“That’s all very true, I grant you,” replied the other; “but in the mean time we must keep up appearances.  The question, so far as regards M’Mahon, is—­not so much whether he is corrupt or not, as whether he has unseated you; that is the fatal fact against him; and if we allow that to pass without making him suffer for it, you will find that on the next election he may have many an imitator, and your chances will not be worth much—­that’s all.”

“Very well, Fethertonge,” replied the indolent and feeble-minded man, “I leave him to you; manage him or punish him as you like; but I do beg that you will let me hear no more about him.  Keep his father, however, on the property; I insist on that; he is an honest man, for he voted for me; keep him on his farm at reasonable terms too, such,—­of course, as he can live on.”

The reasonable terms proposed by Fethertonge were, however, such as old Tom M’Mahon could not with any prospect of independence encounter.  Even this, however, was not to him the most depressing consideration.  Faith had been wantonly and deliberately broken with him—­the solemn words of a dying man had been disregarded—­and, as Fethertonge had made him believe, by that son who had always professed to regard and honor his father’s memory.

“I assure you, M’Mahon,” replied the agent, in the last interview he ever had with him, “I assure you I have done all in my power to bring matters about; but without avail.  It is a painful thing to have to do with an obstinate man, M’Mahon; with a man who, although he seems quiet and easy, will and must have everything his own way.”

“Well, sir,” replied M’Mahon, “you know what his dying father’s words wor to me.”

“And more than I know them, I can assure you,” he whispered, in a very significant voice, and with a nod of the head that seemed to say, “your landlord knows them as well as I do.  I have done my duty, and communicated them to him, as I ought.”

M’Mahon shook his head in a melancholy manner, and said,—­

“Well, sir, at any rate I know the worst.  I couldn’t now have any confidence or trust in such a man; I could depend upon neither his word or his promise; I couldn’t look upon him as a friend, for he didn’t prove himself one to my son when he stood in need of one.  It’s clear that he doesn’t care about the welfare and prosperity of his tenantry; and for that raison—­or rather for all these raisons put together—­I’ll join my son, and go to a country where, by all accounts, there’s better prospects for them that’s honest and industrious than there is in this unfortunate one of ours,—­where the interest of the people is so much neglected—­neglected! no, but never thought of at all!  Good-bye, sir,” he added, taking up his hat, whilst the features of this sterling and honest man were overcast with a solemn and pathetic spirit, “don’t consider me any longer your tenant.  For many a long year has our names been—­but no matther—­the time is come at last, and the M’Mahon’s of Carriglass and Ahadarra will be known there no more.  It wasn’t our fault; we wor willin’ to live—­oh! not merely willin’ to live, but anxious to die there; but it can’t be.  Goodbye, sir.”  And so they parted.