“Listen, then; before you come here to me with a barefaced and dishonest
lie in your mouth, you ought to have gone to the C------m Savings’ Bank,
and drawn from the sum of two hundred and seventy-three pounds,
which you have lying there, the slight sum of seven pounds twelve and
nine-pence which you owe us.  Now, Carey, I tell you that you are nothing
but an impudent, scheming, dishonest scoundrel; and I say, once for all,
that we will see whether you, and every knavish rascal like you, or the
law of the land, is the stronger.  Mark me now, you impudent knave, we
shall never ask you again.  The next time you see us will be at the head
of a body of police, or a party of the king’s troops; for I swear that,
as sure as, the sun shines, so certainly will we take the tithe due out
of your marrow, if we can get it nowhere else.”

“Maybe, then,” said Carey, “you will find that we’ll laugh at the law, the polis, the king’s troops, and Misther John Purcel into the bargain; and I now tell you to your teeth, that if one sixpence of tithe would save the sowls of every one belongin’ to you, I won’t pay it—­so do your worst, and I defy you.”

“Begone, you scoundrel.  You are, I perceive, as rank a rebel as ever missed the rope; but you won’t miss it.  Go home now; for, as I said this moment, we will take the tithe out of your marrow, if you had thousands of your cut-throat and cowardly White-boys at your back.  Don’t think this villainy will pass with us; we know how to handle you, and will too; begone, you dishonest ruffian, I have no more time to lose with you.”

In this manner almost every interview terminated.  Purcel was a warm and impetuous young fellow, who certainly detested everything in the shape of dishonesty or deceit and here he had too many instances of both to be able to keep his temper, especially when he felt that he and his family were the sufferers.  Other cases, however, were certainly very dissimilar to this; we allude especially to those of real distress, where the means of meeting the demand were not to be had.  With such individuals the proctor’s sons were disposed to be lenient, which is certainly more than could be said if he himself had to deal with them.

“Jemmy Mulligan,” he said, to a poor-looking man, “go home to your family.  We don’t intend to take harsh measures with you, Jemmy; and you needn’t come here again till we send for you.”

“God bless you, sir; troth I don’t know why the people say that you’re all hard and unfeelin’—­I can say for myself that I never found you so.  Good morning, sir, and thank you, Misther John; and God forgive them that blackens you as they do!”

“Yes, Jemmy, I know they hate us, because we compel them to act honestly; but they will soon find that honesty, after all, is the cheapest course,—­for we shall take d—­d good care to make them pay through the nose for their knavery.  We know they have a gang of firebrand agitators and hungry lawyers at their back; but we shall make them feel that the law is stronger than any treasonable combination that can be got up against it.”