r the blood
of the "Threes" and "Fours" will endure the sight of the detested hut
gradually rising on the farm of the sainted Burke remains to be seen;
but it it is doubtful whether the "Boys" will attempt a _coup de
main_. Should such an attempt be made, the police would be compelled
to make a desperate resistance, and serious consequences would
certainly ensue. There is a curious contrast between the state of the
"Three and Four Year Olds" yesterday and to-day--between the bragging
of the one and the cowed look of the other. There is also something of
amusement, were not the entire question all too serious, in the sudden
and contemptuous withdrawal of the troops to-day, after having shown
the Palladians that, however they felt about the hut, it should be
built, and law and order maintained "maugre their teeth."

XI.

GOMBEEN.

CORK, _December 2nd._

Among the many spectres which haunt the sadly-vexed West and South of
Ireland, there is one far more grim and real than the _spectre vert_
who is either buried for ever and aye, or has undergone gradual
transformation since '98 into Repeal of the Union, Young Ireland,
Fenianism, Nationalism, and finally perhaps into Anti-Landlordism;
albeit this latter avatar of an ancient and familiar spirit is by no
means imbued with the poetic attributes of the original spectre.
During my stay in Ennis and Limerick I succeeded in holding somewhat
protracted conversations with three landed proprietors, three of the
largest land-agents in Ireland, two bank managers, an influential
lawyer, three leaders of the people, and one probable assassin.
Through the discourse of all of these--varied and contradictory as
much of it necessarily was--I could see distinctly one ugly shadow, as
of an old man filthy of aspect, hungry of eye, and greedy of claw,
sitting in the rear of a gloomy store looking over papers by the light
of a miserable tallow dip. From the papers the figure turned to a heap
as of bank-notes, and there was in the air the chink of money. For the
name of this grisly and terribly real spectre is _gombeen_; which, in
the Irish tongue, signifies usury.

To Thackeray's truthful remark that there is never so poor an Irishman
that he has not a still poorer countryman as a hanger-on, it may be
added that when an Irishman is not a borrower he is almost certain to
be a lender--the advice of Polonius being abhorrent to the spirit of a
free-and-easy, happy-go-lucky people. When