88 A YEAR OF LIBERTY ; OR, 



doubled, tailors have hecome a necessity, education lias made 

 great strides, the wild rollicking days are gone, a more healthy 

 "working spirit has taken their place, and sobriety, order, and 

 industry can not only look up. but even walk about without fear 

 of being knocked on the head. To say there is not still much 

 want and misery would be absurd ; but Eome was not built in 

 a day, nor can the most Utopian political economist reasonably 

 expect in a few years to turn poor Ireland into a first-class European 

 swell. Still there is a vast improvement everywhere and in all 

 things ; even when we get up our little drama of treason, the 

 actors are poor and below their parts, and the company un- 

 commonly short-handed. Undoubtedly the mother of our adoption 

 has recently been a little indisposed with a slight attack of Fenian 

 fever ; but there is something hopeful even here, for had not the 

 old dame been sounder in wind and limb than heretofore, she would 

 have been uncommonly ill, with a frightful amount of constitutional 

 disturbance. This malady, has tested her strength, and proved her 

 sound at bottom. Long may she continue to grow better and 

 stronger, more happy, and more wise ! 



In small Irish towns there is always a chronic eruption of market 

 folk, and this morning the street was vocal with the quacking of 

 juvenile ducks, and a constant inquiry from pretty peasant lips, 

 " Is it eggs ye are looking f or ? " Every place does its own business 

 in its own way. Here one man drives a solitary little pig to the 

 fair, and wastes the whole day looking after him ; another pushes 

 a calf along, born since midnight, yet evidently bound for the butcher ; 

 whilst a third sits leisurely down on a bale of home-made freize, and 

 waits patiently for an offer. Along the side-walks coarse delf and 

 crockery arranged themselves barricade-wise ; cabbages, rough smith's 

 work, and manifold varieties of the lollipop species making the 

 market complete. Through all this we made our way, and padded 

 along the white and dusty road towards the lake. 



Though not yet "in the leafy month of June," Belvidere presented 

 as pretty a piece of greenery as need be. The low rich shores were 

 fringed with fine trees nearly to their edge ; cows stood amongst 



