They had built houses and planted trees; they had reclaimed the deep
bog and converted it into good arable land. They had employed the
peasantry, and given them plots of ground, and, more than all, they
had allowed a number of families to squat on bits of bog by the
roadside, where they lived as well as they could; working when
there was a demand for labour, cutting turf and selling it in the
neighbouring town of Tullamore, and perhaps carrying on some little
dealings. At all events they had survived the famine; and there they
were in 1857 with their huts standing on their 'estates,' for they had
paid no rent for twenty years, and they had as good a title in law
as Lord Digby himself. Mr. Trench seems to have been horrified at
not finding the names of these householders in the rent-books of the
estate! The idea!--that there should be within the four corners of the
King's County, even on the bog of Allen, a number of natives holding
land, without a landlord! It was monstrous. But as they could not be
evicted for non-title, they were all severally tempted by the offer
of money, in sums varying from 5 l. to 20 l. each, to sell their
freeholds to the landlord. Pity they were not preserved as a remnant
of the antediluvian period, ere the ancient tenures were merged in
floods of blood. Like a bit of primitive forest, they would be more
interesting to some minds than the finest modern plantation.

It was not so easy to deal with the 120 leaseholders. To what extent
they had improved their farms before they got the leases, Mr. Trench
does not say. But as the absentee landlord had done nothing, and spent
nothing, whatever increase to the value had been made was undoubtedly
the work of the tenants; and after the leases were obtained, they
would naturally feel more confidence in the investment of their
savings in the land. However that may be, a professional man, employed
by Lord Digby, estimated the value over and above the reserved rent