If each member of the family has his own private trade, the mountain-dew threatens to be rather an expensive refreshment.
“I am greatly obliged to you,” I said, “but I have got already a complete collection of shillelaghs.”
MacMahon’s jaw fell visibly.
“But we could perhaps make another arrangement, that would be more advantageous,” I continued quietly. “You know the country well, you tell me?”
“As a man who has lived forty years in it and never left it.”
“Well, let us have a pair of good hacks; you lead me for a couple of days across field and country, and show me a dozen authentic cases of eviction, agrarian violence, or boycottism. If you will undertake this, and I am satisfied with you, upon our return I will take the whole lot of lace.”
You should have seen the glowing faces of the whole family! The affair was soon settled, and the day after we started.
CHAPTER VIII.
THROUGH KERRY ON HORSEBACK.
It was not two days but six that we spent, my guide and I, visiting the County Kerry in all directions, examining the crops, asking about prices, entering cottages and small farms, chatting with anyone that we supposed capable of giving us information. The rather unexpected conclusion I arrived at was that the agrarian crisis is more especially felt in the richest districts, while it can hardly be said to exist in the poorest parts. Kerry is, in that particular, a true copy of Ireland on a small scale. It may, in fact, be divided into two perfectly distinct regions—the plains of the north and the mountains of the south-west. Those regions offer characteristics as marked in an economical as in a geographical point of view.