of
teeth not long afore her death, and might have lived much longer had she
not mett with a kinde of violent death; for she would needes climbe
a nut-tree to gather nuts; so falling down she hurt her thigh, which
brought a fever, and that fever brought death. This my cousin Walter
Fitzwilliam told me.'

It is true that the aforesaid cousin Walter may have been a better
raconteur than historian; still, local tradition vigorously opposes
any lessening of the number of the countess's years, pinning its faith
rather on one Hayman, who says that she presented herself at the English
court at the age of one hundred and forty years, to petition for her
jointure, which she lost by the attainder of the last earl; and it also
prefers to have her fall from the historic cherry-tree that Sir Walter
planted, rather than from a casual nut-tree.

Down the lovely river we went, lazily lying back in the sun, almost the
only passengers on the little craft, as it was still far too early for
tourists; down past Villierstown, Cooneen Ferry, Strancally Castle, with
its 'Murdering Hole' made famous by the Lords of Desmond, through the
Broads of Clashmore; then past Temple Michael, an old castle of the
Geraldines, which Cromwell battered down for 'dire insolence,' until
we steamed slowly into the harbour of Youghal--and, to use our driver's
expression, there is no more 'onderhanded manin'' in Youghal than the
town of the Yew Wood, which is much prettier to the eye and sweeter to
the ear.

Here we found a letter from Salemina, and expended another eighteenpence
in telegraphing to her:--

PEABODY, Coolkilla House, near Mardyke Walk, Cork.

We are under Yew Tree at Myrtle Grove where Raleigh and Spenser
smoked, read manuscript Faerie Queene, and planted first potato.
Delighted Benella better. Join you to-morrow. Don't encourage
archaeologist.

PENESCA.

We had a charming hour at Myrtle Grove House, an unpretentious, gabled
dwelling, for a time the residence of the ill-fated soldier captain, Sir
Walter Raleigh. You remember, perhaps, that he was mayor of Youghal in
1588. After the suppression of the Geraldine rebellion, the vast estates
of the Earl of Desmond and those of one hundred and forty of the leading
gentlemen of Munster, his adherents, were confiscated, and proclamation
was made all through England inviting gentlemen to 'undertake' the
plantation of this rich territory. Estates were offered at two or three
pence an