rn enemies of all freedom and
enlightenment! The priest never got angry. He was too cunning for that,
and he even laughed at some of my anecdotes, of which I related a great
many.

"Don't be so hard on him, Potts," whispered my Lord, as the day wore on;
"he 's not one of us, you know!"

This speech put me into a flutter of delight. It was not alone that he
called me Potts, but there was also an acceptance of me as one of
hier own set. We were, in fact, henceforth _nous autres_. Enchanting
recognition, never to be forgotten!

"But what would you do with us?" said Dyke, mildly remonstrating against
some severe measures we of the landed interest might be yet driven to
resort to.

"I don't know,--that is to say,--I have not made up my mind whether it
were better to make a clearance of you altogether, or to bribe you."

"Bribe us by all means, then!" said he, with a most serious earnestness.

"Ah! but could we rely upon you?" I asked.

"That would greatly depend upon the price."

"I 'll not haggle about terms, nor I 'm sure would Keldrum," said I,
nodding over to his Lordship.

"You are only just to me, in that," said he, smiling.

"That's all fine talking for you fellows who had the luck to be first
on the list, but what are poor devils like Oxley and myself to do?" said
Hammond. "Taxation comes down to second sons."

"And the 'Times' says that's all right," added Oxley.

"And I say it's all wrong; and I say more," I broke in: "I say that of
all the tyrannies of Europe, I know of none like that newspaper. Why,
sir, whose station, I would ask, nowadays, can exempt him from its
impertinent criticisms? Can Keldrum say--can I say--that to-morrow or
next day we shall not be arraigned for this, that, or t'other? I choose,
for instance, to manage my estate,--the property that has been in my
family for centuries,--the acres that have descended to us by grants
as old as Magna Charta. I desire, for reasons that seem sufficient to
myself, to convert arable into grass land. I say to one of my tenant
farmers--it's Hedgeworth--no matter, I shall not mention names, but I
say to him--"

"I know the man," broke in the priest; "you mean Hedgeworth Davis, of
Mount Davis."

"No, sir, I do not," said I, angrily, for I resented this attempt to run
me to earth.

"Hedgeworth! Hedgeworth! It ain't that fellow that was in the Rifles;
the 2d battalion, is it?" said Ozley.

"I repeat," said I, "that I will mention no names."

"M