32 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil 



The worst of him was that he never would go to hed ; and when at last you 

 did get to your room he'd saunter in for just a last glass and another story. 

 I am proud to say, however, that here again I was mistaken ; never did I 

 spend a pleasanter week. The hospitality was, of course, unhounded ; the 

 evenings glorious ; hut not the least pressure was put on anyone. One 

 thing is that I fear it was little needed. 



Holyhead and the steamer were over, the railway across the island past. 

 A long turn on Bianconi left me at Knockwhackmachree, where The 

 O'C.'s '• kyar " was awaiting me. Twelve mUes round a mountain and across 

 a moor, and there we were within half a mile of Clew Bay — in the snuggest 

 bachelor quarters it has ever been my lot to roll into. The O'C. was not 

 quite impecunious, though he was gravitating in that direction, for which 

 he did not care one fig. " When all his money was gone, faith ! he'd then 

 see about gettin' some more ; and he'd get it, divil a doubt ! The luck 

 was always with the O'Oallaghans, and what matthered bothering ? " 



For a pleasant retirement it would not be easy to beat Oroaghmore Castle. 

 Don't be alarmed at the word castle. They are fond of big words in 

 Ireland. Every chief hotel, even in the smallest town, is the Imperial, and 

 every gentleman's house pretty weU is a castle. An Englishman's house is 

 his castle, says somebody; and why shouldn't an Irishman's be? It lay in 

 the embouchure of a wooded ravine, on a little plateau of half a dozen acres, 

 and which opened towards the Atlantic. A salmon river ran within a couple 

 of miles, and a lake, which held both trout and salmon, could be seen inland 

 from the upper windows, though it was only two stories high. Three mUes 

 away was a range of hills where there was very fair grousing, and between, 

 where the river meandered, was a snipe bog, or rather a series of them, which 

 were not easy to beat; while on the seaside there was the bay with its 

 islands innumerable, and all sorts of fish for the gathering. The ravine was 

 the best cock gro\md in Mayo. It was about three mUes long, well timbered 

 with scrub oak, and an undergrowth of heather and bracken up to 

 your waist — lots of rocks and unseen bog holes, very steep in places, and 

 about as nasty walking as the soul of a bogtrotter could desire — wonder- 

 fully picturesque, with a little stream in the bottom that went brawling and 

 clattering onwards to the sea — a long way from an easy place to shoot cock 



