File:Life of Sir John T. Gilbert, LL.D., F.S.A., Irish historian and archivist, vice-president of the Royal Irish academy, secretary of the Public record office of Ireland (1905) (14597921640).jpg

Identifier: lifeofsirjohntgi00gilb (find matches)
Title: Life of Sir John T. Gilbert, LL.D., F.S.A., Irish historian and archivist, vice-president of the Royal Irish academy, secretary of the Public record office of Ireland
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Gilbert, Rosa M. (Rosa Mulholland), 1841-1921
Subjects: Gilbert, John Thomas, Sir, 1829-1898 Historians Archivists
Publisher: London, New York, Bombay, Longmans, Green, and co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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d the wreckage of scarlet holly-berries from which theyhad wrung their last sustenance stained the snow,—all thesewere happenings of the keenest interest to him. When deep in his work over some forbidding-looking parch-ment, he would suddenly spring up, throw on his cap, call toone, always near, to follow, and was away across the lawns, orthrough the dark lime-tree walk, or to the little tarn, formedby a stream from the mountain, which cuts its bright waythrough many a mile to run along the foot of the Villa Novameadow towards the sea. In this shady little tarn a water-hen and her brood would sometimes be found, sailing on thewater, or lurking together under the lush grass and ferns onone or other of the banks, and in this little feathered familyhe took a lively interest. The little demesne contained much variety of feature,considering its modest dimensions. From the water-henshaunt he could turn at once into the long walk betweengiant limes, dim and solemn as a cathedral aisle, and
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IRISH HUMOUR 359 carpeted with moss, called the Goblin Walk because itsdarkness was in summer pierced with little arrows of sun-shine darting about like living things, and was often musicalwith a mysterious orchestra of invisible flies, in pauses ofthe song of thrush and blackbird, or before the noisywrangles of the magpies and squirrels over their provenderof the walnuts had begun. Through this favourite alley hecould pass on to what was known as the Orchard Angle,where the apples had been, time out of mind, the prey of thesmall boys of the neighbourhood, and where too careful aclosing of holes in the hedge would have been looked on bythe depredators as meanness unworthy of a Gilbert. I robbed the Villa Nova orchard when I was fifteen,said an elderly man, when the old gardener was grumbling. I was brought for it before the Miss Gilberts by the police-man. They were only very young themselves, indeed, andall they said was, to ask me my catechism ! This sameyouth of fifteen had drilled

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