sed authority;
in fact, he was a reckless man, originally rendered so by inability
to pay high rent for miserably bad land, and afterwards becoming
doubly so from having recourse to illegal means to ease him of his
difficulties.

He, and many others in the neighbourhood of Mohill somewhat similarly
situated, had joined together, bound themselves by oaths, and had
determined to become ribbonmen; their chief objects, however, at
present, were to free themselves from the terrors of Captains Ussher
and Greenough, and to prevent their landlords ejecting them for
non-payment of rent. It would be supposed a man of Pat Brady's
discernment, station, and character, would not have wished to
belong to, or have been admitted by, so desperate a society; but he,
nevertheless, was not only of them, but one of their leaders, and it
can only be supposed that "he had his rasons."

All these things were fully talked over at Mulready's that night.
The indignities offered to humanity by police of every kind, the
iniquities of all Protestants, the benefits likely to accrue to
mankind from an unlimited manufacture of potheen, and the injustice
of rents, were fully discussed; on the latter head certainly Brady
fought the battle of his master, and not unsuccessfully; but not on
the head that he had a right to his own rents, but what he was to do
about Flannelly, if he did not get them.

"And shure, boys, what would the ould masther do, and what would Mr.
Thady do without the rint among ye,--an' ould Flannelly dunning about
him with his bonds, and his bills and morgidges? How'd ye like to
see the good ould blood that's in it now, driven out by the likes of
Flannelly and Keegan, and them to be masthers in Ballycloran?"

"That's all very well, Pat, and we'd be sorry to see harum come to
Mr. Larry and the young masther along of such born robbers as them;
but is them dearer to us than our own flesh and blood? As long as
they and the like of them'd stand between us and want, the divil a
Keegan of them all'd dare put a foot in Ballycloran. But who is it
now rules all at Ballycloran? Who, but that bloody robber, Ussher?
They'd go through the country for him, the born ruffian,--may food
choke him!--and he making little of them all the time. Bad manners to
the like of him! they say he never called an honest woman his mother.
Will I, Mr. Brady, be giving my blood for them, and he putting my
brother in gaol, and all for sitting up warming his shins at