rs, than like a station. The station-master's family of
cheery well-dressed lads and lasses went and came about the bright fire
in the waiting-room in a friendly unobtrusive fashion, chatting with the
policeman and the porter and the passengers. It was hard to believe
one's-self within an easy drive of the "cockpit of Ireland."

CHAPTER XI.

BORRIS, _Friday, March 2d._--This is the land of the Kavanaghs, and a
lovely, picturesque, richly-wooded land it is. I left Dublin with Mr.
Gyles by an afternoon train; the weather almost like June. We ran from
the County of Dublin into Kildare, and from Kildare into Carlow, through
hills; rural scenery quite unlike anything I have hitherto seen in
Ireland. At Bagnalstown, a very pretty place, with a spire which takes
the eye, our host joined us, and came on with us to this still more
attractive spot. Borris has been the seat of his family for many
centuries. The MacMorroghs of Leinster, whom the Kavanaghs lineally
represent, dwelt here long before Dermot MacMorrogh, finding his
elective throne in Leinster too hot to hold him, went off into
Aquitaine, to get that famous "letter of marque" from Henry II. of
England, with the help of which this king without a kingdom induced
Richard de Clare, an earl without an earldom, to lend him a hand and
bring the Normans into Ireland. Many of this race lie buried in the
ruins of St. Mullen's Abbey, on the Barrow, in this county. But none of
them, I opine, ever did such credit to the name as its present
representative, Arthur MacMorrogh Kavanagh.

I had some correspondence with Mr. Kavanagh several years ago, when he
sent me, through my correspondent for publication in New York, a very
striking statement of his views on the then condition of Irish
affairs--views since abundantly vindicated; and like most people who
have paid any attention to the recent history of Ireland, I knew how
wonderful an illustration his whole career has been of what philosophers
call the superiority of man to his accidents, and plain people the power
of the will. But I knew this only imperfectly. His servant brought him
up to the carriage and placed him in it. This it was impossible not to
see. But I had not talked with him for five minutes before it quite
passed out of my mind. Never was there such a justification of the
paradoxical title which Wilkinson gave to his once famous book, _The
Human Body, and its Connexion with Man_,--never such a living refutation