able organisation is now being added a growing tendency to industrial organisation inspired by Christian principles. The Catholic world is watching with sympathy, trusting to see Ireland, true to that teaching of which the clergy are the custodians, display the beauty of a supernatural faith worthily reflected in an enlightened and harmonious social order." It has only been possible in this review to touch on a few of the interesting and important questions that are treated in Father Plater's work. But we hope that we have said sufficient to induce others to read the book, and we can promise them a delightful and very profitable experience. To those who are interested in ascertaining the beneficent influence which the ministers of the Church can exercise on present-day social conditions the hours given to its study/ could not be better or more fruitfully spent. JOSEPH M. FLOOD. LIFE'S EXCHANGE (Give and it shall be given to you.) Ye worldly wise! learn wisdom strange A little while and life is o'er; Pale begg'ry past, you'll want no more; To all who shun earth's greed and pelf Enthroned amid the seraphim. Cherish the thought! Twill nerve your heart Then give to God-nor give in part; W. L. I KILBEG LIKE to recall this old-world townland where I was born and reared. It lies in a county now chiefly associated with unpoetic cattle-ranchers and horse-rearing farmers. But I like to remember it as it was when I was a child, before its population had become so thin, and before the wave of vulgarity which has flowed into this country, through the medium of cheap reading-matter, had penetrated so far; when such a thing as a music-hall song was unheard, and a ha'penny paper unknown. The townland was divided into two parts-Near Kilbeg and Far Kilbeg, the epithets "near" and "far" indicating the relative distance of each part from the town of B——. They might also quite as naturally have been called the coal half and the turf half, for in Near Kilbeg they burned coal for fuel, in Far Kilbeg turf. The great bog of Athmore did not extend quite into Kilbeg, yet the presence of the turf-stacks beside the houses in Far Kilbeg were evidence of its proximity. We lived on the borderland between the two Kilbegs, which were quite different in aspect. Near Kilbeg was a country lying partly in the river-valley, rich in pastures, crops and woods, while Far Kilbeg was poorer of soil, more bleak and less lovely. Our nearest neighbours were a family of herdsmen-not always the same family, for herds are great nomads, and May-day finds many of them flitting. All manner of herds have lived in that house, from the man with no responsibility but his dog, to the man with his parents, wife, and ten children to support. Herding is an arduous profession. It means much more than the mere counting of stock. On a summer morning the shepherd has his round done while the grass is still heavy with the dews of night. During the day comes the real work, according to the season-the repairing of fences, the washing and shearing of sheep, the selection of market cattle, the changing of stock to different pasture, the rescue of sheep from floods or snow, and the application of his knowledge of the healing art. Some herds are known as great doctors. It is just as well for a farmer not to secure one of these reputed medicine-men, for he will be about everybody's business but his master's. Not far from the herd's house lived Charlie Ratty, whose full name, I believe, was Hanratty. He was a ploughman, a lone man who inhabited a two-roomed cabin. The herd's wife washed and "did" a bit for him, but he had his own things. Charlie, wise man, did not burden himself with many possessions. His "things" consisted of a settle bed, a couple of stools, a table, some delph, and cooking-utensils. Ornaments he had none. He was a handsome, rather pensivelooking man between thirty-five and forty. Besides being an excellent ploughman, he was also famous as a weatherprophet. His daily communication with the winds and skies, as he paced the furrows, had taught him how to forecast the morrow, nay, even a whole week, as accurately as any barometer or the member of a meteorological society. Charlie, in spite of his lonely life, must have had a way with women, for one day he astonished the whole countryside by marrying Anna Mullen, a beautiful, tall, fair-haired amazon, the daughter of Michael the lime-burner. Anna, who had a dowry of her own, had with great independence passed over many offers of marriage from rich farmers, to choose the almost elderly, dreamy ploughman. Her friends reproved her for her choice, but the marriage was a most happy one. Anna and Charlie went to live in a neat cottage. It stood on a hill, sheltered by a beech-grove not far from the former's old home. From the door Anna could see her father and her four tall brothers as they set forth in the morning to work on the farm, or led out their big horses to draw lime from the kiln. She would have known them in a thousand. The Mullens were a race of giants, with reddish-gold hair, ruddy skin, and blue eyes. The Red Mullens, as they were called, were of prodigious strength, but like most big people they were mild and gentle. Josy, the youngest, was as he himself once modestly averred "the wakest of four "-if you could apply the term "weak" to a person who, with one hand, could hoist a sack of wheat from the ground to his shoulder. On week-days these giants looked their best, in their corduroy breeches, loose white shirts or a kind of sleeved waist-coat, and soft hats. On Sundays they wore more formal tweed suits, stiff collars, and hard hats-but uneasily, the hats having an especially detached air. The death of their father scattered this family; two married, one remained with his mother, and Josy, the " wake" one, went to San Francisco. About half a mile from the Mullens was a shady boreen, a place of surprises. Strolling along its winding way of a summer's evening, you suddenly left the black shade of the hawthorns, where ferns and rank grasses flourished in the damp gripes, to emerge into an open road bordered only by low stone walls and flooded with sunlight; with waving yellow cornfields and meadows on either side. Further on again you looked into a fairy-like place a hillocky field, dotted with furze and sloe-bushes and strewn with large white stones; in the midst of which a little pond reflected the tall rushes growing on its emerald banks. In this secluded boreen there lived a number of small farmers who, following an old custom, were also tradesmen. There was John Kiely the carpenter, outside whose comfortable deep-eaved house a pile of tree-trunks always lay seasoning. John made all sorts of homely things which at any time might be required by a neighbour, churns and dashes, butter-dishes, stools, and the like. On market and fair days he took his wares to the town. Here too lived Owney McGoona the wicker-worker, whom you might often meet trudging along the boreen laden with bundles of sallies cut along the river-side, or going to market with a stack of wicker-work, no part of him visible but his legs. Yes, Near Kilbeg was quite a populous and prosperous place, especially in comparison with its less favoured sister district Far Kilbeg, where we now arrive. Here, in the first house we come to, lived the priest, Father Daly, and almost opposite was Rosy Claffey's cottage. Rosy was an oldest inhabitant. Having reared her children and grandchildren and seen all the latter settled in life, she thought herself entitled to take it easy for the rest of her days and devote herself more fully to her hobby, the making of simples. So on five days she spent a very happy time roaming about the fields gathering herbs, sometimes accompanied by a little bare-legged gossoon of similar tastes, to whom she taught their names in English or in Irish. Rosy and Father Daly were rivals of a sort, the latter having once vowed it would be his object in life to live Rosy down. And for this reason: in the course of her long life Rosy had seen no less than three parish priests move into the parochial house and-God rest them--move out at last to the churchyard for ever. The usual auction had taken place each time. Now Father Daly, who was a musician, had among his possessions a piano, and a 'cello, and on seeing these, Rosy, who as usual was officiating at the moving in, had exclaimed to the housekeeper: "Glory be, Nannie, but this will be the grandest auction we ever had!" At that time, however, there was no sign of death on the priest. Although an old man, he was hale and hearty, and might be seen any day tramping about his parish with an ash pole for a walking-stick and his three aged dogs at his heels. Father Daly had a weakness for dogs. Only for his housekeeper he would have taken in all the strays of the countryside; and these, added to the weekly beggars and wandering musicians would soon have eaten him out of house and home. But his housekeeper limited him to three. “Indeed," she used to say indignantly, "I don't know what poor Father John would say if he saw all these brutes sitting about on chairs and leaning their heads on the antimacassars!" "Poor Father John" was Father Daly's predecessor, and as Nannie often said, "a most particular gentleman." But, for the sake of his canine friends, Father VOL. XLIII.-No. 500. 9 |