“Mr. M------,” said Owen, “we're thrated very badly. Sir, you needn't look at me, for I'm not afeerd to spake the thruth; no bullyin', sir, will make me say anything in your favor that you don't desarve. You've broken the half of them by severity; you've turned the tenants aginst yourself and his honor here; and I tell you now, though you're to the fore, that, in the coorse of a short time, there'll be bad work upon the estate, except his honor, here, looks into his own affairs, and hears the complaints of the people. Look at these resates, your honor; they'll show you, sir,--” “Carthy, I can hear no such language against the gentleman to whom I entrust the management of my property; of course, I refer the matter solely to him. I can do nothing in it.” “Kathleen, avourneen!” claimed the poor man, as he looked up despairingly to heaven; “and ye, poor darlins of my heart! is this the news I'm to have for yez whin I go home?--As you hope for mercy, sir, don't turn away your ear from my petition, that I'd humbly make to yourself. Cowld, and hunger, and hardship, are at home before me, yer honor. If you'd be plased to look at these resates, you'd see that I always paid my rint; and 'twas sickness and the hard times--” “And your own honesty, industry, and good conduct,” said the Agent, giving a dark and malignant sneer at him. “Carthy, it shall be my business to see that you do not spread a bad spirit through the tenantry much longer.--Sir, you have heard the fellow's admission. It is an implied threat he will give us much serious trouble. There is not such another incendiary on your property--not one, upon my honor.” “Sir,” said a servant, “dinner is on the table.” “Sinclair,” said his landlord, “give him another crown, and tell him to trouble me no more.” Saying; which, he and the Agent went up to the drawing-room, and, in a moment, Owen saw a large party sweep down stairs, full of glee and vivacity, by whom both himself and his distresses were as completely forgotten as if they had never existed. He now slowly departed, and knew not whether the house-steward had given him money or not until he felt it in his hand. A cold, sorrowful weight lay upon his heart; the din of the town deadened his affliction into a stupor; but an overwhelming sense of his disappointment, and a conviction of the Agent's diabolical falsehood, entered like barbed arrows into his heart. On leaving the steps, he looked up to heaven in the distraction of his agonizing thoughts; the clouds were black and lowering--the wind stormy--and, as it carried them on its dark wing along the sky, he wished, if it were the will of God, that his head lay in the quiet grave-yard where the ashes of his forefathers reposed in peace. But he again remembered his Kathleen and their children; and the large tears of anguish, deep and bitter, rolled slowly down his cheeks.