unconscious of my misfit appearance. It would never do to stay in my room through a mistaken sense of personal dignity.

So I went down, and meeting host and hostess and my compatriots, a laugh went up that would have broken the ice in a Pittsburgh millionaire's drawing room.

And then we were taken to the tearoom and in a few minutes I forgot that I was no longer the glass of fashion and the mold of form, for I was made to feel that I was just a friend who had dropped in (or, perhaps, dripped in would be better), and when a couple of hours later we drove home through the soft Irish verdure, doubly green after its rough but invigorating bath, we all felt that Irish hospitality was no mere traveler's tale, but a thing that had intensity and not a little emotion in it.

Horses in County Kerry

CHAPTER II

Around about Lough Swilly

TO a tired New Yorker who has sixteen days at his disposal I would recommend a day on Lough Swilly at Rathmullan. It is separated from the island of Manhattan by little else than the Atlantic, and every one knows that a sea voyage is good for a wearied man.

Take a boat for Londonderry from the foot of Twenty-fourth Street, and then for the mere cost of a shilling (if you travel third class, and that is the way to fall in with characters) you will be railroaded and ferried to Rathmullan, where you'll find as clean an inn and as faithful service as heart could wish. And such scenery!

And every one will be glad to see you, because you are from America. ("Welcome from the other side," and a hearty hand grip from leathery hands.)

Of course a day is a short time in which to get the full benefit of the peaceful atmosphere of the place and perhaps you will stay on as we are doing for several days.

Then you can return for a shilling to 'Derry, take Saturday's steamer to the foot of Twenty-fourth Street, New York, and you'll soon be walking the streets of the metropolis filled with pleasant memories of one of nature's beauty spots.

Lough Swilly is an arm of the Atlantic and its waters are salt. At Rathmullan the lough is surrounded by lofty green hills, mostly treeless, gently sloping to the water, and for the better part of the time softened in tone by an Indian summer haze indescribably beautiful.

We came down according to the program I have outlined, and traveled third class for the reason I have stated, but as the only other occupant of the coach was a lone "widow woman" we were unable to get any characteristic conversation. In fact, up here in Donegal, as far as I have observed, the natives talk more like the Scotch than they do like the Irish made known to us by certain actors. When I get south I expect to hear rich brogues, but here the burr is Scotch.

We were ferried from Fahan in a side-wheel steamer, and soon the painfully neat-looking white houses of Rathmullan lay before us and we disembarked, and carrying our own grips unmolested (a sure sign of an unusual place) we made our way up the stone pier between restless steers who were waiting for us to get out of the way so that they could go to the slaughter house. There had been a cattle fair that day in Rathmullan.

We knew little of the town save what Stephen Gwynn says of it in his delightful "Highways and Byways in Donegal and Antrim."

There is a most picturesque and ivy-grown ruin of an abbey dating back to the fifteenth century. It is much more beautiful than Kenilworth.

We bent our steps to the plain-looking little inn, and entering the taproom we asked for lodgings for the night. The inn is kept by a widow who still bears trace of a beauty that must have been transcendent in her girlhood. As it is, she could serve as a model to some artist for an allegorical painting representing "Sorrowful Ireland"; the arched eyebrows, the melting eyes, the long, classic nose, and the grieving mouth—very Irish and very lovely.

We have seen many pretty women here in Ireland, but in her day this inn keeper must have been the peer of any.

Her husband kept the inn formerly, but as an Irishman told me, "He died suddenly. Throuble with the head," said he, tapping his own. "'Twas heart disease, I think." This is the first Irish bull I've heard.

To the Men of '98 OLIVER SHEPHARD, SCULPTOR

My companion thought he would like a room fronting Lough Swilly and so did I.

The maid who had taken charge of us said that that wouldn't be possible, as the only available rooms having such an outlook had been engaged by wire.

"But," said my insistent friend, who is the type of American who gets what he wants by smiles if possible, but who certainly gets it, "they won't be here to-day, will they?"

"No, not to-day; to-morrow."

"Well, let us have the rooms for to-night."

"But, will ye give them up when they come?" said she, still hesitating.

"Surely. Depend upon it. Count on us to vamoose just as soon as you give the word."

"But these people come every year," said she tenaciously.

"I don't wonder at it," said O'Donnell. (My friend is of Irish descent.) "I[Pg 31]
[Pg 32] would, too, if I didn't live so far away. Don't you worry, honey. We'll just go out like little lambs as soon as you give the word."

There was something delightfully quaint in the notion that because people were coming to the rooms to-morrow night we ought not to have them to-night—the girl was perfectly sincere. She evidently knew the lure of sunrise on the mountains and the lake and feared her ability to oust us once we were ensconced.

"We're passing on to-morrow and will be just as careful of the rooms," said O'Donnell in the tone of one who talks to a child, and the pretty maid succumbed, and our valises were deposited in the coveted rooms.

But just as she left us she said once more, "You'll go when they come, won't you?"

"We sure will," said O'Donnell, with a solemnity that carried conviction with it. "Now about dinner," said he; "we'd like dinner at six thirty. It's now four."

"We haven't begun to serve dinners at night yet," said the maid. The summer season had evidently not begun.

"Oh, that's too bad," said O'Donnell, "but you'll make an exception in our case now, won't you?"

She thought a minute, and O'Donnell smiled on her.

I can imagine ice banks melting under that smile.

"I suppose we could give you hot roast chicken," said she.

"Why, of course you could. Roast chicken is just what you could give us, and potatoes with their jackets on——"

"And soup," said the girl, evidently excited over the prospect.

"Yes, we'll leave the rest to you."

So we went out and walked through the lovely countryside, noting that in Ireland fuchsias grow to the proportions of our lilac bushes and are loaded with the pretty red flowers.

We were unable to name most of the trees we saw (but that sometimes happens in America), yet we were both sure we had not seen their like at home. And the freshness of them all, the brilliant quality of their green, fulfilled all expectations.