On the way, which led through a well-cultivated, fertile country, waving with trees, and showing glimpses of great houses peeping out among them, the driver asked me if I had ever heard of Captain Boycott. I said there were few who had not. "He used to live in that house up there; he was agent in this part of the country, but he left us, thank God." "What made people dislike him so?" "Because he was the height of a great tyrant." "Come now, what did he do?" "Everything he could do to oppress the creatures who were in his power. I have known a man come home to his little family with three shillings for his week's wages, all the rest scratched off him in fines. If you have a family yourself you will understand what their living would be when they paid the rent of the cabin. A man dazed with hunger would not have all his wits about him and there would be more fines. In that way the mane hound got his work done for half price, and ground the life out of the people. There was no word of an emergency man to pity or help them. God help us; how true it is that the help does not go where the want is." We got to Knock, a country church in a country place. Alighted, and while the carman tied his horse I looked round me. There was an enclosure round the chapel. At one side was a row of wooden booths, where relics, beads and trinkets were sold. On the other side of the enclosure was a school for girls. It was at the end of the church where the apparition is said to have appeared that we entered. All the plaster on this end was removed by devotees. In the spot where the apparition was said to have been seen, there was a life-size statue of the Virgin in plaster. All over the gable were strips of wood cleated on, behind which were ranged walking-sticks and crutches in regular order till the whole gable was covered. There was a long frame-work of wood about twelve feet long and three broad, also filled with crutches and walking- sticks. As I stood looking, the car man came in after tying his horse, and knelt down on the damp earth before the Virgin's shrine and repeated a prayer. He was not ashamed to practice what he believed before the world and in the sight of the sun. When his prayer was over he joined me, and drew my attention to the number of crutches and sticks left behind by those who were benefited. I pointed out to him a very handsome black-thorn stick among the votive offerings, and asked him would it be a sin to steal it, as black-thorns were in demand over the water. He told me if I did that whatever disease was laid down there by the owner of the stick would cleave to me. I thought of Gehazi and restrained my hands from stealing the black-thorn. There is one nice characteristic of a genuine Irishman, he can take a joke.