d have called it
"druth." "If the rain doesn't fall before twenty-four hours, there will
be no potatoes, no grass, no straw, the wheat won't fill, the cattle
will be destroyed," and so on; just as if the whole population was not
soaked through like a wet sponge, and the earth a sludge of mud and
swamp, to which Holland seems a sand-bank in comparison! Then came the
runaway tenants, only varied by those who couldn't be induced to "run"
on any terms. There was the usual "agrarian outrage," with the increased
police force quartered on the barony in consequence, and perhaps a
threat of a special commission, with more expense besides. There was the
extract of the judge's charge, saying that he never remembered so "heavy
a calendar," the whole winding up with an urgent appeal to send over
ten or twenty pounds to repair the chapel or the priest's house, or
contribute to some local object, "at your indifference to which there is
very great discontent at this moment."

A pleasant postcript also mentioned that a dissolution of Parliament
was daily expected, and that it would be well you 'd "come home and
look after the borough, where the Tories were working night and day to
increase their influence."

"Bad luck to them for Tories!" muttered he, as he threw the crumpled
document from him. "I 'd have been well off to-day if it was n't for
them. There's no telling the money the contested elections cost me,
while, to make out that I was a patriot, I could n't take a place, but
had to go on voting and voting out of the purity of my motives. It was
an evil hour when I took to politics at all. Joe! Joe!" cried he, aloud,
following up the appeal with a shrill whistle.

"Tear and ages, sure the house isn't on fire!" said a man, rushing into
the room with an air and manner that little indicated the respect due
from a servant to his master; "not to say," added he, "that it's not
dacent or becomin' to whistle after me, as if I was a tarrier or a
bull-dog."

"Hold your prate, will you?" said Mr. O'Shea.

"Why would I? 'Tis humiliated I am before all in the place."

"Will you hold your prate?" muttered his master, in a deeper tone,
while, stretching forth his hand, he seemed in search of any missile to
hurl at his mutinous follower.

"If I do, then, it's undher protest, mind that I put it on record that I
'm only yieldin' to the 'vis magiory.'"

"What o'clock is it?" yawned out O'Shea.

"It wants a trifle of four o'clock."

"And t