s that there was anything objectionable in the dreadful
food, and offered it to "the masthers" with perfect grace, and without
the slightest pang at the costliness of the banquet. He had given the
best and only meat he had to his guests. Like the Italian gentleman
with his falcon, or rather the Arab sheik with his horse, who, my
friend Mr. Browning tells me, is the original of Boccaccio's
mamby-pamby story, the Kerry mountaineer had fulfilled the rites of
hospitality at whatever cost. For long after the date of the grim
repast just recorded, in fact, even till to-day, the peasants on the
Derryquin estate have been accustomed to refer their almost
innumerable wrangles and squabbles to the decision of "the masther,"
who might be figured as a kind of Hibernian St. Louis, sitting under a
tree, and adjudicating between his subjects. Sometimes it was not very
easy to arrive at a decision. Not very long ago a man came with a
complaint that his once-intended son-in-law had behaved shabbily and
fraudulently. It appeared that the father of the girl had agreed with
the "boy" that a cow should be killed "to furnish forth the marriage
table;" that the father should provide the cow for the happy day, and
that the cost of the animal should be shared between them. The cow had
been killed, and the bride had been dressed, but the Kerry "county
Guy" had not been forthcoming, that mercenary youth having married out
of hand another girl with four more cows to her fortune than the one
he was engaged to. Hereat the outraged parent demanded, not that he
should pay damages for breach of promise, but his share of the cost of
the cow. "And," said the masther, "you had the cow and the daughter
thrown on your hands?" "Divil a throw, your honour," was the reply;
"mee daughter got another husband in tin minutes, begorra, and we ate
the cow, your honour; but Mike is a blackgyard, and should pay his
half of the cow, your honour." This was a knotty case, but his
"honour" decided that Mike should pay his share, and, to do that
fickle bridegroom justice, he paid up with very little demurring. He
was clearly three cows and a half the better by his bargain, and, I
believe, lives happily to this day. It is needless to say that he has
numerous children.

Mr. Bland has under his paternal rule about 300 agricultural tenants
besides the villagers of Sneem, who mostly have lots lying contiguous
to, or at some little distance from, their houses. The holdings,
alb