operty are secure. It is true
that several double-barrelled guns are on the hall-table; but country
gentlemen in Ireland go out shooting as they do elsewhere. Several
large dogs, too, are running about outside the house; but as Mr.
Richard Stacpoole is a celebrated sportsman, there is nothing
wonderful in that.

Mr. Stacpoole, whose appearance and manner are as frank as his welcome
is hearty, is by no means reticent as to the matters in debate between
him and the tenants holding from him and other members of his family
for whom he acts as agent. To the question whether he goes in fear of
his life, he replies, "Not at all; I take care of that," and out of
the pocket of his lounging jacket he takes a revolver of very large
bore. It is a curious picture, this drawing-room at Edenvale. On his
own hearth-rug, in his own house, with a silky white Maltese lapdog
and a beautiful terrier nestling at his feet, stands no English or
Scotch interloper, agent, middleman, or "land-grabber," but the
representative of one of the oldest, most honourable, and, I may add,
till recently most honoured families in the county, with his hand on
the pistol which is never out of his reach by day or night. There was
once no more popular man in Clare. His steeplechasers win glory for
Ireland at Liverpool, whether they return a profit to their owner or
not. He keeps up, with slight assistance from members of the Hunt, a
pack of harriers, and hunts them himself. His cousin, the late Captain
Stacpoole, of Ballyalla, was the well-known "silent member" who for
twenty years represented Ennis in Parliament. Finally, he is spending
at least 3,000l. a year in household expenses alone; but he never
leaves his revolver; and he is in the right, for not two hours ago a
local leader declared to me with pale face and flaming eyes that he
would "gladly go to the gallows for 'um."

But the local leader does not, or at least has not yet shot at Mr.
Stacpoole because he "can't get at 'um"--a phrase which requires some
explanation. I had, with an eye becoming practised in such matters,
scanned the house and its approaches as I drove up to the door, and
had discussed with the friend who introduced me to its master the
chances of "stalking" that gentleman on his own ground. Trees and
brushwood grew more closely to the house than a military engineer
would have permitted, and I hazarded the opinion that it would be easy
to "do him over," as it is called. But on talking