o much whether he is corrupt or not, as whether he has
unseated you; that is the fatal fact against him; and if we allow that
to pass without making him suffer for it, you will find that on the
next election he may have many an imitator, and your chances will not be
worth much--that's all."

"Very well, Fethertonge," replied the indolent and feeble-minded man,
"I leave him to you; manage him or punish him as you like; but I do beg
that you will let me hear no more about him. Keep his father, however,
on the property; I insist on that; he is an honest man, for he voted for
me; keep him on his farm at reasonable terms too, such,--of course, as
he can live on."

The reasonable terms proposed by Fethertonge were, however, such as old
Tom M'Mahon could not with any prospect of independence encounter. Even
this, however, was not to him the most depressing consideration. Faith
had been wantonly and deliberately broken with him--the solemn words
of a dying man had been disregarded--and, as Fethertonge had made him
believe, by that son who had always professed to regard and honor his
father's memory.

"I assure you, M'Mahon," replied the agent, in the last interview he
ever had with him, "I assure you I have done all in my power to bring
matters about; but without avail. It is a painful thing to have to do
with an obstinate man, M'Mahon; with a man who, although he seems quiet
and easy, will and must have everything his own way."

"Well, sir," replied M'Mahon, "you know what his dying father's words
wor to me."

"And more than I know them, I can assure you," he whispered, in a very
significant voice, and with a nod of the head that seemed to say,
"your landlord knows them as well as I do. I have done my duty, and
communicated them to him, as I ought."

M'Mahon shook his head in a melancholy manner, and said,--

"Well, sir, at any rate I know the worst. I couldn't now have any
confidence or trust in such a man; I could depend upon neither his word
or his promise; I couldn't look upon him as a friend, for he didn't
prove himself one to my son when he stood in need of one. It's clear
that he doesn't care about the welfare and prosperity of his tenantry;
and for that raison--or rather for all these raisons put together--I'll
join my son, and go to a country where, by all accounts, there's better
prospects for them that's honest and industrious than there is in this
unfortunate one of ours,--where the interest of the people i