"Ye're mighty well informed entirely," says Donovan with a wicked sneer.

"If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, you had better leave
this room," says Brian, flushing darkly and making a step towards him.

"Who are _you_, to order me about?" says the man, with a fierce glance.
"Ye're not my master yet, I can tell ye, an' maybe _ye never will be_."

"Leave the room," says Brian, white with rage, pointing imperiously to
the door.

"Curse ye!" says the man; yet, warned by the expression on Brian's face,
he moves in a rebellious manner to the door, and so disappears.

* * * * *

"They are the most unpleasant peasantry in the world," says the squire,
some hours later,--the words coming like a dreary sigh through the
clouds of tobacco-smoke that curl upwards from his favorite meershaum.

He and Brian and Owen Kelly are all sitting in the library, the scene of
the late encounter, and have been meditating silently upon many matters,
in which perhaps Love has the largest share, considering his votaries
are two to one, when the squire most unexpectedly gives way to the
speech aforesaid.

"The women are very handsome," says Mr. Kelly.

"Handsome is as handsome does," says the squire with a grunt.

"Don't the Protestant tenants pay?" asks Owen, presently, who is in a
blissful state of ignorance about the tenant-right affair generally.

"They're just the worst of the lot," says old Desmond, testily: "they
come whimpering here, saying they would gladly pay, but that they are
afraid of the others, and won't I let them off? and so forth."

"I wonder," says Brian, dreamily,--it is very late, and he is in a
gently, kindly, somnolent state, born of the arm-chair and his pipe,--"I
wonder if one was to give in to them entirely, would they be generous
enough to----"

"If you can't talk sense," interrupted his uncle, angrily, "don't talk
at all. I am surprised at you, Brian! Have you seen or noticed nothing
all these years, have you been blind to the state of the country, that
you give sound to such utter trash? Pshaw! the weakly sentiment of the
day sickens me."

"But suppose one was to humor them. I am not alluding to you, my dear
George," to his uncle,--"I know you have humored them considerably,--but
I mean landlords generally: would not peace be restored? That fellow
Donovan to-day was beyond doubt impertinent to the last degree; but of
course he meant nothing: they would, I shou