ugh the animals were pigs. But then the Irish
horses are so well mannered and good-natured.

The cabin was one abutting as it were on the road, not standing back
upon the land, as is most customary; and it was built in an angle
at a spot where the road made a turn, so that two sides of it stood
close out in the wayside. It was small and wretched to look at,
without any sort of outside shed, or even a scrap of potato-garden
attached to it,--a miserable, low-roofed, damp, ragged tenement, as
wretched as any that might be seen even in the county Cork.

But the nakedness of the exterior was as nothing to the nakedness
of the interior. When Herbert entered, followed by his horse, his
eye glanced round the dark place, and it seemed to be empty of
everything. There was no fire on the hearth, though a fire on the
hearth is the easiest of all luxuries for an Irishman to acquire, and
the last which he is willing to lose. There was not an article of
furniture in the whole place; neither chairs, nor table, nor bed, nor
dresser; there was there neither dish, nor cup, nor plate, nor even
the iron pot in which all the cookery of the Irish cottiers' menage
is usually carried on. Beneath his feet was the damp earthen floor,
and around him were damp, cracked walls, and over his head was the
old lumpy thatch, through which the water was already dropping; but
inside was to be seen none of those articles of daily use which are
usually to be found in the houses even of the poorest.

But, nevertheless, the place was inhabited. Squatting in the middle
of the cabin, seated on her legs crossed under her, with nothing
between her and the wet earth, there crouched a woman with a child
in her arms. At first, so dark was the place, Herbert hardly thought
that the object before him was a human being. She did not move when
he entered, or speak to him, or in any way show sign of surprise
that he should have come there. There was room for him and his horse
without pushing her from her place; and, as it seemed, he might have
stayed there and taken his departure without any sign having been
made by her.

But as his eyes became used to the light he saw her eyes gleaming
brightly through the gloom. They were very large and bright as they
turned round upon him while he moved--large and bright, but with a
dull, unwholesome brightness,--a brightness that had in it none of
the light of life.

And then he looked at her more closely. She had on her some rag