214 A YEAR OF LIBERTY ; OR, 



an air of mournful grandeur and ruined magnificence about tlie 

 place which was quite oppressive. It seemed haunted by the ghosts 

 of former occupants. The night air, sighing through chink and 

 rathole, sounded like the wailings of too late repentance for riot and 

 misrule. The rooms on the ground floor formed a shop, wherein, 

 resting against the counter, was the proprietor of the mansion, the 

 most melancholy man that ever kept a store. Whether he was on 

 the eve of bankruptcy, whether he was the last of the race who had 

 revelled there, or whether he was doing penance on earth for the 

 sins of his forefathers, I never inquired, for the poor fellow's case 

 was evidently beyond the reach of my art. What that shop contained 

 I never could learn, and the townspeople apparently knew as little 

 as I did, for, during a sojourn of three weeks, I did not hear of a 

 single customer darkening his door. In fact, " the store " was a 

 mystery, for no man could have decided with certainty to what class 

 it belonged. On a long range of dusty shelves reposed eight or ten 

 large bottles and jars, which gave the establishment something the 

 appearance of a chemist's gone to seed. Manifold little drawers, 

 too, were there, labelled "pepper," "mustard," "sugar," but "all 

 was seeming, nought was truth," for bottles and jars were empty, 

 and the spice depot was filled with rusty nails, broken china, a 

 prodigious number of damaged corkscrews, and all sorts of odds and 

 ends. It was clear the owner was neither grocer, druggist, nor iron- 

 monger, and observation left the mystery more mysterious still. In 

 short, it was the ghost of a shop ; everything therein was airy and 

 impalpable, and the proprietor of the empty jars, paper bags, and 

 crazy shelves seemed like a ticket-of -leave man from the silent shores 

 of the river Styx. 



In the Newport district the best fishing is absolutely dependent on 

 rain. When we left Kylemore, Admiral Fitzroy's glass showed signs 

 of a coming change, and the crystals floating still higher in the 

 fluid at Leenane caused our hurried march from that pleasant 

 hostelry. Still the sky was blue, the mountain tops clear, the wind 

 as uns3mipathising as it had been of late, and now, as I looked out 

 of my great desolate chamber and saw an unclouded arch, " all 



