"Well, Donovan, what is it?" says Desmond, a few minutes later, as the library door again opens to admit the other malcontent. He is a stout, thick-set man, with fierce eyes and a lowering brow, and altogether a very "villanous countenance." He has mercifully escaped, however, the hypocritical meanness of the face that has just gone. There is a boldness, a reckless, determined daring about this man, that stamps him as a leading spirit among men of evil minds. "I've come here to spake to ye to-night, Misther Desmond, as man to man," he says, with a somewhat swaggering air. "With all my heart," says The Desmond; "but be as fair to me as I have ever been to you and yours, and we shall come to amicable terms soon enough." "As to fairness," says the man, "I don't see how any landlord in Ireland can spake of it without a blush." Strange to say, the aggressive insolence of this man fails to rouse in Mr. Desmond's breast the anger that the servile humility of the last comer had brought into active being. "Look here, Donovan," he says, "I've been a good landlord to you; and I expect you, therefore, to be a good tenant to me. You hint that I, along with the rest, have dealt unfairly with my people; but can you prove it? You can lay to my charge no tales of harshness. In famine times, and when potatoes failed, in times of misfortune and sickness, I have always stood your friend, and the friend of every man, woman, and child on my estate; yet now what harvest do I reap, save grossest ingratitude? yet what more can I hope for in this most unhappy time, when blood is unrighteously poured upon the land, and the laws of God and my queen are set at naught?" There is a touch of passionate old-world grandeur in the squire's face and manner that works a sense of admiration in Donovan's breast. But it quickly gives way to the carefully-cultivated sense of injury that has been growing within him for months. "Ye can talk, there's no doubt," he mutters; "but words go for little; and the fact is, I've got no rent to pay ye." His tone conveys the idea that he _has_ the rent, but deliberately refuses to pay it. "You will bring it on Monday, or I shall evict you," says the Squire quietly. "You hear?" "I hear," says the man, with an evil frown. "But ye can't have it all yer own way now, Misther Desmond. There's others have a voice in the matther." "I don't care for innuendoes of that sort, or for any insolence whatever; I only mean you to fully know that I must live as well as you, and that therefore I must have my rents." "I know well enough what ye mane," says the man, with increasing insolence. "But I'd have you know this, that maybe before long ye'll whistle another tune. There's them I could mention, as has their eye upon ye, an' will keep it there till justice is done." "Meaning, until I give up Coole itself to the mob," says the squire, with a sneer. "Ay, _even_ that, it may be," says the man, with unswerving defiance.