uch deed of benevolence.

This is no exaggerated picture. Such was peasant-gratitude once; and
such, O landlords of Ireland! it might still have been, if you had not
deserted the people. The meanest of your favours, the poorest show
of your good-feeling, were acts of grace for which nothing was deemed
requital. Your presence in the poor man's cabin--your kind word to him
upon the highway--your aid in sickness--your counsel in trouble, were
ties which bound him more closely to your interest, and made him more
surely yours, than all the parchments of your attorney, or all the
papers of your agent. He knew you then as something more than the
recipient of his earnings. That was a time, when neither the hireling
patriot nor the calumnious press could sow discord between you. If it be
otherwise now, ask yourselves, are you all blameless? Did you ever
hope that affection could be transmitted through your agent, like the
proceeds of your property? Did you expect that the attachments of a
people were to reach you by the post? Or was it not natural, that, in
their desertion by you, they should seek succour elsewhere? that in
their difficulties and their trials they should turn to any who might
feel or feign compassion for them?

Nor is it wonderful that, amid the benefits thus bestowed, they should
imbibe principles and opinions fatally in contrast with interests like
yours.

There were few on whom good fortune could have fallen, without exciting
more envious and jealous feelings on the part of others, than on
the Connors. The rugged independent character of the father--the gay
light-hearted nature of the son, had given them few enemies and many
friends. The whole neighbourhood flocked about them to offer their good
wishes and congratulations on their bettered condition, and with
an honesty of purpose and a sincerity that might have shamed a more
elevated sphere. The Joyces alone shewed no participation in this
sentiment, or rather, that small fraction of them more immediately
linked with Phil Joyce. At first, they affected to sneer at the stories
of the Connors' good fortune; and when denial became absurd, they
half-hinted that it was a new custom in Ireland for men "to fight for
money." These mocking speeches were not slow to reach the ears of the
old man and his son; and many thought that the next fair-day would bring
with it a heavy retribution for the calamities of the last. In this,
however, they were mistaken. Neither O