midnight
`` Let your hatred of tithes , '' he said , `` be as lasting as your sense of justice . '' Unfortunately it is an easy task to instruct or tempt the Irish peasant to violate the law , especially when sanctioned , in that violation , by those whose opinion and advice he takes as the standard of his conduct . Be this as it may , the state of the country was now becoming frightful and portentous ; and although there had not , as yet , been much blood shed , still there was no person acquainted with the extraordinary pains which were taken to excite the people against the payment of tithe , who was not able to anticipate the terrible outburst and sanguinary slaughters which soon followed . We have already detailed a midnight meeting of the anti-tithe confederacy ; but so confident had the people soon become in the principle of general unanimity against the payment of this impost , that they did not hesitate to traverse the country in open day by thousands ; thus setting not only law , but all the powers of the country by which it is usually carried out and supported , at complete defiance . Threatening letters , and notices of violent death , signed with blood , and containing the form of a coffin , were sent to all such as were in any way obnoxious , or , what was the same thing , who were in any way disposed either to pay tithes or exact them . In this state matters were , when , one morning about a week after the scene we have just described in O'Driscol 's office , a dialogue to the following effect took place in the proctor 's immense farm-yard , between our friend Mogue Moylan and his quondam sweetheart , Letty Lenehan . Letty , of late , that is since the morning of the peddler 's conversation with Mogue , had observed that some unaccountable change had taken place in his whole manner , not only towards herself , but in his intercourse with the rest of his fellow-servants .