his children, and more remote descendants;
and on his account he is, or ought to be, bound by the ties of a
different and higher character, to see that it shall not pass down to
them in an impoverished or mutilated condition. The middleman, on the
contrary, feels little or none of this, and very naturally endeavors to
sweep from off the property he holds, whilst he holds it, by every means
possible, as much as it can yield, knowing that his tenure of it is
but temporary and precarious. For this reason, then, it too frequently
happened that on finding his tenant's leases near expiring, he resorted
to the most unscrupulous and oppressive means to remove from his land
those who may have made improvements upon it, in order to let it to
other claimants at a rent high in proportion to these very improvements.

Our readers know that this is not an extreme case, but a plain,
indisputable fact, which has, unfortunately, been one of the standing
grievances of our unhappy country, and one of the great curses attending
the vicious and unsettled state of property in Ireland.

Dick-o'-the-Grange's ejectment of Condy Dalton and his family,
therefore, had, in the eyes of many of the people, nothing in it so
startlingly oppressive as might be supposed. On the contrary, the act
was looked upon as much in the character of a matter of right on his
part, as one of oppression to them. Long usage had reconciled the
peasantry to it, and up to the period of our tale, there had been no one
to awaken and direct public feeling against it.

A fortnight had now elapsed since the scene in which young Dalton had
poured out his despair and misery over the dead body of Peggy Murtagh,
and during that period an incident occurred, which, although by no
means akin to the romantic, had produced, nevertheless, a change in the
position of Dick-o'-the-Grange himself, without effecting any either in
his designs or inclinations. His own leases had expired, so that, in one
sense, he stood exactly in the same relation to the head landlord,
in which his own tenants did to him. Their leases had dropped about a
twelvemonth or more before his, and he now waited until he should take
out new ones himself, previous to his proceeding any further in the
disposition and readjustment of his property. Such was his position
and theirs, with reference to each other, when one morning, about a
fortnight or better subsequent to his last appearance, young Dick,
accompanied by the