n! don't think, after all these years among you, I am to be
intimidated: you should know me better."

The man cowers before the haughty glance the old squire casts upon him,
and retreats behind his cringing manner once again.

"I thought ye might take into considheration the fact that I'm of yer
own religion," he says cunningly.

"That you are a Protestant does not weigh with me one inch. One tenant
is as worthy of consideration as another; and, to tell the truth, I find
your Roman Catholic brethren far easier to deal with, I will have no
whining about differences of that sort. All I require is what is justly
due to me; and that I shall expect on Monday. You understand?"

"Ye're a hard man," says Moloney, with an evil glance.

"I expected you to say nothing else. All the kindness of years is
forgotten because of one denial. How often have I let you off your rent
entirely during these twenty years we have been landlord and tenant
together! There, go! I have other business to attend to. But on Monday,
remember."

"Ye won't see me that day or any other," says the fellow, insolently,
sticking his hat on his head with a defiant gesture.

"Very good. That is your own lookout. You know the consequences of your
non-arrival. Denis," to the footman, "show this man out, and send
Donovan here."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Donovan, what is it?" says Desmond, a few minutes later, as the
library door again opens to admit the other malcontent. He is a stout,
thick-set man, with fierce eyes and a lowering brow, and altogether a
very "villanous countenance." He has mercifully escaped, however, the
hypocritical meanness of the face that has just gone. There is a
boldness, a reckless, determined daring about this man, that stamps him
as a leading spirit among men of evil minds.

"I've come here to spake to ye to-night, Misther Desmond, as man to
man," he says, with a somewhat swaggering air.

"With all my heart," says The Desmond; "but be as fair to me as I have
ever been to you and yours, and we shall come to amicable terms soon
enough."

"As to fairness," says the man, "I don't see how any landlord in Ireland
can spake of it without a blush."

Strange to say, the aggressive insolence of this man fails to rouse in
Mr. Desmond's breast the anger that the servile humility of the last
comer had brought into active being.

"Look here, Donovan," he says, "I've been a good landlord to you; and I
expect you, therefore, to be a good te