evident from the thickness
of his voice that the whiskey he had drunk was beginning to have its
effects on him. Instead of eating his dinner, he had been drinking
raw spirits in the morning, to which he was not accustomed; for
though when cold, or when pressed by others, he could swallow a
glass of raw whiskey with that facility which seems to indicate an
iron throttle, he had been too little accustomed to give way to any
temptation to become habitually a drunkard. Now, however, he was
certainly becoming tipsy, and, therefore, more likely to agree to
whatever those around him might propose.

"Asy, Mr. Thady!" said Pat; "there's that long-eared ruffian,
McGovery, listening to every word he can catch. Be spaking now as if
you war axing the boys about the rint."

"And isn't it about that he is axing?" said Joe. "But how can he get
the rint, or we be paying it, unless he gives us his hand to rid the
counthry of thim as robs us of our manes, and desthroys him and us,
and all thim as should be frinds to him and the owld Masther, and to
Ballycloran?"

"You know, all of ye, that I never was hard on you," continued Thady,
"when, God knows, the money was wanted bad enough at Ballycloran. You
know I've waited longer for what was owed than many a one has done
who has never felt what it was to want a pound. Did I ever pull the
roof off any of you? And though queer tenants you've most of you
been, an't the same set on the land now mostly that there was four
years ago? There's none of you can call me a hard man, I think; and
when I've stuck to you so long, it isn't now I'll break away from
you."

"Long life to you, Mr. Thady!" "Long life to yer honer--and may ye
live to see the esthate your own yet, and not owe a shilling!" "It's
thrue for the masther what he says; why should he turn agin his own
now? God bless him!" Such were the exclamations with which Thady's
last speech was received.

"And I'll tell you what it is," and he now spoke in a low thick
whisper, "I'll tell you what's on my mind. Those that you hate, I
don't love a bit too well. You all know Hyacinth Keegan, I think?"

"'Deed we do--may the big devil fetch him home!"

"Well, then, would you like him for your landlord, out and out? such
a fine gentleman as he is!"

"Blast him for a gintleman!" said Joe; "I'd sooner have his father;
he war an honest man, more by token he war no Protestant; he sarved
processes for Richard Peyton, up by Loch Allen."

"Well then,