Another patriot came under my notice in a queer kind of way. I had gone to look at the reclamation works on the Fergus river, and there encountered a scene odd and peculiar beyond previous experience. Shortly before me, had arrived Mr. Charles George Mahon, the nephew of The O'Gorman Mahon, and a Mr. Crowe. These two gentlemen being neighbours of Mr. Drinkwater, had looked in to see his works, and in a friendly way were chatting to one of his foremen, bringing work to a standstill, but conducting themselves with the easy affability common to the lesser proprietors of county Clare. All was going smoothly when, like his predecessors, disregarding the warning that no person could be admitted except on business, a strange personage put in an appearance. Neither Cruikshank, Daumier, nor Doré ever conceived a more grotesque figure than that which entered the Clare Reclamation works.
Imagine a singularly small rough-coated donkey stunted by too early and too hard work, and on its back a cripple--a _cul-de-jatte_--carrying his crutches with him, laid across the withers of the unfortunate animal he bestrode. Imagine also a face, very cleanly washed, and of that Semitic outline and expression by no means uncommon in Connaught, dark flashing eyes, an aquiline nose, and a wide expressive mouth. Dismounted from his steed and placed up against the wall, the decently dressed and well-spoken man, propped up on his crutches, would have been thought rather an object of charitable interest than of distrust, if not of fear.
This poor and apparently helpless man is a popular speaker and lecturer--one who does not deliver his harangues in high places, but rides on his donkey from village to village, spreading the doctrines now acceptable to the rural population. By the upper classes he is abhorred as a specially obnoxious and pestilent person. He, on the other hand, considers himself oppressed. He was a National Schoolmaster, but got into a scrape about a threatening letter, which, it is fair to state, was not completely brought home to him. However, he lost his place. In the hope that he might be reinstated he passed a science and art examination, but he fared no better, and then found that the trade of a popular agitator was the most congenial one he could pursue. He is also an itinerant scribe, writing letters for people who cannot write, making aggrieved people aware of the full extent of their grievance, and assisting them to send furious letters to the smaller local newspapers, concerning which I hesitate to express any opinion, lest the readers of the _Daily News_ should think they had stumbled upon the Commination Service.