dful
stories told of horrible men about the country."

"Don't mention such nonsense, Winifred," said her husband, "trying
to frighten the boy. There isn't a human being between this and
Ballyglunin for whom I won't be responsible. Till you come to a mile
of the station it's all my own property."

"But they can shoot--" Then Mrs. Blake left the rest of her sentence
unspoken, having been checked by her husband's eye. The boy, however,
had heard it and trembled.

"Come along, Florian," said the father. "Get up along with Peter."
The attempt which he had made to live with his son on affectionate
paternal relations had hardly been successful. The boy had been told
so much of murderers that he had been made to fear. Peter,--and other
Peters about the country,--had filled his mind with sad foreboding.
And there had always been something timid, something almost unmanly
in his nature. He had seemed to prefer to shrink and cower and be
mysterious with the Carrolls to coming forward boldly with such a man
as Yorke Clayton. The girls had seen this, and had declared that he
was no more than a boy; but his father had seen it and had made no
such allowance. And now he saw that he trembled. But Florian got up
on the car, and Peter drove them off to Ballyglunin.

Carnlough was not above three Irish miles from Ballyglunin; and Mr.
Jones started on the little journey without a misgiving. He sat alone
on the near side of the car, and Florian sat on the other, together
with Peter who was driving. The horse was a heavy, slow-going animal,
rough and hairy in its coat, but trustworthy and an old servant.
There had been a time when Mr. Jones kept a carriage, but that had
been before the bad times had begun. The carriage horses had been
sold after the flood,--as Ada had called the memorable incident;
and now there were but three cart horses at Morony Castle, of which
this one animal alone was habitually driven in the car. The floods,
indeed, had now retreated from the lands of Ballintubber and the
flood gates were mended; but there would be no crop of hay on all
those eighty acres this year, and Mr. Jones was in no condition to
replace his private stud. As he went along on this present journey he
was thinking bitterly of the injury which had been done him. He had
lost over two hundred tons of hay, and each ton of hay would have
been worth three pounds ten shillings. He had been unable to get a
sluice gate mended till men had been brought to