themselves were learning that a great national calamity had
happened, and that the work was God's work; and the Government had
fully recognized the necessity of taking the whole matter into its
own hands. They were responsible for the preservation of the people,
and they acknowledged their responsibility.

And then two great rules seemed to get themselves laid down--not by
general consent, for there were many who greatly contested their
wisdom--but by some force strong enough to make itself dominant. The
first was, that the food to be provided should be earned and not
given away. And the second was, that the providing of that food
should be left to private competition, and not in any way be
undertaken by the Government. I make bold to say that both these
rules were wise and good.

But how should the people work? That Government should supply the
wages was of course an understood necessity; and it was also
necessary that on all such work the amount of wages should be
regulated by the price at which provisions might fix themselves.
These points produced questions which were hotly debated by the
Relief Committees of the different districts; but at last it got
itself decided, again by the hands of Government, that all hills
along the country roads should be cut away, and that the people
should be employed on this work. They were so employed,--very little
to the advantage of the roads for that or some following years.

"So you have begun, my men," said Herbert to a gang of labourers
whom he found collected at a certain point on Ballydahan Hill, which
lay on his road from Castle Richmond to Gortnaclough. In saying this
he had certainly paid them an unmerited compliment, for they had