ill tell you, sir," he said, "that Captain Hamilton was
quite willing to talk with him and Father O'Donel, the parish priests,
and with the Coolgreany people, but he would have nothing to say to any
one who was not their priest, and had no business to be meddling with
the matter at all?"

"No; he did not tell me that."

"Ah! well, sir, that made all the difference. Father Dunphy, who was
there, is a high-tempered man, and he said he had just as much right to
represent the tenants as Captain Hamilton to represent the landlord, and
that Captain Hamilton wouldn't allow. It was the outside people made all
the trouble. In June of last year there was a conference at my house,
and all that time there was a Committee sitting at Coolgreany, and the
tenants would not be allowed to do anything without the Committee."

"And who made the Committee?"

"Oh, they made themselves, I suppose, sir. There was Sir Thomas
Esmonde--he was a convert, you know, of Father O'Neill--and Mr. Mayne
and Mr. John Dillon. And Dr. Dillon of Arklow, he was as busy as he
could be till the evictions were made in July. And then he was in
retreat. And I believe, sir, it is quite true that he wanted the Bishop
to let him come out of the retreat just to have a hand in the business."

The police sergeant, a very cool, sensible man, quite agreed with the
bailiff as to the influence upon the present situation of the
ex-gamekeeper Kinsella, and his friend Eyan. "If they were two
Invincibles, sir," he said, "these member fellows of the League couldn't
be in greater fear of them than they are. They say nothing, and do just
as they please. That Kinsella, when Mr. John Dillon was down here, just
told him before a lot of people that he 'wanted no words and no advice
from him,' and he's just in that surly way with all the people about."

As to the Brooke estate, I am told here it was bought more than twenty
years ago with a Landed Estates Court title from Colonel Forde, by the
grandfather of Mr. Brooke. He paid about L75,000 sterling for it. His
son died young, and the present owner came into it as a child, Mr. Vesey
being then the agent, who, during the minority, spent a great deal on
improving the property. Captain Hamilton came in as agent only a few
years ago. While the Act of 1881 was impending, an abatement was granted
of more than twenty per cent. In 1882 the tenants all paid except
eleven, who went into Court and got their rents cut down by the
Sub-Commiss