submit themselves to it, I do not wonder that in his more lucid moments a Catholic priest like Father Quilter feels himself moved to denounce them as “poor slaves.”  Of course with a benevolent neutral like myself, the question always recurs, Who trained them to submit to this sort of thing?  But I really am at a loss to see why a parcel of conspirators should be encouraged in the nineteenth century to bully Irish farmers out of their manhood and their money, because in the seventeenth century it pleased the stupid rulers of England, as the great Duke of Ormond indignantly said, to “put so general a discountenance upon the improvement of Ireland, as if it were resolved that to keep it low is to keep it safe.”

On going back to the little drawing-room after dinner we found Mrs. Tener among her flowers, busy with some literary work.  It is not a gay life here, she admits, her nearest visiting acquaintance living some seven or eight miles away—­but she takes long walks with a couple of stalwart dogs in her company, and has little fear of being molested.  “The tenants are in more danger,” she thinks, “than the landlords or the agents”—­nor do I see any reason to doubt this, remembering the Connells whom I saw at Edenvale, and the story of the “boycotted” Fitzmaurice brutally murdered in the presence of his daughter at Lixnaw on the 31st of January, as if by way of welcome to Lord Ripon and Mr. Morley on their arrival at Dublin.

PORTUMNA, Feb. 29th.—­Early this morning two of the “evicted” tenants, and an ex-bailiff of the property here, came by appointment to discuss the situation with Mr. Tener.  He asked me to attend the conference, and upon learning that I was an American, they expressed their perfect willingness that I should do so.  The tenants were quiet, sturdy, intelligent-looking men.  I asked one of them if he objected to telling me whether he thought the rent he had refused to pay excessive, or whether he was simply unable to pay it.

“I had the money, sir, to pay the rent,” he replied, “and I wanted to pay the rent—­only I wouldn’t be let.”

“Who wouldn’t let you?” I asked.

“The people that were in with the League.”

“Was your holding worth anything to you?” I asked.

“It was indeed.  Two or three years ago I could have sold my right for a matter of three hundred pounds.”

“Yes!” interrupted the other tenant, “and a bit before that for six hundred pounds.”

“Is it not worth three hundred pounds to you now?”

“No,” said Mr. Tener, “for he has lost it by refusing the settlement I offered to make, and driving us into proceedings against him, and allowing his six months’ equity of redemption to lapse.”

“And sure, if we had it, no one would be let to buy it now, sir,” said the tenant.  “But it’s we that hope Mr. Tener here will let us come back on the holdings—­that is, if we’d be protected coming back.”

“Now, do you see,” said Mr. Tener, “what it is you ask me to do?  You ask me to make you a present outright of the property you chose foolishly to throw away, and to do this after you have put the estate to endless trouble and expense; don’t you think that is asking me to do a good deal?”