"An evil will always become worse till it begins to die away. I think I see the end of things approaching. Evil-doers are afraid of each other, and these poor fellows here live in mortal agony lest some Lax of the moment should be turned loose at their own throats. I don't think that Lax is an institution that will remain for ever in the country. This present Lax we have fast locked up. Law at present, at any rate, has so much of power that it is able to lock up a Lax,--when it can catch him. As for this present man, I do hope that the law will find itself powerful enough to fasten a rope round his neck. No Galway jury would find him guilty, and that is bad enough. But the lawgivers have done this for us, that we may try him before a Dublin jury, and there are hopes. When Lax has been well hung out of the world I can turn round and take a moment for my own happiness." Yorke Clayton, as he said this, was alluding to his love affair with Edith Jones. He had now conquered all the family with one exception. Even the father had assented that it should be so, though tardily and with sundry misgivings. The one person was Edith herself, and it had come to be acknowledged by all around her that she loved Yorke Clayton. As she herself never now denied it, it was admitted on all sides at Morony Castle that the Captain was certainly the favoured lover. But Edith still held out, and had gone so far as to tell the Captain that he could not be allowed to come to the Castle unless he would desist. "I never shall desist," he had replied. "As to that you may take my word." Then Edith had of course loved him so much the more. "I don't think this kind of thing will go on," he continued, still addressing Frank Jones. "The people are so fickle that they cannot be constant even to anything evil. It is quite on the cards that Black Tom Daly should next year be the most popular master of hounds in all Ireland, and that Mr. Kit Mooney should not be allowed to show his face within reach of Moytubber Gorse on hunting mornings." "They'd have burned the gorse before they have come round to that state of feeling. Look at Raheeny." "It isn't so easy to destroy anything," said the philosophic Clayton. "If the foxes are frightened out of Raheeny or Moytubber, they will go somewhere else. And even if poor Tom Daly were to run away from County Galway, as you're talking of doing, the county would find another master." "Not like Tom Daly," said Frank Jones, enthusiastically. "There are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught. Tom Daly is a first-class man, I admit; and he had no more obedient slave than myself when I used to get out hunting two or three days in the session. But he is a desponding man, and cannot look forward to better times. For myself, I own that my hopes are fixed. Hang Lax, and then the millennium!"