Mr. Pike Has
Already Made For Himself A Delicious Looking Home Amid This Barren
Waste.
It enriched our eyes to look at it.
Mr. Pike and Mr. Stoney, of the castellated new building down at the
edge of Clew Bay, have the distinction of being the most unpopular
landlords in this part of the country. After we passed Mr. Pike's place
there were no more trees. The houses are very bad indeed; the cattle in
the pasture are of the small native breed, and have little appearance of
milk; the sheep are very miserable and scraggy. I have often heard of
Cook's recipes saying, "Take the scrag end of a piece of mutton." These
recipes must have emanated from Achill Island, where the mutton must be
pretty much all scrag.
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.
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