you continue to descend, you see a peep of yellow
gaslight and hear a jostling, whispering noise ahead;
next moment you turn a corner, and there, in a
whitewashed passage, is a machinery belt industriously
turning on its wheels. You would think the engine had
grown there of its own accord, like a cellar fungus, and
would soon spin itself out and fill the vaults from end
to end with its mysterious labours. In truth, it is only
some gear of the steam ventilator; and you will find the
engineers at hand, and may step out of their door into
the sunlight. For all this while, you have not been
descending towards the earth's centre, but only to the
bottom of the hill and the foundations of the Parliament
House; low down, to be sure, but still under the open
heaven and in a field of grass. The daylight shines
garishly on the back windows of the Irish quarter; on
broken shutters, wry gables, old palsied houses on the
brink of ruin, a crumbling human pig-sty fit for human
pigs. There are few signs of life, besides a scanty
washing or a face at a window: the dwellers are abroad,
but they will return at night and stagger to their
pallets.



CHAPTER IV.
LEGENDS.