of land and let him go to America, so that they might all be at
peace,--could they all have turned against him and taken Carroll's
part? As far as he had been able to gather the feelings of the
people, from conversations with them, they had all acknowledged
Carroll to be wrong. He would have said that there was not one among
them who was not his friend rather than Carroll's. He was aware that
there had been ill-feeling about in other parts of the country. There
had been,--so he was told,--a few demagogues in Galway town, American
chiefly, who had come thither to do what harm they could; and he had
heard that there was discontent in parts of Mayo, about Ballyhaunis
and Lough Glinn; but where he lived, round Lough Corrib, there had
been no evil symptoms of such a nature. Now suddenly he found himself
as though surrounded by a nest of hornets. There were eighty acres of
his land under water, and no one would tell him how it was done, or
by whom.

And now, to make the matter worse, there had come upon him this
trouble with reference to his own boy. He would not believe the story
which his daughters had told him; and yet he knew within his heart
that they were infinitely the better worthy of credit. He believed in
them. He knew them to be good and honest and zealous on his behalf;
but how much better did he love poor Florian! And in this matter of
the child's change of religion, in which he had foolishly taken the
child's part, he could not but think that Father Malachi had been
most unkind to him; not that he knew what Father Malachi had done
in the matter, but Florian talked as though he had been supported
all through by the priest. Father Malachi had, in truth, done very
little. He had told the boy to go to his father. The boy had said
that he had done so, and that his father had assented. "But Frank and
the girls are totally against it. They have no sense of religion at
all." Then Father Malachi had told him to say his prayers, and come
regularly to mass.

Mr. Jones agreed with his daughters that it behoved him to punish the
culprit in this matter, but, nevertheless, he thought that it would
be better for him to let it go unpunished than to bring his boy
into collision with such a one as Pat Carroll. He twice talked the
matter over with Florian, and twice did so to no effect. At first he
threatened the young sinner, and frowned at him. But his frowns did
no good. Florian, if he could stand firm against his sister Edit