wherever he went during the day. Though their continued escort
troubled him a good deal, there was no escape from it, and he got
used to it to some extent. He made great friends with the men
personally--like other people, he had the highest admiration for
the force to which they belonged--and sometimes challenged them to
a shooting match, either with their own rifles or with his, and was
much gratified when he got the better of them.

With the people generally he became after a time extremely popular.
I say after a time, because the inhabitants of that country do not,
any more than country people in most parts of England, take
strongly to strangers before they know anything about them. They
never showed the least disposition to incivility, but for the first
year or two my father had not many acquaintances among them. Later
he came to be well known, and when he was taking his walks in the
fields or on the mountains, there was hardly a man for a good many
miles round who did not hail him by name. I have known them shout
across two fields, 'It's a fine evening, Sir James'; and when they
did so he invariably stopped and entered into conversation about
the crops and the weather, or other topics of universal interest.
With some of them whom he had frequently met while walking, or whom
he had helped with advice or small loans (about the repayment of
which they were, to his great delight, singularly honest), he was
on particularly friendly terms, and made a point of visiting them
in their houses at least once every year. They have remarkably good
manners, and attracted him particularly by their freedom from
awkwardness, and their combination of perfect politeness with
complete self-respect. I have reason to know that they have not
forgotten him.

He once made a short expedition with one of my sisters to Achill,
Clifden, and Galway. They stayed two nights at Achill, which
sufficed for him to make friends with Mr. Sheridan, the landlord of
the inn there. They never met again, but there were communications
between them afterwards which showed that my father retained as
long as he lived a kindly recollection of the people he had met in
that particular holiday.

It was naturally during the summer holidays, and when one of us
used to go circuit as his