This one had given so many days' horse-and-car hire at the bog; that other had got advances 'in seed-potatoes'; such a one had a claim for reduced rent, because the mill-race had overflowed and deluged his wheat crop; such another had fed two pigs of 'the lord's' and fattened them, while himself and his own were nigh starving.
Through an entire column there was not one case without its complication, either in the shape of argument for increased liability or claim for compensation.

It was makeshift everywhere, and Dick could not but ask himself whether any tenant on the estate really knew how far he was hopelessly in debt or a solvent man?
It only needed Peter Gill's peculiar mode of collecting the moneys due, and recording the payment by the notched stick, to make the complication perfect; and there, indeed, upon the table, amid accounts and bills and sale warrants, lay the memorable bits of wood themselves, as that worthy steward had deposited them before quitting his master's service.
Peter's character, too, written out in Kate's hand, and only awaiting her father's signature, was on the table--the first intimation Dick Kearney had that old Gill had quitted his post.
'All this must have occurred to-day,' thought Dick; 'there were no evidences of these changes when I left this morning! Was it the backwater of my disgrace, I wonder, that has overwhelmed poor Gill ?' thought he, 'or can I detect Miss Betty's fine Roman hand in this incident ?' In proportion to the little love he bore Miss O'Shea, were his convictions the stronger that she was the cause of all mischief.

She was one of those who took very 'utilitarian' notions of his own career, and he bore her small gratitude for the solicitude.

There were short sentences in pencil along the margin of the chief book in Kate's handwriting which could not fail to strike him as he read them, indicating as they did her difficulty, if not utter incapacity, to deal with the condition of the estate.

Thus:-- 'There is no warranty for this concession.