’"Certainly,” replied I, “if you will each come separately with me into another room.”

’They did so.  I named to each an amount something less than the sum set down by the notary, partly as a reserve, lest any tenants holding under these leaseholders should afterwards require to be paid, and partly lest it might be supposed we were yielding to a legal claim already granted.  After a little consideration, they all severally signed the consent for judgment.’

The other leaseholders followed.  The leases were all surrendered, and the holders became tenants-at-will.  I had the pleasure of meeting one of the most influential of them a short time ago at Geashill—­a fine tall, patriarchal-looking gentleman, the representative of one of the English settlers.  He was waiting about humbly and patiently for an opportunity of speaking to the young agent, who is as courteous and kind as he is efficient.  But I could not help reflecting how different would be the bearing of the tenant if he had been still in possession of his lease!  His dwelling-house was not as grand as the stylish villa which the landlord has erected beside it.  But every stick and stone about the place were his own property.  So also were the old timber trees, which his ancestors planted.  But now every stick and stone and tree belong to Lord Digby, and as such the agent exhibits them to visitors—­the buildings, the gardens, the trees, the hedges, the rich pasture fields, all having such a look of comfort and independence.  I asked, ’Did you ever know a place like this old home of yours to have been made by a tenant-at-will?’ He answered in the negative.

The tenant on an ‘improved estate’ must be very careful about his speech.  An agent has a hundred eyes and a hundred ears.  People who seek ‘favours’ at the office, find it useful to be spies upon their neighbours, to detect violations of the ‘rules of the estate.’  It is mainly through the spy-system that Mr. Steuart Trench, according to his own avowal, won most of his victories over refractory tenants.  For example, on this estate he had a woman acting as a spy at the meetings of the Ribbonmen; and he boasted that a dog could not bark at Farney without his knowledge.  I refer to this matter here again for the purpose of saying that I cannot regard as an improvement of the country a system which establishes a despot on every estate, which degrades the tenant into a day-labourer, which—­land being limited and scarce—­substitutes the old, barbarous, pastoral system for tillage, which banishes the poor and enslaves the rich.  Lord Digby levelled cottages, gardens, farms, manured the land, got an enormous crop, which in one year paid all the expenses; and then laid out the land in vast tracts of pasture, for which he gets from 30 s. to 40 s. an acre.  That is improvement for him, but not for the people, not for the country, not for the state, not for the Queen.  It may crush Ribbonism.  But for every Ribbonman crushed, a hundred Fenians spring up; and disaffection becomes not a mere local plague, but an endemic.  Mr. Trench gives a significant hint to other landlords to follow the example of Lord Digby, assuring them that it will ‘pay.’