go and live in France? I could give them some
abatement then and be a richer man. But how would they like to have
Carnlough empty?"

"There's no danger of that, I think."

"Upon my word, I don't know. The girls are talking of it, and when
they begin to talk of a thing, I am very likely to do it. And Mrs.
Blake is quite ready."

"You wouldn't leave the country?"

"That's just it. I'll stay if they'll let me. If they'll pay me rent
enough to enable me to live here comfortably, I'll not desert them.
But if they think that I'm to keep up the place on borrowed money,
they'll find their mistake. I didn't mind ten per cent. for the last
two years, though I have taken to drinking whisky punch in my old
age, instead of claret and sherry. And I don't mind ten per cent. for
this year, though I am sorely in want of a young horse to carry me.
But if the ten per cent. is to go on, or to become twenty per cent.
as one blackguard hinted, I shall say good-bye to Carnlough. They may
fight it out then with Terry Daly as they can." Now, Terry Daly was
the well-known agent for the lands of Carnlough. "What has brought
you over here to-day?" asked Mr. Blake. "I can see with half an eye
that there is some fresh trouble."

"Indeed there is."

"I have heard what they did with your sluices. That's another trick
they've learnt out of County Mayo. When a landlord is not rich enough
to give them all that they want, they make the matter easier by doing
the best they can to ruin him. I don't think anything of that kind
has been done at Carnlough."

"There is worse than that," said Mr. Jones sorrowfully.

"The devil there is! They have not mutilated any of your cattle?"

"No, there is nothing of that kind. The only enemy I've got about the
place, as far as I know, is one Pat Carroll. It was he and others,
whom he paid to serve him, that have let the waters in upon the
meadows. Eighty acres are under water at this moment. But I can bear
that like a man. The worst of that is, that all the neighbours should
have seen him do it, and not one of them have come forward to tell
me."

"That is the worst," said Mr. Blake. "There must be some terrible
understanding among them, some compact for evil, when twenty men are
afraid to tell what one man has been seen to do. It's fearful to
think that the priests should not put a stop to it. How is Master
Florian getting on with his priest?"

"It's about him that I have come to speak to you," said Mr. Jo