The proposition of a “stroll” in such weather was very little to Mr. Merl's taste; but his curiosity was stronger than even his fear of a drenching, and having muffled and shawled himself as if for an Arctic winter, they set out together from the inn.
“And you tell me,” said he, “that the Martins used to live here,—actually pass their lives in this atrocious climate?”
“That they did,—and the worst mistake they ever made was to leave it,” said Crow.
“I confess you puzzle me,” said Merl.
“Very possibly I do, sir,” was the calm reply; “but you'd have understood me at once had you known this country while they resided at Cro' Martin. It was n't only that the superfluities of their wealth ran over, and filled the cup of the poor man, but there was a sense of hope cherished, by seeing that however hard the times, however adverse the season, there was always 'his Honor,' as they called Mr. Martin, whom they could appeal to for aid or for lenient treatment.”
“Very strange, very odd, all this,” said Merl, musing. “But all that I hear of Ireland represents the people as if in a continual struggle for mere existence, and actually in a daily state of dependence on the will of somebody above them.”
“And if that same condition were never to be exaggerated into downright want, or pushed to an actual slavery, we could be very happy with it,” said Crow, “and not thank you, or any other Englishman that came here, to disturb it.”
“I assure you I have no ambition to indulge in any such interference,” said Merl, with a half-contemptuous laugh.
“And so you're not thinking of settling in Ireland?” asked Crow, in some surprise.
“Never dreamed of it!”