"Absolutely, perfectly well, father. Go on--tell me all."

"Well, you know, child, when I came in for the estate it was not to
say free."

"What does that mean, father?"

"It was my father before me--your grandfather--the best hunter in
the county. He could take his bottle of port and never turn a hair;
and he rode to hounds! God bless you, Nora! I wish you could have
seen your grandfather riding to hounds. It was a sight to remember.
Well, he died--God bless him!--and there were difficulties. Before
he died those difficulties began, and he mortgaged some of the outer
fields and Knock Robin Farm--the best farm on the whole estate; but
I didn't think anything of that. I thought I could redeem it; but
somehow, child, somehow rents have been going down; the poor folk
can't pay, and I'm the last to press them; and things have got worse
and worse. I had a tight time of it five years ago; I was all but
done for. It was partly the fact of the famine; we none of us ever
got over that--none of us in this part of Ireland, and many of the
people went away. Half the cabins were deserted. There's half a mile
of 'em down yonder; every single one had a dead man or woman in it
at the time of the famine, and now they're empty. Well of course,
you know all about that?"

"Oh, yes, father; Hannah has told me of the famine many, many
times."

"To be sure--to be sure; but it is a dark subject, and not fit for a