A DELEGATE OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE 17 



extremely uneven to any but an accustomed foot, 

 and a smoky dimness above in the peak of tlie rafters 

 shows that the delegate's advanced ideas found their 

 whole expression in the workshop, and did not intrude 

 on the sanctities of home in aspiring to a chimney 

 better constructed than other people's. Opaqueness 

 of atmosphere, however, is as ordinary a circumstance 

 of life to the dozen or so of women now inhaling it 

 as are the dampness and inequality of the floor on 

 which they are squatting, in attitudes suggestive of 

 races more remote from civilisation. The subject in 

 hand is too engrossing to receive anything but the 

 most trifling check at the new arrival, and the voluble 

 western Irish gurgles on in undertones, with noddings 

 of shawled heads, moving pendulum-like with the flow 

 of harangue. A very small knowledge of Irish makes 

 it easy to understand that they are, in the immemorial 

 way, rehearsing the benevolences and talents of the 

 newly dead; and the feeling of pause that hung 

 about the silent workshop deepens here round the 

 catastrophe of a few hours ago. 



The woman who is of right the chief mourner of 

 this gathering leads the way into the next room, and 

 pointing to the heavy bed in the corner, says, without 

 tears or even any apparent heroic suppression of them : 

 " There he is for you. What do you think of him 

 now ? " 



Whatever is thought is not likely to be of much 

 moment, but at all events the answer cannot be a 

 ready one. At dawn he was still a delegate of the 

 National League, not perhaps as much interested in 

 it and its doctrines as it was his wont to be, not indeed 

 interested in anything except whatever things they 

 were of which he occasionally muttered to himself 

 while life sank away from him in the growing daylight. 

 His name may now be crossed out in the League 



