This nobleman, publicly useful as his life had no doubt been, had done
little for his own tenants, or his own property. On his father's death,
he had succeeded to about three thousand a-year, and he left about one;
and he would have spent or mortgaged this, had he not, on his marriage,
put it beyond his own power to do so. It was not only by thriftless
extravagance that he thus destroyed a property which, with care, and
without extortion, would have doubled its value in the thirty-five
years during which it was in his hands; but he had been afraid to come
to Ireland, and had been duped by his agent. When he came to the title,
Simeon Lynch had been recommended to him as a fit person to manage his
property, and look after his interests; and Simeon had managed it well
in that manner most conducive to the prosperity of the person he loved
best in the world; and that was himself. When large tracts of land fell
out of lease, Sim had represented that tenants could not be found--that
the land was not worth cultivating--that the country was in a state
which prevented the possibility of letting; and, ultimately put himself
into possession, with a lease for ever, at a rent varying from half a
crown to five shillings an acre.

The courtier lord had one son, of whom he made a soldier, but who never
rose to a higher rank than that of Captain. About a dozen years before
the date of my story, the Honourable Captain O'Kelly, after numerous
quarrels with the Right Honourable Lord of the Bedchamber, had, at
last, come to some family settlement with him; and, having obtained
the power of managing the property himself, came over to live at his
paternal residence of Kelly's Court.

A very sorry kind of Court he found it,--neglected, dirty, and out of
repair. One of the first retainers whom he met was Jack Kelly, the