whiskers, "I am one of those easier fools who
pitch a penny to quite every beggar whom they
meet. I have no objection to mendicity when
it takes the form of an appeal to benevolence;
I do not even grumble if it seeks the aid of a
little harmless fiction. But when mendicity
takes the form of a right, as it does especially
near the lakes of Killarney, my repugnance is
excited. The guides evidently think that you
are bound to be guided, and the venders of bog-oak
treasures that you are bound to buy. The
old-fashioned excuse that you have no small
change in your pocket will not suffice. In
the wildest spots about the Gap of Dunloe
money-changers are to be found who make
it their business to furnish you with silver
and copper enough to meet the most various
demands. Then the sudden change from poetry
to prose!"

"What do you mean?" asked Wideawake.

"Look here," pursued Whiskers. "Did you
ever in the course of your life chance to
become acquainted with a man whom you looked
upon as the pleasantest fellow in the whole
world, till at last you had something to do with
him in the way of business which altogether
reversed your opinion?"

"More than once. And what makes the
change especially disagreeable is this: that
while you are disgusted with the man of
business, the same man, who was so agreeable
when he had no business about him, still lives in
your memory, and seems to reproach you with
fickleness."

"Exactly," said Whiskers, with an assenting
nod. "Well, the change, which in commercial
affairs takes place gradually, is wrought amid
lake and mountain in the twinkling of an eye.
While the excursion lasts, your kind instructor
is overflowing with poetry, anecdote, and fun
—a regular child of song. He knows all
the legends that belong to one place, recites
to you the verses that illustrate another, and
is to the land of wild scenery what the
well-informed verger is to the cathedral; with this
difference, that the latter crams you with dry
history, while the communications of the former
are most fancifully decorated. But——" He
paused.

"Well?" enquired Wideawake.

"But," continued Whiskers, "the excursion
comes to an end, and before you part with your
guide, a certain settlement has to be made.
Here a difference of opinion respecting the
amount of gratuity is sure to arise, some extra
item creeping into the account, which was not
contemplated when your preliminaries were
arranged; and perhaps some boy, who performed
some inferior service, and whom you did not
notice, turns out to be a retainer of your intimate
friend, with a special claim of his own.
Now, during the discussion of this difference all
the fanciful and genial elements of your instructor
evaporate, and a sediment of a dull,
business-like form remains; all the more repulsive
because strongly impregnated with a flavour of
ill-humour."

"Wicklow, they say, is as much noted for
mendicity in various shapes as Killarney,"
observed Wideawake, with an inquiring look.

"Certainly not," replied Whiskers, "as far
as Glendalough is concerned, which, with its
stone churches and round tower is the chief
show-place in Wicklow, and one of the chief
in all Ireland. There the only exhibitor I found
was an extremely civil, respectable, and
unobtrusive old lady, who lived close to one of the
ruined churches, and who loudly repeated a
scrap of Moore's poem about the austerity of St.
Kevin and the sad fate of the too-loving Kathleen,
citing with particular relish the lines:

      Ah! the good saint little knew
      What that wily sex can do.

Nay, not only did she tell me how the druid used
to go to the top of the round tower, and greet
the rising sun with the salutation, 'Baal, Baal,
Baal,' as I could find stated in my guide-book,
but she explained to me the origin of a deer-stone,
respecting which I was not blessed with
similar information."

"What is a deer-stone?" asked Wideawake.

Well, the stone I saw, near one of the stone
churches, was a fragment of rock, hollowed out
at the top, so as to form a basin. The whole
district is impregnated with legends of St. Kevin,
as is Clonmacnoise, near the Shannon, which
is likewise attractive on account of its seven
churches and two round towers, with the fame
of St. Kiaran. It appears that the good saint,
taking compassion on the sorrows of some
orphan child, who had been left without means
of sustenance, so worked by prayer upon a
female deer that she came to the stone, and
filled it with milk for the nourishment of the
infant. The marks of the child's fingers and
knees are still to be seen on the rock, and the
miracle has another marvel in the circumstance
that water is always to be found in the hollow,
and refuses to be entirely dried up."

"A fine, strapping, vigorous child that must
have been!" ejaculated Wideawake.

"Suppose that the marks were gradually
made by a succession of children. Thus, you
will at once increase the probability of the
story and the compass of the good saint's
benevolence. By the way, St. Kevin always seems
to have been on as good terms with the
irrational creation, as the inhabitants of the
'Central World,' of whom I once read in All
the Year Round. Once, they say, during the
season of Lent, when he had retired to perform
his devotions in a solitary place, and knelt in
a state of ecstacy, the birds perched upon his
arm, which they found more motionless than
the surrounding trees. Nay, one of them placed
in his hand the first twigs of her nest, and so
deeply touched the heart of the saint that, lest
he might disturb her in her innocent labours,
he kept his hand still till summer came, and
the young birds were strong enough to leave
their nest."

"Very extravagant and very pretty," said
Wideawake.