"Nonsense! the child was six months old, and Barry was better able to pay than any tenant I have, and more willing, too, until this precious Land League tampered with him. He has proved he had the money since, by paying a sum to Sullivan yonder for board and lodging that would have kept him in his own house for twice the length of time he has been there. I know all about it: I have made it my business to find it out."
"Ye're mighty well informed entirely," says Donovan with a wicked sneer.
"If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, you had better leave this room," says Brian, flushing darkly and making a step towards him.
"Who are you, to order me about?" says the man, with a fierce glance. "Ye're not my master yet, I can tell ye, an' maybe ye never will be."
"Leave the room," says Brian, white with rage, pointing imperiously to the door.
"Curse ye!" says the man; yet, warned by the expression on Brian's face, he moves in a rebellious manner to the door, and so disappears.
"They are the most unpleasant peasantry in the world," says the squire, some hours later,—the words coming like a dreary sigh through the clouds of tobacco-smoke that curl upwards from his favorite meershaum.
He and Brian and Owen Kelly are all sitting in the library, the scene of the late encounter, and have been meditating silently upon many matters, in which perhaps Love has the largest share, considering his votaries are two to one, when the squire most unexpectedly gives way to the speech aforesaid.
"The women are very handsome," says Mr. Kelly.