MY LORD’S AGENT.
One was shot, some years ago, and a great to-do was made about it. In this case, as in most of the others, it was not a question of rent. My Lord had visited his estates to see how much more money could be screwed out of his tenants, and his lecherous eye happened to rest upon a very beautiful girl, the eldest daughter of a widow with seven children. Now, this beautiful girl was betrothed to a nice sort of a boy, who, having been in America, knew a thing or two. My Lord, through his agent, who is always a pimp as well as a brigand, ordered Kitty to come to the castle. Kitty, knowing very well what that meant, refused.
“Very good,” says the agent, “your mother is in arrears for rent, and you had better see My Lord, or I shall be compelled to evict her.”
Kitty knew what that meant, also. It meant that her gray-haired mother, her six helpless brothers and sisters, would be pitched out by the roadside, to die of starvation and exposure; and so Kitty, without saying a word to her mother or any one else, went to the castle, and was kept there three days, till My Lord was tired of her, when she was permitted to go.