I shall not soon forget the manner of our going. We had come now almost to the end of our journey, and it was desirable that we should return to Dublin as quickly as possible. He wanted us to make the journey round by Bloody Foreland, and we wanted to do it as shortly as possible, striking inland to meet the mail-car for Letterkenny at, I think, Gortahork. But we knew better than to say "No" to the Law of Gweedore; so we thought to slip away early in the morning, and made our arrangements the last thing at night, after leaving his hospitable roof.
But the Law of Gweedore knew all that happened in Gweedore. A full hour before we had appointed for being called we were called. His Reverence had arranged our conveyance, and _paid for it_--paid also, I think, for a luncheon-basket. Willy-nilly, we went round by Bloody Foreland and visited the evicted tenants, crouching under scraws and twigs, in shelters which suggested the caves of the earth-dwellers rather than anything fit for man.
Gortahork I remember as a place where we had a good meal of tea and hot cakes and eggs, and other things thrown in, for a shilling. And I remember also the long, long drive to Letterkenny--some forty miles it was, I seem to remember, but shall not pledge myself to it lest I be confuted--and how we dashed along the sides of precipices, we on one side of the car, with our feet almost touching earth, the other side high in air, being weighted only with empty parcel-post hampers, of which Donegal needs no great supply; below us--far, far below--a valley filled in with mighty stones and rocks. The pace was so fast that we could hardly keep our seats, though well accustomed to that car which the unlettered English tripper is apt to call "a jolting car"; and the driver was quite unaware of our discomfort, assuring us with as much jocularity as a Donegal man permits himself that the horses never were known to stumble, and that, although an occasional English tourist did fall off, he or she always "fell soft."
After all, when I look back to that scamper through Donegal sixteen years ago, I remember the mountains and the priests. Monuments of a beautiful hospitality, the priests for me mark the wild ways up and down Donegal.