“March! why, my good fellow, there's six years due last twenty-fifth; what are you thinking of?”
“Sure you don't mean I'm to pay, for what was given to me and my father?” said Owen, with a wild look that almost startled the agent.
“I mean precisely what I say,” said Lucas, reddening with anger at the tone Owen assumed. “I mean that you owe six years and a half of rent; for which, if you neither produce receipt nor money, you'll never owe another half year for the same holding.”
“And that's flat!” said the Major, laughing.
“And that's flat!” echoed Lucas, joining in the mirth.
Owen looked from one to the other of the speakers, and although never indisposed to enjoy a jest, he could not, for the life of him, conceive what possible occasion for merriment existed at the present moment.
“Plenty of grouse on that mountain, an't there?” said the Major, tapping his boot with his cane.
But, although the question was addressed to Owen, he was too deeply sunk in his own sad musings to pay it any attention.
“Don't you hear, my good fellow? Major Lynedoch asks, if there are not plenty of grouse on the mountain.”
“Did the present landlord say that I was to pay this back rent?” said Owen deliberately, after a moment of deep thought.