Early on the following morning before they started the news reached Cavan of poor Florian's death. "Oh God! My brother!" exclaimed Frank; but it was all that he did say. He was a man who like his father had become embittered by the circumstances of the times. Mr. Jones had bought his property, now thirty years since, with what was then called a parliamentary title. He had paid hard money for it, and had induced his friends to lend their money to assist the purchase, for which he was responsible. Much of the land he had been enabled to keep in his own hands, but on none of the tenants' had he raised the rent. Now there had come forth a law, not from the hand of the Landleaguers, but from the Government, who, it was believed, would protect those who did their duty by the country. Under this law commissioners were to be appointed,--or sub-commissioners,--men supposed to be not of great mark in the country, who were to reduce the rent according to their ideas of justice. If a man paid ten pounds,--or had engaged to pay ten,--let him take his pen and write down seven or eight as the sub-commissioner should decide. As the outside landlords, the friends of Mr. Jones, must have five pounds out of the original ten, that which was coming to Mr. Jones himself would be about halved. And the condition of Mr. Jones, under the system of boycotting which he was undergoing, was hard to endure. Now Frank was the eldest son, and the property of Castle Morony and Ballintubber was entailed upon him. He was brought up in his early youth to feel that he was to fill that situation, which, of all others, is the most attractive. He was to have been the eldest son of a man of unembarrassed property. Now he was offered to be taken to London as the travelling husband--or upper servant, as it might be--of an opera singer. Then, while he was in this condition, there came to him the news that his brother had been murdered; and he must go home to give what assistance was in his power to his poor, ill-used sisters. It is not to be wondered at that he was embittered. He had been spending some hours of the last day in reading the clauses of the Bill under which the sub-commissioners were to show him what mercy they might think right. As he left Cavan the following morning, his curses were more deep against the Government than against the Landleague.