The stern natural law of mutability--of ceaseless growth, change and decay--which the big, bustling, preoccupied outside world takes so indifferently, as a matter of course, finds itself reduced to a bare minimum of influence in such small, remote and out-of-the-way places as Muirisc. The lapse of twelve years here had made the scantest and most casual of marks upon the village and its inhabitants. Positively no one worth mentioning had died--for even snuffy and palsied old Father Harrington, though long since replaced at the convent _by_ a younger priest, was understood to be still living on in the shelter of some retreat for aged clergymen in Kerry or Clare. The three old nuns were still the sole ladies of the Hostage’s Tears, and, like the rest of Muirisc, seemed only a trifle the more wrinkled and worn under this flight of time. Such changes as had been wrought had come in a leisurely way, without attracting much attention. The mines, both of copper and of pyrites, had prospered beyond the experience of any other section of Munster, and this had brought into the immediate district a considerable alien population. But these intrusive strangers had fortunately preferred to settle in another hamlet in the neighborhood, and came rarely to Muirisc. The village was still without a hotel, and had by this time grown accustomed to the existence within its borders of a constabulary barracks. Its fishing went forward sedately and without much profit; the men of Muirisc only half believed the stories they heard of the modern appliances and wonderful hauls at Baltimore and Crook-haven--and cared even less than they credited. The lobster-canning factory had died a natural death years before, and the little children of Muirisc, playing about within sight of its roofless and rotting timbers, avoided closer contact with the building under some vague and formless notion that it was unlucky. The very idea that there had once been a man who thought that Muirisc desired to put up lobsters in tins seemed to them comic--and almost impious as well. But there was one alteration upon which the people of Muirisc bestowed a good deal of thought--and on occasion and under their breath, not a few bitter words.