rned up, the white heels we
never saw, for I'm not killing larks, God love you!"

He raised his head, looking up into the sky at some larks singing above
him in the heavens.

"Lord love you, little dears," he added aloud. "I wish I might die with
your singing in my ears, but do you know what makes Ireland what it
is? Look at it now. Years ago, just when the cotton-mills and the
linen-mills were doing well, they came over with their English
legislation, and made it hard going. When we begin to get something,
over the English come and take the something away. What have we done, we
Irish people, that we shouldn't have a chance in our own country? Lord
knows, we deserve a chance, for it's hard paying the duties these days.
What with France in revolution and reaching out her hand to Ireland
to coax her into rebellion; what with defeat in America and drink
in Scotland; what with Fox and Pitt at each other's throats, and the
lord-lieutenant a danger to the peace; what with poverty, and the cow
and children and father and mother living all in one room, with the
chickens roosting in the rafters; what with pointing the potato at the
dried fish and gulping it down as if it was fish itself; what with the
smell and the dirt and the poverty of Dublin and Derry, Limerick and
Cork--ah, well!" He threw his eyes up again.

"Ah, well, my little love, sing on! You're a blessing among a lot of
curses; but never mind, it's a fine world, and Ireland's the best part
of it. Heaven knows it--and on this hill, how beautiful it is!"

He was now on the top of a hill where he could look out towards the bog
and in towards the mellow, waving hills. He could drink in the yellowish
green, with here and there in the distance a little house; and about
two miles away smoke stealing up from the midst of the plantation where
Playmore was--Playmore, his father's house--to be his own one day.

How good it was! There, within his sight, was the great escarpment of
rock known as the Devil's Ledge, and away to the east was the black spot
in the combe known as the Cave of Mary. Still farther away, towards the
south, was the great cattle-pasture, where, as he looked, a thousand
cattle roamed. Here and there in the wide prospect were plantations
where Irish landlords lived, and paid a heavy price for living. Men did
not pay their rents. Crops were spoiled, markets were bad, money was
scarce, yet--

"Please God, it will be better next year!" Michael Clones said,