The three leading resident gentlemen in the neighbourhood were Sir Michael Gibson, Mr. Jonas Brown, and Counsellor Webb; they were the three magistrates who regularly attended the petty sessions at Carrick; and as they usually held different opinions on all important subjects relative to the locality in which they resided, so all their neighbours swore by one of them, condemning the other two as little better than fools or knaves. Sir Michael was by far the richest, and would, therefore, naturally have had the greatest number of followers, had it not been that it was usually extremely difficult to find out what his opinion was. He was neither a bad nor a good landlord--that is to say, his land was seldom let for more than double its value; and his agent did not eject his tenants as long as they contrived not to increase the arrears which they owed when he undertook the management of the property; but Sir Michael himself neither looked after their welfare, or took the slightest care to see that they were comfortable. On the bench, by attempting to agree with both his colleagues, he very generally managed to express an opinion different from either of them; and as he was, of course, the chairman, the decisions of the bench were in consequence frequently of a rather singular nature; however, on the whole, Sir Michael was popular, for if he benefited none, he harmed none; and he was considered by many a safe constitutional man, with no flighty ideas on any side. Jonas Brown was hated by the poor. In every case he would, if he had the power, visit every fault committed by them with the severest penalty awarded by the law. He was a stern, hard, cruel man, with no sympathy for any one, and was actuated by the most superlative contempt for the poor, from whom he drew his whole income. He was a clever, clear-headed, avaricious man; and he knew that the only means of keeping the peasantry in their present utterly helpless and dependent state, was to deny them education, and to oppose every scheme for their improvement and welfare. He dreaded every movement which tended to teach them anything, and when he heard of landlords reducing their rents, improving cabins, and building schools, he would prophesy to his neighbour, Sir Michael, that the gentry would soon begin to repent of their folly, when the rents they had reduced were not paid, the cabins which they had made comfortable were filled with ribbonmen, and when the poor had learnt in the schools to disobey their masters and landlords. Sir Michael never contradicted all this, and he would probably have become a second Jonas Brown, and much more injurious, because so much more extensive in his interests, were it not for the counteracting influence of Counsellor Webb, who was in all his opinions diametrically opposed to Mr. Brown.