did good service with it--upon our frequent
excursions on the water. I remember, by the way, that many years
later, after he had been for some time a judge, he was one day
rowing in a boat with a party of friends on the Thames, and was
much gratified by my telling him what hard work I had found it,
while steering, to keep the boat straight, because he pulled so
much harder than the man who was rowing bow, a sturdy athlete,
twenty years his junior, but no waterman.

He liked the life at Dromquina so much that in 1873, after his
return from India, he took the Bishop of Limerick's house,
Parknasilla, in Sneem Harbour, just opposite Derreen. That year, if
I remember right, he took some shooting, to which we had to drive a
considerable distance. In one year or the other I went out shooting
with him two or three times. I do not think he ever had any
shooting later: though, considering how little practice he can have
had, he was a decidedly good shot. The country was rough, and the
bags, though not heavy in quantity--we were lucky if we saw ten
brace of grouse--presented a rather extensive variety of kind.
During these two summers my father indulged himself freely in his
favourite amusement of taking long walks, but also did a good deal
of rowing and sailing. He had had my brothers and me taught to swim
in a previous summer at the sea-side, and at Dromquina decided that
we ought to be able to swim confidently in our clothes. In order to
test our possession of this accomplishment, he one day took us out
himself in a boat, and told me to sit on the gunwale, after which
he artfully engaged me in conversation until he saw that I was not
expecting my plunge, when he suddenly shoved me overboard. We all
passed the ordeal with credit.

In 1873 he meditated building a house on the Kenmare River, but in
the course of that summer he went to visit Sir John Strachey, who
was then living at Anaverna House, at Ravensdale in County Louth.
The Stracheys left it not long after, and we went there for the
first time in 1875. Some years later my father took a lease of it,
and there he spent every long vacation till 1891 inclusive, and the
greater part of 1892.

For this place my father in particular, as well as his family
generally, had from the first a strong affect