"No," said Nessa, "because he does not understand them, and he does not like them. He makes them angry. I do not think it would be very difficult for these children to be good. Mr. Plunkett thinks that all they do is wrong; other people think that all is right. It is very bad for them to be so much scolded, and it is bad for them to be so much flattered."
"So Plunkett thinks all is wrong, does he?" asked Mr. Blair.
"Yes," said Nessa; "he does not see anything but the wrong, and he scolds the children. He makes them proud and angry; and then I think they _like_ to do what he does not want."
"But, my dear child, they always like to do what I don't want," said her uncle. "Why do they always bang the doors? Why do they shout under my windows? Why do they get up at six o'clock and clatter up and down the passage when I am enjoying my soundest sleep? Answer me all these questions, little advocate."
"They bang the doors because they are always in a hurry," said Nessa, smiling. "They shout because they are happy. They get up early--well, the birds get up early, too."
"Well, well," replied her uncle, laughing, "have it your own way. But you must learn to appreciate Plunkett's other qualities. He saves me more trouble than twenty other men would do in his place."
"Perhaps he is very useful," said Nessa, "but he is not interesting."
"He is most interesting to me," returned Mr. Blair. "I have twenty pounds now for every ten I used to have, and he has succeeded in making the cottagers keep roofs on their houses, and conform to a few other customs of civilization. He has done it at the risk of his life, too," he continued, in a more serious tone. "More than one of the men about here would think it a praiseworthy action to shoot him some dark night. Plunkett knows it, and after all, your martyrs of the middle ages did not do so very much more than persevere in their duty when they knew it might cost them their life."
"Yes, that is brave," said Nessa, looking up.
Her uncle's words made Mr. Plunkett's character appear to her in a new light, but they gave her an unpleasant creeping sensation. She was beginning to think that Ireland was a very unsafe place to live in.
"Well," said her uncle, as they rose to leave the dining-room, "are you convinced now of Plunkett's excellent qualities?"