The Colonel smiled as he extended his hand to him.
"Mr. O'Brien," said he, "I knew you would feel anxious to hear the
result of my visit to the estate which this man with the nickname
managed for me."
"Managed, sir? Did you say managed?"
"I spoke in the past time, O'Brien: he is out."
"Then your protege's story was correct, sir?"
"True to a title. O'Brien, there is something extraordinary in that
boy; otherwise, how could it happen that a sickly, miserable-looking
creature, absolutely in tatters, could have impressed us both so
strongly with a sense of the injustice done ten years ago to his father?
It is, indeed, remarkable."
"The boy, Colonel, deeply felt that act of injustice, and the expression
of it came home to the heart."
"I have restored his father, however. The poor man and his family are
once more happy. I have stocked their old farm for them; in! fact, they
now enjoy comfort and independence."
"I am glad, sir, that you have done them justice. That act, alone, will
go far to redeem your character from the odium which the conduct of your
agent was calculated to throw upon it."
"There is not probably in Ireland a landlord so popular as I am this
moment--at least among my tenants on that property. Restoring M'Evoy,
however, is but a small part of what I have done. Carson's pranks were
incredible. He was a rack-renter of the first water. A person named
Brady had paid him twenty-five guineas as a douceur--in other words, as
a bribe--for renewing a lease for him; yet, after having received the
money, he kept the poor man dangling after him, and at length told him
that he was offered a larger sum by another.
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