The shrill barking of a cur-dog, an animal that in spitefulness as in mangy condition seemed no bad type of its master, now aroused him, and Tom muttered, “Bite him, Blaze! hould him fast, yer soule!” “Call off your dog, Keane--call him off!” cried out a voice whose tones at once bespoke a person of condition; and at the same instant Linton appeared. “You'd better fasten him up, for I feel much tempted to ballast his heart with a bullet.” And he showed a pistol which he held at full cock in his fingers. “Faix, ye may shoot him for all I care,” said Tom; “he's losing his teeth, and won't be worth a 'trawneen' 'fore long. Go in there--into the house,” cried he, sulkily; and the animal shrank away, craven and cowed. “You ought to keep him tied up,” said Linton; “every one complains of him.” “So I hear,” said Tom, with a low, sardonic laugh; “he used only to bite the beggars, but he's begun now to be wicked with the gentlemen. I suppose he finds they taste mighty near alike.” “Just so,” said Linton, laughing; “if the cur could speak, he 'd tell us a laborer was as tender as 'my lord.' I've come over to see you,” added he, after a moment's pause, “and to say that I 'm sorry to have failed in my undertaking regarding you; they are determined to turn you out.” “I was thinking so,” said Tom, moodily. “I did my best. I told them you had been many years on the estate--” “Forty-two.” “Just so. I said forty and upwards--that your children had grown up on it--that you were actually like a part of the property. I spoke of the hardship of turning a man at your time of life, with a helpless family too, upon the wide world. I even went so far as to say that these were not the times for such examples; that there was a spirit abroad of regard for the poor man, a watchful inquiry into the evils of his condition, that made these 4 clearances,' as they call them, unwise and impolitic, as well as cruel.” “An' what did they say to that?” asked Tom, abruptly. “Laughed--laughed heartily.” “They laughed?” “No--I am wrong,” said Linton, quickly. “Kennyfeck did not laugh; on the contrary, he seemed grave, and observed that up at Drumcoologan--is there such a name?” “Ay, and nice boys they 're in it,” said Tom, nodding. “'Well, up at Drumcoologan,' said he, 'such a step would be more than dangerous.' “'How do you mean?' said Mr. Cashel. “'They 'd take the law into their own hands,' replied Kennyfeck. The man who would evict one of those fellows might as well make his will, if he wished to leave one behind him. They are determined fellows, whose fathers and grandfathers have lived and died on the land, and find it rather hard to understand how a bit of parchment with a big seal on it should have more force than kith and kindred.” “Did ould Kennyfeck say that?” asked Tom, with a glance of unutterable cunning.