’"I can go no further,” said I; “what have you brought me here for?  What do you want me to do?” Again the same voice which I had first heard at the office, though I could not identify the speaker from the shouting and confusion around me, cried aloud, “We want a reduction of our rents, will you promise to get us that?”

’There are times of instant danger, when it is said that the whole of a man’s past life rushes before him in the spaces of a single moment.  If ever there be such a time, this was such to me.  I stood there, exhausted, without one friendly face on which to rest, and surrounded by the worst of ten thousand men who seemed determined to have a victim.  I knew and felt all this.  So I said very quietly, as a last effort to save my life, and hoping they would name something I could promise to ask,

’"And what reduction will you be content with?”

’Again the same voice replied,

’"We will never pay more than one-half our present rents.”

’"Then,” said I, “there ends the matter, I never will promise that.”

’There was a pause, and a dead silence.  I stood naked and bareheaded before them.  They stood opposite to me, with their sticks clenched in their hands, ready to strike.  I looked at them, and they at me.  They hesitated; no one would strike me first.  I saw that they wavered, and instinctively, in a moment I felt that I had won.  This sudden revulsion of feeling—­though I was still externally motionless—­sent the blood throbbing to my temples with a rush that became almost oppressive.  But the strange pause continued—­when at length a shout was raised from the old stentorian voice again, “Stand off, boys—­for your lives! no one shall harm him—­he is a good man after all!” and in a moment I was surrounded by a new set of faces, who dashed furiously towards me.  They raised me on their shoulders, swept my old enemies away from me, procured me some water to drink, and carried me, now completely overcome, exhausted, and almost fainting, into the demesne of Loughfea.

’Here again these suddenly converted friends desired me to get up on a chair, and speak to the crowd now assembled before the castle.  I did so.  A reaction for the moment had taken place within me, and I felt some return of strength.

’I told the people I had never injured them.  That it was a shame, and a disgrace of which I had not believed any Irishman to be capable, to treat a stranger as they had dealt with me that day.  That in my own country I could have as many to fight for me as were now against me, and in short I abused them right heartily and soundly.  They bore it without a murmur.  My new friends cheered me vociferously, and I was carried, now quite unable to walk, into the Castle of Loughfea.  Mr. Shirley’s architect here appeared upon the scene, and perceiving that the people were much exasperated at not finding Mr. Shirley at the castle, and that some of the most violent were disposed in consequence to make a fresh attack upon me as I was being carried exhausted inside the gates, he promised to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and in some degree calmed their feelings.  The excitement was past.  Mr. Shirley had not been there, and the people at last quietly dispersed.