he'd no real right to. Was obliged to the
gentlemen all the same, but couldn't have
no truck with it because somehow it didn't
seem right." Such was the peasant's simple
profession of faith. It was but natural that the
lord of the manor and the bran-new county
gentry should be indignant. It was short-sighted
policy, though, to persecute their poor neighbour
so openly; and when he was deprived of his
means of livelihood, and his sons imprisoned
for exercising the very right of lopping wood
which they had refused to forego, their worships,
the justices, made a distinctly false move.
Worse and worse, too, were their later tactics.
Two members of parliament having gone carefully
into the facts, consented to act as trustees to a
fund to be got up for the labourer's benefit. This
was naturally unpalatable to the enclosing lord
and his friend, so the Cloudland J.P., who lives
in the white house to the right here, and who
professes to own that fine plot of forest-land
across the road to the left by virtue of having
paid a small sum to the lord for it, what does
this particularly disinterested gentleman do but
write a letter to one of the trustees, to whom he
was an entire stranger, denouncing the labourer
as a profligate ne'er-do-weel, whom it was a
scandal to encourage.

There never was such a bad fellow as this
labourer, according to the J.P. His children
didn't go to Sunday-school; he himself didn't
practise any of the virtues proper to his
station; never went to church, or obeyed his
superiors; and it was his own fault he was out
of work. The fact of his having naughtily
opposed the confiscation of ancient rights
by his betters was discreetly avoided; and
when the trustee replied that he thought
differently to the J.P., and was determined
to stick by the poor friendless fellow he'd
taken up, be sure there was pretty consternation
at Cloudland. Another letter, saying the
first was "only prompted by an Englishman's
love of justice and fair play"—a justice's fair
play! stabbing in the dark!—and must be
considered private; a retort from the trustee
saying there could be no privacy when one
stranger addressed another concerning an act
of public duty; the publication of the whole
correspondence; scandal, uneasiness, and
incrimination followed. Meanwhile a great legal
potentate is considering the peasant's claims,
and the railings stand. It is scarcely likely
that the ground will be tampered with further
for the present; but, as you see, a large
road has been made, and everything is
prepared for permanent confiscation. Now
you'll understand why we, the people in
the habit of coming down here, are such
dreadfully bad characters in the clergyman's eyes.
We've no rights, bless you! The land is his
freehold, just as Hampstead Heath is Sir Thomas
Wilson's; and as for the protesting peasant
and the rest of us, we ought to have our ears
nailed to doors, as we should have, if we were
living in the fine old times when justices were
justices, and feudalism was respected. You
must know that the right of lopping wood on
this common was granted to the poor inhabitants
of Cloudland by Queen Elizabeth, and though
there's been many a sly attempt to cajole them
out of it by monks and others, they've remained
firm to this day.

From here back again to our starting-place
is one long scene of intermittent but increasing
confiscation. As we approach Babylon, the
villas and gardens become thicker and thicker,
until the road is lined with handsome residences,
each of which stands upon ground which was
open common an incredibly short time ago, and
for which the owners can show no more title
than the good will of the lord of the manor.
There's a local society started which has
invited a large public meeting on the common;
and all I'd ask of you, gentlemen, is to help
us to understand what our rights really are.
We know that in olden times the lord of the
manor lived in his district, and was, or ought
to be, the protector of the poor people near.
Now, under the specious pretence of improvement,
he seems to seize upon land which, from
its contiguity to our crowded capital, is of priceless
value, and the wild luxuriance of which no
money could replace; and he seems to secure his
wealthy neighbours' sanction by a judicious
bestowal of portions of the property he has seized.
It's a profitable and comfortable arrangement
enough from one point of view; but I'd like to
know for certain whether it's right.

OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.

THE BURNING OF WILDGOOSE LODGE (COUNTY
LOUTH).

ABOUT nine o'clock on a wild October night,
1816 (the year after Waterloo), a lonely little
chapel at Stonetown, in the county Louth, many
long miles from Dundalk, is filled by a mysterious
party of about forty men, wrapped in the
rough heavy-caped frieze great-coats of the
ordinary Irish peasant, and armed with rude guns,
horse-pistols, bludgeons, old gun-barrels set in
pistol-stocks, and pitchforks. The men look
savage, pale, and worn; many of them have
ridden from great distances—from outlying
villages in Meath, Cavan, and Monaghan. There
are farmers and fishermen from the coast,
blacksmiths, artisans, and farming lads, men of
all ages and classes; their brows are knit, their
mouths are compressed by the sense of a horrible
secret about which they mutter under breath.
They have met for no midnight mass. They
are bent on no pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick,
or the entrance of Purgatory, on the island in
Lough Deargh. No priest is on his way to exhibit
the host to these perturbed men. The sacred bell
will not tinkle that night within the roadside
chapel, nor the crucifix be raised above their
heads by a robed minister of God. They have
not the air of men who come to kneel or who
wish to unburden their souls before the holy
altar. They are not bent on work to further
which either the Virgin, the saints, or the