JULY 175 



'Well, but,' I observed, 'the tenants are not pleased 

 with the landlords they have got. Will they not be 

 better contented when they are quit of them ? ' 



'Well, yer honour, I'll tell ye the God's truth; I'll 

 not desave ye ' (an exordium which one soon learns to 

 regard with peculiar distrust of what follows). 'It's 

 meself is not aware how it may be in other disthricts of 

 Ireland, but divil a fault have we with the landlords 

 that's here. They're the beautiful gintry, and of the 

 fine ould stock; and they were having me told they'd 

 have to quit. An' fwhat 's to take the place of them ? 

 Not but what the best, or some of them, isn't gone 

 already. There was Tom Conolly, now, maybe your 

 honour would know him about London. Ye did not? 

 Ah, but he was the bhoy to send sparks through the 

 darkness. And the fine property was his ! Ye see them 

 woods and hills fornint us beyant the river ? Well, they 

 were all Tom Conolly's, every sthick and sthone in them ; 

 from one end of the estate to the other was six-and-thirty 

 Irish miles ; forty thousand pounds of rint, and a quate 

 ten thousand a year in County Kildare besides. Ah! 

 Tom Conolly, he was the raal gintleman.' 



' He 's gone, is he ? ' I interjected. 



' Ah, gone is it ? it 's long since he was afther going, 

 and there has been no man to fill the place of him since. 

 It was the heart was too big in him. I seen him in 

 Ballyshannon on fair-day, coming to the window of the 

 hotel where he'd be afther taking his refreshment, and 

 him with the fire-shovel full of sovereigns in his hand. 

 The sthreet would be full of counthry people, and he up 

 with the window and scattering the gold among them. 

 B'lieve me, it was then ye 'd see the scrummaging.' 



