“I'm going to that part of the case, my Lady,” said Repton. “Martin is a Tory; now, what are the men coming into power? I wish you could tell me. Here, for instance, is one of their own journals,”--and he opened a newspaper and ran his eye over the columns,--“ay, here it is: 'With regard to Ireland, Lord Reckington's appointment as Viceroy is the best guarantee that the rights of Irishmen of every persuasion and every denomination will be respected.' So far so good;” and he read on in a low, humdrum voice for some minutes, till he came to the following: “'No privileged class will any longer be tolerated; no exceptional loyalty admitted as an excuse for insufferable oppression and tyranny; the wishes and benefits of the people--the real people of that country--will at length enter into the views of an administration; and Ireland as she is,--not the possible Ireland of factious enthusiasts,--be governed by men determined to redress her grievances and improve her capacities.' Now, Martin, you want no augur to interpret that oracle. They are going to rule you by the people; but the people must be represented. “Now, who represents them? Not the demagogue; he is merely their tool. The real representative is the priest; don't laugh, my dear friend, at such a shadowy possibility; the thing is nearer than you dream of. No administration ever yet tried to govern Ireland except by intimidation. The Beresfords were undertakers once, and they did their work very well, let me tell you; they advanced their friends and whipped their enemies; and what with peerages for one set, and pitched caps for the other, they ruled Ireland. Then there came the Orangemen, who rather blundered their work; there were too many heads amongst them, and the really clever fellows were overborne by brawling, talkative fools, who always had the masses with them because they _were_ fools. Still they ruled Ireland. They preserved the country to the King's crown; and I say once more, that was no small matter. And now we have arrived at a new era; we have obtained Emancipation, and must look out for another stamp of administrators, and I see nothing for it but the priest. Of course you, and every man of your station, sneer at the notion of being dictated to by Father Luke, in the greasy leather small-clothes and dirty black boots,--only, himself, a cottier once removed, a plant of the wild growth of the fields, cultivated, however, in the hotbeds of Maynooth,--a forcing-house whose fruits you are yet to taste of! Sneer away, Martin; but my name is not Val Repton if those men do not rule Ireland yet! Ay, sir, and rule it in such a fashion as your haughty Beresfords and Tottenhams, and Tisdalls never dreamed of! They 'll treat with the Government on equal terms,--so much, for so much; and, what's more, it won't be higgling for a place here, or a peerage there; but they'll have the price paid down in hard legislative coin,--Acts of