speak for him, or in his favor. After a short pause, a man above the
middle size, with snaggy hair and beard, and of a sinister aspect, came
up to the table and said, that although he had not been employed or
deputed to appear for Mr. Boland and the young masters and misses, his
fine sons and daughters, yet justice to the accused compelled him to
come forward, and offer a few words in extenuation of the punishment,
if any, which should be inflicted for their alleged misdeeds. "First,
then," he asked, "was it possible that they, the men then present,
should be angry or offended at seeing one of their own race and religion
spring up from among them, and take his station with the best of the
Cromwellian Shoneens that surrounded and oppressed them? And when he did
so spring up, was it any blame to him to avail himself of every means
which The Law allowed him to maintain his elevation, though it might be
by standing on the shoulders and necks of as good fellows as himself?
What had Mr. Boland done but what others had been doing for ages, and
were doing still? As for the matter of tithes, sure they should be paid
to the minister who they never saw nor cared to see, and if Mr. Boland
had profit on them, so much the better, because the less tithe that went
into the absent minister's pocket the more would they all be pleased. To
be sure the tithe-proctor always exacted to the last farthing, and more
than the minister--and it is believed that Mr. Boland was not behind any
of the trade--and some people say, indeed, that, from his knowledge of
farming and the ins and outs of people's little tillage, he sometimes
exacted to within a trifle of one-fifth of the produce. Indeed, in my
own case--and I am but a poor brogue-maker, with half-a-dozen acres of
the |poorest lands of F------, he took from me, between citations to
the Bishop's Court and other costs, with the original tithes, at least
one-fourth of the entire produce of my little farm; nor do I know any
one in the parish that fares better than myself, especially the poor
people who don't understand the law, and who are not able, or willing,