It does not even go by steam, so the thing was a great
marvel to us and our people, to whom steam was quite marvel enough.
My grandfather at first would not even look on it. I have seen him turn
away sharply from the window to avoid seeing it. When we went out to
drive we turned our backs upon it, my grandfather saying that he would
not insult his horses by letting them look at it, and indeed I think
that, old as they were, yet having blood in them they would curvet a bit
if they saw anything so strange to them.
There is one thing the light railway has done, and that is to give the
people a market for their goods. We were all much poorer than we once
were, except Mr. Dawson, who made his money by money-lending in Dublin
and London; but even with Mr. Dawson's big house we did not make a
market for the countryside.
Besides, there was a stir among the people there used not to be. They
were spinning and weaving in their cottages, and they were rearing fowl
and growing fruit and flowers.
The things which before the peasant children did for sport they now did
for profit as well. It caused the greatest surprise in the minds of the
people when they discovered that anybody could want their blackberries
and their mushrooms; that money was to be made out of even the gathering
of shamrocks.
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