'I think we might try the road, for all that, for though if we have to
walk the greater part of it, there will be a saving in the end.'

'That's true, your reverence, if we can get the car through; but if we
can't we may have to come all the way back again.'

'Well, Christy, we'll have to risk that. Now, will you be turning the
horse up the road? And I'll stop at the Big House--I've never been
inside it. I'd like to see what it is like.'

Joycetown House was the last link between the present time and the past.
In the beginning of the century a duellist lived there; the terror of
the countryside he, for he was never known to miss his man. For the
slightest offence, real or imaginary, he sent seconds demanding redress.
No more than his ancestors, who had doubtless lived on the islands, in
Castle Island and Castle Hag, could he live without fighting. But when
he completed his round dozen, a priest said, 'If we don't put a stop to
his fighting, there won't be a gentleman left in the country,' and wrote
to him to that effect.

The story runs how Joyce, knowing the feeling of the country was against
him, tried to keep the peace. But the blood fever came on him again, and
he called out his nearest neighbour, Browne of the Neale, the only
friend he had in the world. Browne lived at Neale House, just over the
border, in County Galway, so the gentlemen arranged to fight in a
certain field near the mearing. It was Browne of Neale who was the first
to arrive. Joyce, having to come a dozen miles, was a few minutes late.
As soon as his gig was seen, the people, who were in hiding, came out,
and they put themselves between him and Browne, telling him up to his
face there was to be no fighting that day! And the priest, who was at