e Rev. Father M'Fadden appears as receiving no less
than L115 sterling for the tenant-right sold by him of ground, the head
rent of which is L1, 2s. 6d. a year. The worst enemy of Father M'Fadden
will hardly suspect him, I hope, of taking such a sum as this from a
tenant farmer for the right to starve to death by inches.[13]

A shrewd Galway man, now here, who seems to know the region well, and
likes both the scenery and the people, tells me that the troubles which
have now culminated in the arrest of Father M'Fadden have been
aggravated by the vacillation of Captain Hill, and by the foibles of his
agent, Colonel Dopping, who not long ago brought down Mr. Gladstone with
his unloaded rifle. That the tenants as a body have been, or now are,
unable to pay their rent he does not believe. On the contrary, he thinks
them, as a body, rather well off. Certainly I have seen and spoken with
none of them about the roads to-day who were not hearty-looking men, and
in very good case. Colonel Dopping, according to my Galwegian, is not an
Englishman, but a Longford Irishman of good family, who got his
training in India as an official of the Woods and Forests in Bengal. "He
is not a bad-hearted man, nor unkind," said my Galwegian, "but he is
too much of a Bengal tiger in his manner. He went into the cottages
personally and lectured the people, and that they never will stand. They
don't require or expect you to believe what they say--in fact they have
little respect for you if you do--but they like to have the agent
pretend that he believes them, and then go on and show that he don't.
But he must never lose his temper about it. Colonel Dopping, I have
heard, argued with an old woman one day who was telling him more yarns
than were ever spun into cloth in Gweedore, till she picked up her cup
of tea and threw it in his face. He flounced out of the cottage, and
ordered the police to arrest her. That did him more harm than if he had
shot a dozen boys." "What with the temper of Colonel Dopping and the
vacillation of Captain Hill, who is always of the mind of the last man
that speaks to him, Father M'Fadden has had it all his own way. Captain
Hill's claim was for L1800 of arrears, long arrears too, and L400 of
costs. How much the people paid in under the Plan of Campaign nobody
knows but Father M'Fadden. But he is a clever _padre_, and he played
Captain Hill till he finally gave up the costs, and settled for L1450."

"And this sum represents