ion
was bestowed on young Leslie. His handsome features, his slight but
well-formed figure, every particular of his dress and gesture, had
found an advocate and an admirer; and while some were lavish in their
epithets on the perfection of his horsemanship, others, who had seen him
on foot, asserted, "that it was then he looked well entirely." There is
a kind of epidemic character pertaining to praise. The snow-ball gathers
not faster by rolling, than do the words of eulogy and approbation; and
so now, many recited little anecdotes of the youth's father, to shew
that he was a very pattern of landlords and country gentlemen, and had
only one fault in life,--that he never lived among his tenantry.

"'Tis the first time I ever set eyes on him," cried one, "and I hould my
little place under him twenty-three years come Michaelmas."

"See now then, Barney," cried another, "I'd rather have a hard man that
would stay here among us, than the finest landlord ever was seen that
would be away from us. And what's the use of compassion and pity when
the say would be between us? 'Tis the Agent we have to look to."

"Agent! 'Tis wishing them, I am, the same Agents! Them's the boys has
no marcy for a poor man: I'm tould now"--and here the speaker assumed
a tone of oracular seriousness that drew several listeners towards
him--"I'm tould now, the Agents get a guinea for every man, woman, and
child they turn out of a houldin." A low murmur of indignant anger ran
through the group, not one of whom ventured to disbelieve a testimony
thus accredited.

"And sure when the landlords does come, devil a bit they know about
us--no more nor if we were in Swayden; didn't I hear the ould gentleman
down there last summer, pitying the people for the distress. 'Ah,' says
he, 'it's a hard sayson ye have, and obliged to tear the flax out of the
ground, and it not long enough to cut!'"

A ready burst of laughter followed this anecdote, and many similar
stories were recounted in corroboration of the opinion.

[Illustration: 027]

"That's the girl takes the shine out of the fair," said one of the
younger men of the party, touching another by the arm, and pointing to a
tall young girl, who, with features as straight and regular as a classic
model, moved slowly past. She did not wear the scarlet cloak of the
peasantry, but a large one of dark blue, lined with silk of the same
colour; a profusion of brown hair, dark and glossy, was braided on each
side of