After we drove a long way--what appeared a long way--I do not believe they measure all the crooks and turns this most serpentine of roads into the miles--we passed establishment of lay brothers called the Monastery. There is quite a block of white buildings, and a good many reclaimed fields, green with the young crops, lie in the valley below them. There is a bell in a cupola that will call to work and worship, and a chapel where they meet to pray. The valley where their fields lie stretches to the sea, and in the bay lay a smack of some kind by which they trade to Westport. They labor with their own hands, so have not the name of employing any laborers, but have the name of dispensing charity. I should have liked to see the buildings and the brethren, but did not make the attempt. At length we came to Dugart, the Missionary settlement. A little row of white-washed houses on one side of a street that ran up hill, another row of whitewashed houses that ran along the brow of the hill at a right angle. Slieve Mor behind towering up between the village and the sea; below the hill at the foot of another mountain is the rectory, beside it the church, both having a trimming of young trees; some good fields, the best I have seen in Achill, and a pretty garden lie round both rectory and church. This is the mission village of Dugart. At the corner where the two rows of whitewashed houses meet is the Post Office. As we drove up there was a gentleman with a northern kindliness in his face, a long brown beard, an unmistakable air of authority, whom we found out was the rector of Achill. After introduction and some conversation, he kindly invited me to the rectory after I had brushed off some of the dust of travel. The Dugart hotel possesses a large collection of stuffed sea birds, the proprietor having taste and skill in that direction, and I was enabled to take a nearer view of specimens of the birds that sail and scream round the Achill mountains, eagles and gulls, puffins and cormorants, than I would otherwise have done. After a little rest and refreshment I walked down the hill to the lonely, lovely rectory in the valley below. There is a solidity about a stone house, stone porch and stone wall in every part of Ireland; a strength that makes one think how easily a house could be turned into a fortalice at a short notice. I confess I liked this rector, so tall and stately, with his long beard, grave, kindly face, northern speech, penetrating look, with a certain air of authority as became a pastor in charge. When he asked me pleasantly if I had come as a friend, I thought at once of the Bethlehem elders to Samuel, "Comest thou peaceably?" I think I almost envied this man his position, the power which he holds as a leader to be a patriot worker for the good of his countrymen and countrywomen on the barren isle of Achill.