"Did Father O'Neill tell you, sir," he said, "that Captain Hamilton was quite willing to talk with him and Father O'Donel, the parish priests, and with the Coolgreany people, but he would have nothing to say to any one who was not their priest, and had no business to be meddling with the matter at all?" "No; he did not tell me that." "Ah! well, sir, that made all the difference. Father Dunphy, who was there, is a high-tempered man, and he said he had just as much right to represent the tenants as Captain Hamilton to represent the landlord, and that Captain Hamilton wouldn't allow. It was the outside people made all the trouble. In June of last year there was a conference at my house, and all that time there was a Committee sitting at Coolgreany, and the tenants would not be allowed to do anything without the Committee." "And who made the Committee?" "Oh, they made themselves, I suppose, sir. There was Sir Thomas Esmonde--he was a convert, you know, of Father O'Neill--and Mr. Mayne and Mr. John Dillon. And Dr. Dillon of Arklow, he was as busy as he could be till the evictions were made in July. And then he was in retreat. And I believe, sir, it is quite true that he wanted the Bishop to let him come out of the retreat just to have a hand in the business." The police sergeant, a very cool, sensible man, quite agreed with the bailiff as to the influence upon the present situation of the ex-gamekeeper Kinsella, and his friend Eyan. "If they were two Invincibles, sir," he said, "these member fellows of the League couldn't be in greater fear of them than they are. They say nothing, and do just as they please. That Kinsella, when Mr. John Dillon was down here, just told him before a lot of people that he 'wanted no words and no advice from him,' and he's just in that surly way with all the people about." As to the Brooke estate, I am told here it was bought more than twenty years ago with a Landed Estates Court title from Colonel Forde, by the grandfather of Mr. Brooke. He paid about £75,000 sterling for it. His son died young, and the present owner came into it as a child, Mr. Vesey being then the agent, who, during the minority, spent a great deal on improving the property. Captain Hamilton came in as agent only a few years ago. While the Act of 1881 was impending, an abatement was granted of more than twenty per cent. In 1882 the tenants all paid except eleven, who went into Court and got their rents cut down by the Sub-Commissioners. There were appeals; and in 1885, after Court valuations, the rents cut down by the Sub-Commissioners were restored in several cases. There never was any rack-renting on the estate at all. There are upon it in all more than a hundred tenants, twelve of whom are Protestants, holding a little less in all than one-fourth of the property. There are fifteen judicial tenants, twenty-one lease-holders, and seventy-seven hold from year to year.