A DELEGATE OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE 23 



transferred to a cart of cheerful agricultural hues, 

 drawn by a shaggy chestnut, against whose unresent- 

 ing flank its projecting bulk is pressed. The chief 

 mourners scramble in after it, and without any 

 thought of incongruity or unfitness, seat themselves 

 on the coffin itself, back to back, in a deplorable - 

 looking row. About the cart as it moves away, and 

 behind it for a quarter of a mile, straggles confusedly 

 the funeral crowd, to the number of two or three 

 hundred, many of them stumbling from a too-evident 

 cause, but preserving, to do them justice, a demeanour 

 of seemly gloom; and as they pass along the road, 

 a villainous whisky reek spreads itself on the pure 

 bog air. 



The cart comes to a standstill at the entrance gates 

 of an avenue, in which the Delegate's figure was once 

 as familiar an object as the owner's ; and here, as at 

 a fitting opportunity, the keeners lift their cry for a 

 moment or two. The chestnut moves on again, and 

 the crowd straggles broadcast behind it; while above 

 their heads rises as a last impression the figure of 

 the Delegate's daughter, with red hair streaming 

 dishevelled, and arms flung to the grey sky. Some 

 vision of her father, striding actively to those entrance - 

 gates, as in the old times, with his easily-balanced 

 head and commanding height, must have driven her 

 to her feet, and transfixed her thus, Niobe-like, above 

 the sodden throng that follows with decorously 

 suppressed hiccoughings and an occasional solemn 

 stagger. Her arms seem as if lifted in bearing 

 testimony of some kind, and it is, perhaps, a prejudiced 

 fancy that further endows the gesture with an acknow- 

 ledgment of the affection that bound gentleman and 

 peasant in the days held in small estimation by the 

 National League. 



One other acknowledgment finds its place at the 



