of a walk.'

The countryman said he would go a piece of the road with them, and tell
Christy the spots he'd have to look out for.

'But your w