than those of the agent himself, he began to give a greater and less guarded scope to his natural principles.  Mr. Hickman, the agent, had been strongly disgusted by the political profligacy with which the union was carried; and had, on more than one occasion, intimated a doubt whether, as an honest man, he could render political support to any one who had participated in its corruption or recognized the justice of those principles on which it had been carried.  All this gave M’Clutchy that imperturbable insolence which is inseparable from petty tyranny and licensed extortion.  Day after day did his character come out in all its natural deformity.  The outcry against him was not now confined to this portion of the property, or that—­it became pretty general; and, perhaps, at the time we have brought him on the stage, there was not a man in Ireland, holding the situation he did, who was more feared and more detested.

Some time previous to this, however, Hickman’s eyes were opened to his undisguised character, and what he could do he did.  On finding that the Vulture was reviving all the oppressive usages with which property in Ireland is so penally taxed, he immediately gave orders that such exactions should be discontinued by M’Clutchy, and resisted by the tenants.  In spite of all this, however, there were upon the property many timid persons, who, dreading his malignity of purpose, still continued to yield to his avarice and rapacity, that which nothing else but a dread of his vengeance could extort from them.  Thus did he feather his nest at the expense of their terrors.

Hickman, who had also been agent to old Topertoe, felt a kind of personal attachment to that good-humored reprobate, so long as he believed him to be honest.  Old Tom’s venality, however, at the union, made him rather sick of the connection, and the conduct, or rather expensive profligacy of the young absentee Lord, rendered his situation, as an honest and humane agent, one of great pain to himself, considering his position between landlord and tenant.

He knew besides, that many men of his class had taken most scandalous advantages of the embarrassments which their dishonesty had occasioned in the affairs of their employers, and lent them their own rents in the moments of distress, in order to get a lien on their property.  For this reason, and out of a feeling of honor and self-respect, Mr. Hickman had made it a point of principle to lend the young Lord, no money under any circumstances.  As far as he could legitimately, and within the ordinary calculations of humanity, feed Lord Cumber’s prodigality of expenditure he did it.  This, however, was not exactly the kind of agent which his lordship wanted, and however highly he respected, and honored him, still that direful word necessity goaded him into a forgetfulness of his own real interests, and of what was due to Hickman.  He wanted an agent with less feeling, less scruple, less independence, and more of that accommodating