Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/300

268 night, and two days ago they sent and ordered dinner here for eight o'clock."

"Well, and what then?"

"Why, the landlady thought, when you came, that perhaps he mightn't come after all, and—you've eaten their dinner!"

How the landlady got out of the difficulty, I don't know, but the situation, in the waiter's view of it, was a huge joke.

From Cong with its ruined abbey, and the spacious domain of Lord Ardilaun, we drove in an out-side car to Galway, by a route which is a sample of much of the country in the West; long undulating stretches of limestone land, so closely covered with slabs of stone that one wonders what use can be made of it. It is, however, good grazing land, a sweet growth of grass springing up between the stones. Then miles of bog land, with ridges and stacks of peat; black pools of water, desolate in appearance, but remunerative. Then much better land, principally valleys separated by low ranges. Looking down on one of these in a very fertile bit of country, the driver told us it was once Captain Boycott's place. So, to draw him out, I said, "What sort of man was he?" "The best landlord, a fine man, liberal to all, and his wife and daughters always ready to help the poor."

"Then why did you drive him out of the country?"

His answer was characteristic. Standing up in his perch, he looked here and there, as if someone might overhear, though there was neither hedge or tree under which anyone could have hidden, in a whisper he replied,—"It was accordin' to the Orders!"

It is difficult to understand that such a generous hearted people, so affectionate, and open-handed, can