‘Maybe you are,’ muttered Gill, though certainly the concurrence scarcely sounded hearty, while he meanwhile arranged the books. ‘Oh, I know well enough what you mean. If a man doesn’t work with a spade or follow the plough, you won’t believe that he works at all. He must drive, or dig, or drain, or mow. There’s no labour but what strains a man’s back, and makes him weary about the loins; but I’ll tell you, Peter Gill, that it’s here’--and he touched his forehead with his finger--‘it’s here is the real workshop. It’s thinking and contriving; setting this against that; doing one thing that another may happen, and guessing what will come if we do this and don’t do that; carrying everything in your brain, and, whether you are sitting over a glass with a friend or taking a nap after dinner, thinking away all the time! What would you call that, Peter Gill--what would you call that?’ ‘Madness, begorra, or mighty near it!’ ‘No; it’s just work--brain-work. As much above mere manual labour as the intellect, the faculty that raises us above the brutes, is above the--the--’ ‘Yes,’ said Gill, opening the large volume and vaguely passing his hand over a page. ‘It’s somewhere there about the Conacre!’ ‘You’re little better than a beast!’ said Kearney angrily. ‘Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. Let us finish this, now that we’re about it.’ And so saying, he deposited his other books and papers on the table, and then drew from his breast-pocket a somewhat thick roll of exceedingly dirty bank-notes, fastened with a leather thong. ‘I’m glad to see some money at last, Peter,’ cried Kearney, as his eye caught sight of the notes. ‘Faix, then, it’s little good they’ll do ye,’ muttered the other gruffly. ‘What d’ye mean by that, sir?’ asked he angrily. ‘Just what I said, my lord, the devil a more nor less, and that the money you see here is no more yours nor it is mine! It belongs to the land it came from. Ay, ay, stamp away, and go red in the face: you must hear the truth, whether you like it or no. The place we’re living in is going to rack and ruin out of sheer bad treatment. There’s not a hedge on the estate; there isn’t a gate that could be called a gate; the holes the people live in isn’t good enough for badgers; there’s no water for the mill at the cross-roads; and the Loch meadows is drowned with wet--we’re dragging for the hay, like seaweed! And you think you’ve a right to these’--and he actually shook the notes at him--to go and squander them on them “impedint” Englishmen that was laughing at you! Didn’t I hear them myself about the tablecloth that one said was the sail of a boat.’ ‘Will you hold your tongue?’ cried Kearney, wild with passion. ‘I will not! I’ll die on the floore but I’ll speak my mind.’ This was not only a favourite phrase of Mr. Gill’s, but it was so far significant that it always indicated he was about to give notice to leave--a menace on his part of no unfrequent occurrence. ‘Ye’s going, are ye?’ asked Kearney jeeringly.