. Lord Ardrahan and Sir Jasper might have seemed to take
upon themselves an authority which Daly would not endure. And
Blake, of Letterkenny, would have been too young to carry with him
sufficient weight. Sir Nicholas himself was a Roman Catholic, and was
Peter's father, and Peter would have been in a scrape for having told
the story of the pistol. So Mr. Persse put himself forward. "Daly,"
he said, trotting up to the master, "I'm afraid we're going to
encounter a lot of these Landleaguers at Moytubber."

"What do they want at Moytubber? Nobody is doing anything to them."

"Of course not; they are a set of miserable ruffians. I'm sorry to
say that there are a lot of my tenants among them. But it's no use
discussing that now."

"I can only go on," said Daly, "as though they were in bed." Then he
put his hand in his pocket, and felt that the pistol was there.

Mr. Persse saw what he did, and knew that his hand was on the pistol.
"We have only a minute now to decide," he said.

"To decide what?" asked Daly.

"There must be no violence on our side." Daly turned round his
face upon him, and looked at him from the bottom of those two dark
caverns. "Believe me when I say it; there must be no violence on our
side."

"If they attempt to stop my horse?"

"There must be no violence on our side to bring us, or rather you, to
further grief."

"By God! I'd shoot the man who did it," said Daly.

"No, no; let there be no shooting. Were you to do so, there can be no
doubt that you would be tried by a jury and--"

"Hanged," said Daly. "May be so; I have got to look that in the face.
It is an accursed country in which we are living."

"But you would not encounter the danger in carrying out a trifling
amusement such as this?"

Daly again turned round and looked at him. Was this work of his life,
this employment on which he was so conscientiously eager, to be
called trifling? Did they know the thoughts which it cost him, the
hard work by which it was achieved, the days and nights which were
devoted to it? Trifling amusement! To him it was the work of his
life. To those around him it was the best part of theirs.

"I will not interfere with them," Daly said.

He alluded here to the enemies of hunting generally. He had not
hunted the country so long without having had many rows with many
men. Farmers, angry with him for the moment, had endeavoured to stop
him as he rode upon their land; and they had poisoned his foxes from