“Stand by, gentlemen; make way, my Lords Charles and Harry; it is Tom Linton's turn--not Linton the 'adventurer,' as you were gracious enough to call him--not the bear-leader of a marquis, or the hanger-on of his grace the duke, but your equal in rank and fortune--more than your equal in other things; the man who knows you all thoroughly, not fancying your deficiencies and speculating on your shortcomings, as your vulgar adversaries, your men of cotton constituencies, are wont to do, but the man who has seen you in your club and your drawing-room, who has eaten, drunk, betted, played, and lived with you all! who knows your tactics well, and can expound your 'aristocratic prejudices better than ever a Quaker of them all!'--Not but,” said he, after a pause, “another line would satisfy me equally. The peerage, with such a fortune as this, is no inordinate ambition; a few years in the House, of that dogged, unmanageable conduct Englishmen call independence--a capriciousness in voting--the repute of refusing office, and so on. There's no originality in the thought, but it succeeds as well as if there were! Besides, if hard pressed, I can be a Romanist, and, as times go, with every party; that is a strong claim. And why not Lord Linton? I have no doubt”--and he laughed as he spoke this--“there _is_ a peerage in the family already, if I only knew where to look for it! “And now, sufficient of speculation! to open the campaign!” So saying, he descended the knoll and took the path which led to the cottage. As he drew near the wicket, he saw a man lounging beside it, in all that careless indifference which an Irish peasant can assume, and soon perceived it was Tom Keane, the gatekeeper. “Good-morrow, Tom; how comes it you are up here so early?” “'T is in throuble I am, your honer,” said he, taking off his hat, and putting on that supplicating look so characteristic of his class. “The master's going to turn me out of the little place beyant.” “What for?” “For nothing at all, your honer: that's just it; but ould Kennyfeck put him up to it.” “Up to what? That seems the whole question.”