High-ways and By-ways Author:Thomas Colley Grattan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. " This is the house," said my inviter, as he stopped before a wretched looking habitation, in a narrow lane close behind the church. " Do you ... more »live here, my good Sir ?" asked I. " Where else would I live but in my own lodging ?" answered he, in the Irish fashion ; and, tucking up his cassock high above his knees, he stepped over the thick puddle which lay stagnant before the entrance, mounted the half dozen broken steps leading up to it, and then sidled his broad shoulders through the little passage which led into the dark recesses of the place. I observed him to cross himself as he went in ; and, looking up, saw in a niche over the porch, in which there was no door, a littleimage in plaister of Paris, representing a female with a child in her arms, daubed all over with red and green paint, decked in some tarnished fringe and faded silk for drapery, and a bunch of twisted leaves around the head, withered and wasted into a mockery of what once was flowers. On a stone tablet beneath was carved in the rudest possible chiselling, Si 1'amour de Marie est dans ton cceur grave Bon chretien arriHe, et lui dire un Av£. I afterwards learned that this caricature of the virgin and her babe was placed as a protection from the attacks of robbers, and was sup posed of sufficient efficacy to supply the place of a door ; and I have since frequently observed that these effigies are almost invariably to be seen placed on dwellings where no temptation to robbery could exist, or where a rational defence was beyond the purchase of the inhabitants. I worked my way along the ragged floor ofthe passage, following closely on the heels of my conductor, whose tall figure and outstretched arms were just visible as he groped along " Take care of the steps, my jewel," cried he,...« less