After climbing the long hill beyond the 'station' we are
rewarded by a glimpse of more fertile fields; the clumps of ragwort
and purple loosestrife are reinforced with kingcups and lilies
growing near the wayside, and the rare sight, first of a pot of
geraniums in the window, and then of a garden all aglow with red
fuchsias, torch plants, and huge dahlias, so cheers Veritas that he
takes heart again. "This is something like home!" he exclaims
breezily; whereupon Mr. Shamrock murmurs that if people find nothing
to admire in a foreign country save what resembles their own, he
wonders that they take the trouble to be travelling.
"It is a darlin' year for the pitaties," the drivers says; and there
are plenty of them planted hereabouts, even in stony spots not worth
a keenogue for anything else, for "pitaties doesn't require anny
inTHRICKet farmin', you see, ma'am."
The clergyman remarks that only three things are required to make
Ireland the most attractive country in the world: "Protestantism,
cleanliness, and gardens"; and Mr. Shamrock, who is of course a
Roman Catholic, answers this tactful speech in a way that surprises
the speaker and keeps him silent for hours.
The Birmingham cutler, who has a copy of Ismay's Children in his
pocket, triumphantly reads aloud, at this moment, a remark put into
the mouth of an Irish character: "The low Irish are quite destitute
of all notion of beauty,--have not the remotest particle of artistic
sentiment or taste; their cabins are exactly as they were six
hundred years ago, for they never want to improve themselves.
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