The Kellys and the O’Kellys by Anthony Trollope (page 5)

“So, Anty, you wouldn’t come to mass?” he began.

“Maybe I’ll go next Sunday,” said she.

“It’s a long time since you missed mass before, I’m thinking.”

“Not since the Sunday afther father’s death.”

“It’s little you were thinking then how soon you’d be stopping down here with us at the inn.”

“That’s thrue for you, Martin, God knows.”

At this point of the conversation Martin stuck fast: he did not know Rosalind’s recipe [29] for the difficulty a man feels, when he finds himself gravelled for conversation with his mistress; so he merely scratched his head, and thought hard to find what he’d say next. I doubt whether the conviction, which was then strong on his mind, that Meg was listening at the keyhole to every word that passed, at all assisted him in the operation. At last, some Muse came to his aid, and he made out another sentence.

[FOOTNOTE 29: Rosalind’s recipe–In _As You Like It_, Act III, Sc. ii, Rosalind, disguised as a young man, instructs Orlando to practice his wooing on her.]

“It was very odd my finding you down here, all ready before me, wasn’t it?”

“‘Deed it was: your mother was a very good woman to me that morning, anyhow.”

“And tell me now, Anty, do you like the inn?”

“‘Deed I do–but it’s quare, like.”

“How quare?”

“Why, having Meg and Jane here: I wasn’t ever used to anyone to talk to, only just the servants.”

“You’ll have plenty always to talk to now–eh, Anty?” and Martin tried a sweet look at his lady love.

“I’m shure I don’t know. Av’ I’m only left quiet, that’s what I most care about.”

“But, Anty, tell me–you don’t want always to be what you call quiet?”

“Oh! but I do–why not?”

“But you don’t mane, Anty, that you wouldn’t like to have some kind of work to do–some occupation, like?”

“Why, I wouldn’t like to be idle; but a person needn’t be idle because they’re quiet.”

“And that’s thrue, Anty.” And Martin broke down again.

“There’d be a great crowd in chapel, I suppose?” said Anty.

“There was a great crowd.”

“And what was father Geoghegan preaching about?”

“Well, then, I didn’t mind. To tell the truth, Anty, I came out most as soon as the preaching began; only I know he told the boys to pray that the liberathor might be got out of his throubles; and so they should–not that there’s much to throuble him, as far as the verdict’s concerned.”

“Isn’t there then? I thought they made him out guilty?”

“So they did, the false ruffians: but what harum ‘ll that do? they daren’t touch a hair of his head!”

Politics, however, are not a favourable introduction to love-making: so Martin felt, and again gave up the subject, in the hopes that he might find something better. “What a fool the man is!” thought Meg to herself, at the door–“if I had a lover went on like that, wouldn’t I pull his ears!”

Martin got up–walked across the room–looked out of the little window–felt very much ashamed of himself, and, returning, sat himself down on the sofa.

“Anty,” he said, at last, blushing nearly brown as he spoke; “Were you thinking of what I was spaking to you about before I went to Dublin?”

Anty blushed also, now. “About what?” she said.

“Why, just about you and me making a match of it. Come, Anty, dear, what’s the good of losing time? I’ve been thinking of little else; and, after what’s been between us, you must have thought the matther over too, though you do let on to be so innocent. Come, Anty, now that you and mother’s so thick, there can be nothing against it.”

“But indeed there is, Martin, a great dale against it–though I’m sure it’s good of you to be thinking of me. There’s so much against it, I think we had betther be of one mind, and give it over at once.”

“And what’s to hinder us marrying, Anty, av’ yourself is plazed? Av’ you and I, and mother are plazed, sorrow a one that I know of has a word to say in the matther.”

“But Barry don’t like it!”

“And, afther all, are you going to wait for what Barry likes? You didn’t wait for what was plazing to Barry Lynch when you came down here; nor yet did mother when she went up and fetched you down at five in the morning, dreading he’d murdher you outright. And it was thrue for her, for he would, av’ he was let, the brute. And are you going to wait for what he likes?”

“Whatever he’s done, he’s my brother; and there’s only the two of us.”

“But it’s not that, Anty–don’t you know it’s not that? Isn’t it because you’re afraid of him? because he threatened and frightened you? And what on ‘arth could he do to harum you av’ you was the wife of–of a man who’d, anyway, not let Barry Lynch, or anyone else, come between you and your comfort and aise?”

“But you don’t know how wretched I’ve been since he spoke to me about–about getting myself married: you don’t know what I’ve suffered; and I’ve a feeling that good would never come of it.”

“And, afther all, are you going to tell me now, that I may jist go my own way? Is that to be your answer, and all I’m to get from you?”

“Don’t be angry with me, Martin. I’m maning to do everything for the best.”

“Maning?–what’s the good of maning? Anyways, Anty, let me have an answer, for I’ll not be making a fool of myself any longer. Somehow, all the boys here, every sowl in Dunmore, has it that you and I is to be married–and now, afther promising me as you did–“

“Oh, I never promised, Martin.”

“It was all one as a promise–and now I’m to be thrown overboard. And why?–because Barry Lynch got dhrunk, and frightened you. Av’ I’d seen the ruffian striking you, I think I’d ‘ve been near putting it beyond him to strike another woman iver again.”

“Glory be to God that you wasn’t near him that night,” said Anty, crossing herself. “It was bad enough, but av’ the two of you should ever be set fighting along of me, it would kill me outright.”

“But who’s talking of fighting, Anty, dear?” and Martin drew a little nearer to her–“who’s talking of fighting? I never wish to spake another word to Barry the longest day that ever comes. Av’ he’ll get out of my way, I’ll go bail he’ll not find me in his.”

“But he wouldn’t get out of your way, nor get out of mine, av’ you and I got married: he’d be in our way, and we’d be in his, and nothing could iver come of it but sorrow and misery, and maybe bloodshed.”

“Them’s all a woman’s fears. Av’ you an I were once spliced by the priest, God bless him, Barry wouldn’t trouble Dunmore long afther.”

“That’s another rason, too. Why should I be dhriving him out of his own house? you know he’s a right to the house, as well as I.”

“Who’s talking of dhriving him out? Faith, he’d be welcome to stay there long enough for me! He’d go, fast enough, without dhriving, though; you can’t say the counthry wouldn’t have a good riddhance of him. But never mind that, Anty: it wasn’t about Barry, one way or the other, I was thinking, when I first asked you to have me; nor it wasn’t about myself altogether, as I could let you know; though, in course, I’m not saying but that myself’s as dear to myself as another, an’ why not? But to tell the blessed truth, I was thinking av’ you too; and that you’d be happier and asier, let alone betther an’ more respecthable, as an honest man’s wife, as I’d make you, than being mewed up there in dread of your life, never daring to open your mouth to a Christian, for fear of your own brother, who niver did, nor niver will lift a hand to sarve you, though he wasn’t backward to lift it to sthrike you, woman and sisther though you were. Come, Anty, darlin,” he added, after a pause, during which he managed to get his arm behind her back, though he couldn’t be said to have it fairly round her waist–“Get quit of all these quandaries, and say at once, like an honest girl, you’ll do what I’m asking–and what no living man can hindher you from or say against it.–Or else jist fairly say you won’t, and I’ll have done with it.”

Anty sat silent, for she didn’t like to say she wouldn’t; and she thought of her brother’s threats, and was afraid to say she would. Martin advanced a little in his proceedings, however, and now succeeded in getting his arm round her waist–and, having done so, he wasn’t slow in letting her feel its pressure. She made an attempt, with her hand, to disengage herself–certainly not a successful, and, probably, not a very energetic attempt, when the widow’s step was heard on the stairs. Martin retreated from his position on the sofa, and Meg from hers outside the door, and Mrs Kelly entered the room, with Barry’s letter in her hand, Meg following, to ascertain the cause of the unfortunate interruption.

XVIII. AN ATTORNEY’S OFFICE IN CONNAUGHT

“Anty, here’s a letter for ye,” began the widow. “Terry’s brought it down from the house, and says it’s from Misther Barry. I b’lieve he was in the right not to bring it hisself.”

“A letther for me, Mrs Kelly? what can he be writing about? I don’t just know whether I ought to open it or no;” and Anty trembled, as she turned the epistle over and over again in her hands.

“What for would you not open it? The letther can’t hurt you, girl, whatever the writher might do.”

Thus encouraged, Anty broke the seal, and made herself acquainted with the contents of the letter which Daly had dictated; but she then found that her difficulties had only just commenced. Was she to send an answer, and if so, what answer? And if she sent none, what notice ought she to take of it? The matter was one evidently too weighty to be settled by her own judgment, so she handed the letter to be read, first by the widow, and then by Martin, and lastly by the two girls, who, by this time, were both in the room.

“Well, the dethermined impudence of that blackguard!” exclaimed Mrs Kelly. “Conspiracy!–av’ that don’t bang Banagher! What does the man mean by ‘conspiracy,’ eh, Martin?”

“Faith, you must ask himself that, mother; and then it’s ten to one he can’t tell you.”

“I suppose,” said Meg, “he wants to say that we’re all schaming to rob Anty of her money–only he daren’t, for the life of him, spake it out straight forrard.”

“Or, maybe,” suggested Jane, “he wants to bring something agen us like this affair of O’Connell’s–only he’ll find, down here, that he an’t got Dublin soft goods to deal wid.”

Then followed a consultation, as to the proper steps to be taken in the matter.

The widow advised that father Geoghegan should be sent for to indite such a reply as a Christian ill-used woman should send to so base a letter. Meg, who was very hot on the subject, and who had read of some such proceeding in a novel, was for putting up in a blank envelope the letter itself, and returning it to Barry by the hands of Jack, the ostler; at the same time, she declared that “No surrender” should be her motto. Jane was of opinion that “Miss Anastasia Lynch’s compliments to Mr Barry Lynch, and she didn’t find herself strong enough to move to Dunmore House at present,” would answer all purposes, and be, on the whole, the safest course. While Martin pronounced that “if Anty would be led by him, she’d just pitch the letter behind the fire an’ take no notice of it, good, bad, or indifferent.”

None of these plans pleased Anty, for, as she remarked, “After all, Barry was her brother, and blood was thickher than wather.” So, after much consultation, pen, ink, and paper were procured, and the following letter was concocted between them, all the soft bits having been great stumbling-blocks, in which, however, Anty’s quiet perseverance carried the point, in opposition to the wishes of all the Kellys. The words put in brackets were those peculiarly objected to.

Dunmore Inn. February, 1844.

DEAR BARRY,

I (am very sorry I) can’t come back to the house, at any rate just at present. I am not very sthrong in health, and there are kind female friends about me here, which you know there couldn’t be up at the house.

Anty herself, in the original draft inserted “ladies,” but the widow’s good sense repudiated the term, and insisted on the word “females”: Jane suggested that “females” did not sound quite respectful alone, and Martin thought that Anty might call them “female friends,” which was consequently done.

–Besides, there are reasons why I’m quieter here, till things are a little more settled. I will forgive (and forget) all that happened up at the house between us–

“Why, you can’t forget it,” said Meg. “Oh, I could, av’ he was kind to me. I’d forget it all in a week av’ he was kind to me,” answered Anty–

(and I will do nothing particular without first letting you know).

They were all loud against this paragraph, but they could not carry their point.

I must tell you, dear Barry, that you are very much mistaken about the people of this house: they are dear, kind friends to me, and, wherever I am, I must love them to the last day of my life–but indeed I am, and hope you believe so,

Your affectionate sister,

ANASTASIA LYNCH.

When the last paragraph was read over Anty’s shoulder, Meg declared she was a dear, dear creature: Jane gave her a big kiss, and began crying; even the widow put the corner of her apron to her eye, and Martin, trying to look manly and unconcerned, declared that he was “quite shure they all loved her, and they’d be brutes and bastes av’ they didn’t!”

The letter, as given above, was finally decided on; written, sealed, and despatched by Jack, who was desired to be very particular to deliver it at the front door, with Miss Lynch’s love, which was accordingly done. All the care, however, which had been bestowed on it did not make it palatable to Barry, who was alone when he received it, and merely muttered, as he read it, “Confound her, low-minded slut! friends, indeed! what business has she with friends, except such as I please?–if I’d the choosing of her friends, they’d be a strait waistcoat, and the madhouse doctor. Good Heaven! that half my property–no, but two-thirds of it,–should belong to her!–the stupid, stiff-necked robber!”

These last pleasant epithets had reference to his respected progenitor.

On the same evening, after tea, Martin endeavoured to make a little further advance with Anty, for he felt that he had been interrupted just as she was coming round; but her nerves were again disordered, and he soon found that if he pressed her now, he should only get a decided negative, which he might find it very difficult to induce her to revoke.

Anty’s letter was sent off early on the Monday morning–at least, as early as Barry now ever managed to do anything–to the attorney at Tuam, with strong injunctions that no time was to be lost in taking further steps, and with a request that Daly would again come out to Dunmore. This, however, he did not at present think it expedient to do. So he wrote to Barry, begging him to come into Tuam on the Wednesday, to meet Moylan, whom he, Daly, would, if possible, contrive to see on the intervening day.

“Obstinate puppy!” said Barry to himself–“if he’d had the least pluck in life he’d have broken the will, or at least made the girl out a lunatic. But a Connaught lawyer hasn’t half the wit or courage now that he used to have.” However, he wrote a note to Daly, agreeing to his proposal, and promising to be in Tuam at two o’clock on the Wednesday.

On the following day Daly saw Moylan, and had a long conversation with him. The old man held out for a long time, expressing much indignation at being supposed capable of joining in any underhand agreement for transferring Miss Lynch’s property to his relatives the Kellys, and declaring that he would make public to every one in Dunmore and Tuam the base manner in which Barry Lynch was treating his sister. Indeed, Moylan kept to his story so long and so firmly that the young attorney was nearly giving him up; but at last he found his weak side.

“Well, Mr Moylan,” he said, “then I can only say your own conduct is very disinterested;–and I might even go so far as to say that you appear to me foolishly indifferent to your own concerns. Here’s the agency of the whole property going a-begging: the rents, I believe, are about a thousand a-year: you might be recaving them all by jist a word of your mouth, and that only telling the blessed truth; and here, you’re going to put the whole thing into the hands of young Kelly; throwing up even the half of the business you have got!”

“Who says I’m afther doing any sich thing, Mr Daly?”

“Why, Martin Kelly says so. Didn’t as many as four or five persons hear him say, down at Dunmore, that divil a one of the tenants’d iver pay a haporth [30] of the November rents to anyone only jist to himself? There was father Geoghegan heard him, an Doctor Ned Blake.”

[FOOTNOTE 30: haporth–half-penny’s worth]

“Maybe he’ll find his mistake, Mr Daly.”

“Maybe he will, Mr Moylan. Maybe we’ll put the whole affair into the courts, and have a regular recaver over the property, under the Chancellor. People, though they’re ever so respectable in their way,–and I don’t mane to say a word against the Kellys, Mr Moylan, for they were always friends of mine–but people can’t be allowed to make a dead set at a property like this, and have it all their own way, like the bull in the china-shop. I know there has been an agreement made, and that, in the eye of the law, is a conspiracy. I positively know that an agreement has been made to induce Miss Lynch to become Martin Kelly’s wife; and I know the parties to it, too; and I also know that an active young fellow like him wouldn’t be paying an agent to get in his rents; and I thought, if Mr Lynch was willing to appoint you his agent, as well as his sister’s, it might be worth your while to lend us a hand to settle this affair, without forcing us to stick people into a witness-box whom neither I nor Mr Lynch–“

“But what the d—-l can I–“

“Jist hear me out, Mr Moylan; you see, if they once knew–the Kellys I mane–that you wouldn’t lend a hand to this piece of iniquity–“

“Which piece of iniquity, Mr Daly?–for I’m entirely bothered.”

“Ah, now, Mr Moylan, none of your fun: this piece of iniquity of theirs, I say; for I can call it no less. If they once knew that you wouldn’t help ’em, they’d be obliged to drop it all; the matter’d never have to go into court at all, and you’d jist step into the agency fair and aisy; and, into the bargain, you’d do nothing but an honest man’s work.”

The old man broke down, and consented to “go agin the Kellys,” as he somewhat ambiguously styled his apostasy, provided the agency was absolutely promised to him; and he went away with the understanding that he was to come on the following day and meet Mr Lynch.

At two o’clock, punctual to the time of his appointment, Moylan was there, and was kept waiting an hour in Daly’s little parlour. At the end of this time Barry came in, having invigorated his courage and spirits with a couple of glasses of brandy. Daly had been for some time on the look-out for him, for he wished to say a few words to him in private, and give him his cue before he took him into the room where Moylan was sitting. This could not well be done in the office, for it was crowded. It would, I think, astonish a London attorney in respectable practice, to see the manner in which his brethren towards the west of Ireland get through their work. Daly’s office was open to all the world; the front door of the house, of which he rented the ground floor, was never closed, except at night; nor was the door of the office, which opened immediately into the hail.

During the hour that Moylan was waiting in the parlour, Daly was sitting, with his hat on, upon a high stool, with his feet resting on a small counter which ran across the room, smoking a pipe: a boy, about seventeen years of age, Daly’s clerk, was filling up numbers of those abominable formulas of legal persecution in which attorneys deal, and was plying his trade as steadily as though no February blasts were blowing in on him through the open door, no sounds of loud and boisterous conversation were rattling in his ears. The dashing manager of one of the branch banks in the town was sitting close to the little stove, and raking out the turf ashes with the office rule, while describing a drinking-bout that had taken place on the previous Sunday at Blake’s of Blakemount; he had a cigar in his mouth, and was searching for a piece of well-kindled turf, wherewith to light it. A little fat oily shopkeeper in the town, who called himself a woollen merchant, was standing with the raised leaf of the counter in his hand, roaring with laughter at the manager’s story. Two frieze coated farmers, outside the counter, were stretching across it, and whispering very audibly to Daly some details of litigation which did not appear very much to interest him; and a couple of idle blackguards were leaning against the wall, ready to obey any behest of the attorney’s which might enable them to earn a sixpence without labour, and listening with all their ears to the different interesting topics of conversation which might be broached in the inner office.

“Here’s the very man I’m waiting for, at last,” said Daly, when, from his position on the stool, he saw, through the two open doors, the bloated red face of Barry Lynch approaching; and, giving an impulse to his body by a shove against the wall behind him, he raised himself on to the counter, and, assisting himself by a pull at the collar of the frieze coat of the farmer who was in the middle of his story, jumped to the ground, and met his client at the front door.

“I beg your pardon, Mr Lynch,” said he as soon as he had shaken hands with him, “but will you just step up to my room a minute, for I want to spake to you;” and he took him up into his bed-room, for he hadn’t a second sitting-room. “You’ll excuse my bringing you up here, for the office was full, you see, and Moylan’s in the parlour.”

“The d—-l he is! He came round then, did he, eh, Daly?”

“Oh, I’ve had a terrible hard game to play with him. I’d no idea he’d be so tough a customer, or make such a good fight; but I think I’ve managed him.”

“There was a regular plan then, eh, Daly? Just as I said. It was a regular planned scheme among them?”

“Wait a moment, and you’ll know all about it, at least as much as I know myself; and, to tell the truth, that’s devilish little. But, if we manage to break off the match, and get your sister clane out of the inn there, you must give Moylan your agency, at any rate for two or three years.”

“You haven’t promised that?”

“But I have, though. We can do nothing without it: it was only when I hinted that, that the old sinner came round.”

“But what the deuce is it he’s to do for us, after all?”

“He’s to allow us to put him forward as a bugbear, to frighten the Kellys with: that’s all, and, if we can manage that, that’s enough. But come down now. I only wanted to warn you that, if you think the agency is too high a price to pay for the man’s services, whatever they may be, you must make up your mind to dispense with them.”

“Well,” answered Barry, as he followed the attorney downstairs, “I can’t understand what you’re about; but I suppose you must be right;” and they went into the little parlour where Moylan was sitting.

Moylan and Barry Lynch had only met once, since the former had been entrusted to receive Anty’s rents, on which occasion Moylan had been grossly insulted by her brother. Barry, remembering the meeting, felt very awkward at the idea of entering into amicable conversation with him, and crept in at the door like a whipped dog. Moylan was too old to feel any such compunctions, and consequently made what he intended to be taken as a very complaisant bow to his future patron. He was an ill-made, ugly, stumpy man, about fifty; with a blotched face, straggling sandy hair, and grey shaggy whiskers. He wore a long brown great coat, buttoned up to his chin, and this was the only article of wearing apparel visible upon him: in his hands he twirled a shining new four-and-fourpenny hat.

As soon as their mutual salutations were over, Daly commenced his business.

“There is no doubt in the world, Mr Lynch,” said he, addressing Barry, “that a most unfair attempt has been made by this family to get possession of your sister’s property–a most shameful attempt, which the law will no doubt recognise as a misdemeanour. But I think we shall be able to stop their game without any law at all, which will save us the annoyance of putting Mr Moylan here, and other respectable witnesses, on the table. Mr Moylan says that very soon afther your father’s will was made known–“

“Now, Mr Daly–shure I niver said a word in life at all about the will,” said Moylan, interrupting him.

“No, you did not: I mane, very soon afther you got the agency–“

“Divil a word I said about the agency, either.”

“Well, well; some time ago–he says that, some time ago, he and Martin Kelly were talking over your sister’s affairs; I believe the widow was there, too.”

“Ah, now, Mr Daly–why’d you be putting them words into my mouth? sorrow a word of the kind I iver utthered at all.”

“What the deuce was it you did say, then?”

“Faix, I don’t know that I said much, at all.”

“Didn’t you say, Mr Moylan, that Martin Kelly was talking to you about marrying Anty, some six weeks ago?”

“Maybe I did; he was spaking about it.”

“And, if you were in the chair now, before a jury, wouldn’t you swear that there was a schame among them to get Anty Lynch married to Martin Kelly? Come, Mr Moylan, that’s all we want to know: if you can’t say as much as that for us now, just that we may let the Kellys know what sort of evidence we could bring against them, if they push us, we must only have you and others summoned, and see what you’ll have to say then.”

“Oh, I’d say the truth, Mr Daly–divil a less–and I’d do as much as that now; but I thought Mr Lynch was wanting to say something about the property?”

“Not a word then I’ve to say about it,” said Barry, “except that I won’t let that robber, young Kelly, walk off with it, as long as there’s law in the land.”

“Mr Moylan probably meant about the agency,” observed Daly.

Barry looked considerably puzzled, and turned to the attorney for assistance. “He manes,” continued Daly, “that he and the Kellys are good friends, and it wouldn’t be any convenience to him just to say anything that wouldn’t be pleasing to them, unless we could make him independent of them:–isn’t that about the long and the short of it, Mr Moylan?”

“Indepindent of the Kellys, is it, Mr Daly?–Faix, thin, I’m teetotally indepindent of them this minute, and mane to continue so, glory be to God. Oh, I’m not afeard to tell the thruth agin ere a Kelly in Galway or Roscommon–and, av’ that was all, I don’t see why I need have come here this day. When I’m called upon in the rigular way, and has a rigular question put me before the Jury, either at Sessions or ‘Sizes, you’ll find I’ll not be bothered for an answer, and, av’ that’s all, I b’lieve I may be going,”–and he made a movement towards the door.

“Just as you please, Mr Moylan,” said Daly; “and you may be sure that you’ll not be long without an opportunity of showing how free you are with your answers. But, as a friend, I tell you you’ll be wrong to lave this room till you’ve had a little more talk with Mr Lynch and myself. I believe I mentioned to you Mr Lynch was looking out for someone to act as agent over his portion of the Dunmore property?”

Barry looked as black as thunder, but he said nothing.

“You war, Mr Daly. Av’ I could accommodate Mr Lynch, I’m shure I’d be happy to undhertake the business.”

“I believe, Mr Lynch,” said Daly, turning to the other, “I may go so far as to promise Mr Moylan the agency of the whole property, provided Miss Lynch is induced to quit the house of the Kellys? Of course, Mr Moylan, you can see that as long as Miss Lynch is in a position of unfortunate hostility to her brother, the same agent could not act for both; but I think my client is inclined to put his property under your management, providing his sister returns to her own home. I believe I’m stating your wishes, Mr Lynch.”

“Manage it your own way,” said Barry, “for I don’t see what you’re doing. If this man can do anything for me, why, I suppose I must pay him for it; and if so, your plan’s as good a way of paying him as another.”

The attorney raised his hat with his hand, and scratched his head: he was afraid that Moylan would have again gone off in a pet at Lynch’s brutality, but the old man sat quite quiet. He wouldn’t have much minded what was said to him, as long as he secured the agency.

“You see, Mr Moylan,” continued Daly, “you can have the agency. Five per cent. upon the rents is what my client–“

“No, Daly–Five per cent.!–I’m shot if I do!” exclaimed Barry.

“I’m gething twenty-five pounds per annum from Miss Anty, for her half, and I wouldn’t think of collecting the other for less,” declared Moylan.

And then a long battle followed on this point, which it required all Daly’s tact and perseverance to adjust. The old man was pertinacious, and many whispers had to be made into Barry’s ear before the matter could be settled. It was, however, at last agreed that notice was to be served on the Kellys, of Barry Lynch’s determination to indict them for a conspiracy; that Daly was to see the widow, Martin, and, if possible, Anty, and tell them all that Moylan was prepared to prove that such a conspiracy had been formed;–care was also to be taken that copies of the notices so served should be placed in Anty’s hands. Moylan, in the meantime, agreed to keep out of the way, and undertook, should he be unfortunate enough to encounter any of the family of the Kellys, to brave the matter out by declaring that “av’ he war brought before the Judge and Jury he couldn’t do more than tell the blessed thruth, and why not?” In reward for this, he was to be appointed agent over the entire property the moment that Miss Lynch left the inn, at which time he was to receive a document, signed by Barry, undertaking to retain him in the agency for four years certain, or else to pay him a hundred pounds when it was taken from him.

These terms having been mutually agreed to, and Barry having, with many oaths, declared that he was a most shamefully ill-used man, the three separated. Moylan skulked off to one of his haunts in the town; Barry went to the bank, to endeavour to get a bill discounted [30]; and Daly returned to his office, to prepare the notices for the unfortunate widow and her son.

[FOOTNOTE 30: bill discounted–A common way for young men to borrow money in nineteenth century Britain was to sign a promissory note (an “I.O.U.”), often called a “bill,” to repay the loan at a specified time. The lender gave the borrower less than the face value of the note (that is, he “discounted” the note), the difference being the interest. Sometimes these notes were co-signed by a third party, who became responsible for repaying the loan if the borrower defaulted; this is one of the major themes in Trollope’s later book _Framley Parsonage_. Trollope himself was quite familiar with methods of borrowing, having gotten into debt in his youth.]

XIX. MR DALY VISITS THE DUNMORE INN

Daly let no grass grow under his feet, for early on the following morning he hired a car, and proceeded to Dunmore, with the notices in his pocket. His feelings were not very comfortable on his journey, for he knew that he was going on a bad errand, and he was not naturally either a heartless or an unscrupulous man, considering that he was a provincial attorney; but he was young in business, and poor, and he could not afford to give up a client. He endeavoured to persuade himself that it certainly was a wrong thing for Martin Kelly to marry such a woman as Anty Lynch, and that Barry had some show of justice on his side; but he could not succeed. He knew that Martin was a frank, honourable fellow, and that a marriage with him would be the very thing most likely to make Anty happy; and he was certain, moreover, that, however anxious Martin might naturally be to secure the fortune, he would take no illegal or even unfair steps to do so. He felt that his client was a ruffian of the deepest die: that his sole object was to rob his sister, and that he had no case which it would be possible even to bring before a jury. His intention now was, merely to work upon the timidity and ignorance of Anty and the other females, and to frighten them with a bugbear in the shape of a criminal indictment; and Daly felt that the work he was about was very, very dirty work. Two or three times on the road, he had all but made up his mind to tear the letters he had in his pocket, and to drive at once to Dunmore House, and tell Barry Lynch that he would do nothing further in the case. And he would have done so, had he not reflected that he had gone so far with Moylan, that he could not recede, without leaving it in the old rogue’s power to make the whole matter public.

As he drove down the street of Dunmore, he endeavoured to quiet his conscience, by reflecting that he might still do much to guard Anty from the ill effects of her brother’s rapacity; and that at any rate he would not see her property taken from her, though she might be frightened out of her matrimonial speculation.

He wanted to see the widow, Martin, and Anty, and if possible to see them, at first, separately; and fortune so far favoured him that, as he got off the car, he saw our hero standing at the inn door.

“Ah! Mr Daly,” said he, coming up to the car and shaking hands with the attorney, for Daly put out his hand to him–“how are you again?–I suppose you’re going up to the house? They say you’re Barry’s right hand man now. Were you coming into the inn?”

“Why, I will step in just this minute; but I’ve a word I want to spake to you first.”

“To me!” said Martin.

“Yes, to you, Martin Kelly: isn’t that quare?” and then he gave directions to the driver to put up the horse, and bring the car round again in an hour’s time. “D’ you remember my telling you, the day we came into Dunmore on the car together, that I was going up to the house?”

“Faith I do, well; it’s not so long since.”

“And do you mind my telling you, I didn’t know from Adam what it was for, that Barry Lynch was sending for me?”

“And I remember that, too.”

“And that I tould you, that when I did know I shouldn’t tell you?”

“Begad you did, Mr Daly; thim very words.”

“Why then, Martin, I tould you what wasn’t thrue, for I’m come all the way from Tuam, this minute, to tell you all about it.”

Martin turned very red, for he rightly conceived that when an attorney came all the way from Tuam to talk to him, the tidings were not likely to be agreeable.

“And is it about Barry Lynch’s business?”

“It is.”

“Then it’s schames there’s divil a doubt of that.”

“It is schames, as you say, Martin,” said Daly, slapping him on the shoulder–“fine schames–no less than a wife with four hundred a-year! Wouldn’t that be a fine schame?”

“‘Deed it would, Mr Daly, av’ the wife and the fortune were honestly come by.”

“And isn’t it a hundred pities that I must come and upset such a pretty schame as that? But, for all that, it’s thrue. I’m sorry for you, Martin, but you must give up Anty Lynch.”

“Give her up, is it? Faith I haven’t got her to give up, worse luck.”

“Nor never will, Martin; and that’s worse luck again.”

“Well, Mr Daly, av’ that’s all you’ve come to say, you might have saved yourself car-hire. Miss Lynch is nothing to me, mind; how should she be? But av’ she war, neither Barry Lynch–who’s as big a rogue as there is from this to hisself and back again–nor you, who, I take it, ain’t rogue enough to do Barry’s work, wouldn’t put me off it.”

“Well, Martin; thank ‘ee for the compliment. But now, you know what I’ve come about, and there’s no joke in it. Of course I don’t want you to tell me anything of your plans; but, as Mr Lynch’s lawyer, I must tell you so much as this of his:–that, if his sister doesn’t lave the inn, and honestly assure him that she’ll give up her intention of marrying you, he’s determined to take proceedings.” He then fumbled in his pocket, and, bringing out the two notices, handed to Martin the one addressed to him. “Read that, and it’ll give you an idea what we’re afther. And when I tell you that Moylan owns, and will swear to it too, that he was present when all the plans were made, you’ll see that we’re not going to sea without wind in our sails.”

“Well–I’m shot av’ I know the laist in the world what all this is about!” said Martin, as he stood in the street, reading over the legally-worded letter–“‘conspiracy!’–well that’ll do, Mr Daly; go on–‘enticing away from her home!’–that’s good, when the blackguard nearly knocked the life out of her, and mother brought her down here, from downright charity, and to prevent murdher–‘wake intellects!’–well, Mr Daly, I didn’t expect this kind of thing from you: begorra, I thought you were above this!–wake intellects! faith, they’re a dale too sthrong, and too good–and too wide awake too, for Barry to get the betther of her that way. Not that I’m in the laist in life surprised at anything he’d do; but I thought that you, Mr Daly, wouldn’t put your hands to such work as that.”

Daly felt the rebuke, and felt it strongly, too; but now that he was embarked in the business, he must put the best face he could upon it. Still it was a moment or two before he could answer the young farmer.

“Why,” he said–“why did you put your hands to such a dirty job as this, Martin?–you were doing well, and not in want–and how could you let anyone persuade you to go and sell yourself to, an ugly ould maid, for a few hundred pounds? Don’t you know, that if you were married to her this minute, you’d have a lawsuit that’d go near to ruin you before you could get possession of the property?”

“Av’ I’m in want of legal advice, Mr Daly, which thank God, I’m not, nor likely to be–but av’ I war, it’s not from Barry Lynch’s attorney I’d be looking for it.”

“I’d be sorry to see you in want of it, Martin; but if you mane to keep out of the worst kind of law, you’d better have done with Anty Lynch. I’d a dale sooner be drawing up a marriage settlement between you and some pretty girl with five or six hundred pound fortune, than I’d be exposing to the counthry such a mane trick as this you’re now afther, of seducing a poor half-witted ould maid, like Anty Lynch, into a disgraceful marriage.”

“Look here, Mr Daly,” said the other; “you’ve hired yourself out to Barry Lynch, and you must do his work, I suppose, whether it’s dirthy or clane; and you know yourself, as well as I can tell you, which it’s likely to be–“

“That’s my concern; lave that to me; you’ve quite enough to do to mind yourself.”

“But av’ he’s nothing betther for you to do, than to send you here bally-ragging and calling folks out of their name, he must have a sight more money to spare than I give him credit for; and you must be a dale worse off than your neighbours thought you, to do it for him.”

“That’ll do,” said Mr Daly, knocking at the door of the inn; “only, remember, Mr Kelly, you’ve now received notice of the steps which my client feels himself called upon to take.”

Martin turned to go away, but then, reflecting that it would be as well not to leave the women by themselves in the power of the enemy, he also waited at the door till it was opened by Katty.

“Is Miss Lynch within?” asked Daly.

“Go round to the shop, Katty,” said Martin, “and tell mother to come to the door. There’s a gentleman wanting her.”

“It was Miss Lynch I asked for,” said Daly, still looking to the girl for an answer.

“Do as I bid you, you born ideot, and don’t stand gaping there,” shouted Martin to the girl, who immediately ran off towards the shop.

“I might as well warn you, Mr Kelly, that, if Miss Lynch is denied to me, the fact of her being so denied will be a very sthrong proof against you and your family. In fact, it amounts to an illegal detention of her person, in the eye of the law.” Daly said this in a very low voice, almost a whisper.

“Faith, the law must have quare eyes, av’ it makes anything wrong with a young lady being asked the question whether or no she wishes to see an attorney, at eleven in the morning.”

“An attorney!” whispered Meg to Jane and Anty at the top of the stairs.

“Heaven and ‘arth,” said poor Anty, shaking and shivering–“what’s going to be the matter now?”

“It’s young Daly,” said Jane, stretching forward and peeping clown the stairs: “I can see the curl of his whiskers.”

By this time the news had reached Mrs Kelly, in the shop, “that a sthrange gentleman war axing for Miss Anty, but that she warn’t to be shown to him on no account;” so the widow dropped her tobacco knife, flung off her dirty apron, and, having summoned Jane and Meg to attend to the mercantile affairs of the establishment–turned into the inn, and met Mr Daly and her son still standing at the bottom of the stairs.

The widow curtsied ceremoniously, and wished Mr. Daly good morning, and he was equally civil in his salutation.

“Mr Daly’s going to have us all before the assizes, mother. We’ll never get off without the treadmill, any way: it’s well av’ the whole kit of us don’t have to go over the wather at the queen’s expense.”

“The Lord be good to us;” said the widow, crossing herself. What’s the matter, Mr Daly?”

“Your son’s joking, ma’am. I was only asking to see Miss Lynch, on business.”

“Step upstairs, mother, into the big parlour, and don’t let’s be standing talking here where all the world can hear us.”

“And wilcome, for me, I’m shure”–said the widow, stroking down the front of her dress with the palms of her hands, as she walked upstairs–“and wilcome too for me I’m very shure. I’ve said or done nothing as I wish to consail, Mr Daly. Will you be plazed to take a chair?” and the widow sat down herself on a chair in the middle of the room, with her hands folded over each other in her lap, as if she was preparing to answer questions from that time to a very late hour in the evening.

“And now, Mr Daly–av’ you’ve anything to say to a poor widdy like me, I’m ready.”

“My chief object in calling, Mrs Kelly, was to see Miss Lynch. Would you oblige me by letting Miss Lynch know that I’m waiting to see her on business.”

“Maybe it’s a message from her brother, Mr Daly?” said Mrs Kelly.

“You had better go in to Miss Lynch, mother,” said Martin, “and ask her av’ it’s pleasing to her to see Mr Daly. She can see him, in course, av’ she likes.”

“I don’t see what good ‘ll come of her seeing him,” rejoined the widow. “With great respect to you, Mr Daly, and not maning to say a word agin you, I don’t see how Anty Lynch ‘ll be the betther for seeing ere an attorney in the counthry.”

“I don’t want to frighten you, ma’am,” said Daly; “but I can assure you, you will put yourself in a very awkward position if you refuse to allow me to see Miss Lynch.”

“Ah, mother!” said Martin, “don’t have a word to say in the matther at all, one way or the other. Just tell Anty Mr Daly wishes to see her–let her come or not, just as she chooses. What’s she afeard of, that she shouldn’t hear what anyone has to say to her?”

The widow seemed to be in great doubt and perplexity, and continued whispering with Martin for some time, during which Daly remained standing with his back to the fire. At length Martin said, “Av’ you’ve got another of them notices to give my mother, Mr Daly, why don’t you do it?”

“Why, to tell you the thruth,” answered the attorney, “I don’t want to throuble your mother unless it’s absolutely necessary; and although I have the notice ready in my pocket, if I could see Miss Lynch, I might be spared the disagreeable job of serving it on her.”

“The Holy Virgin save us!” said the widow; “an’ what notice is it at all, you’re going to serve on a poor lone woman like me?”

“Be said by me, mother, and fetch Anty in here. Mr Daly won’t expect, I suppose, but what you should stay and hear what it is he has to say?”

“Both you and your mother are welcome to hear all that I have to say to the lady,” said Daly; for he felt that it would be impossible for him to see Anty alone.

The widow unwillingly got up to fetch her guest. When she got to the door, she turned round, and said, “And is there a notice, as you calls it, to be sarved on Miss Lynch?”

“Not a line, Mrs Kelly; not a line, on my honour. I only want her to hear a few words that I’m commissioned by her brother to say to her.”

“And you’re not going to give her any paper–nor nothing of that sort at all?”

“Not a word, Mrs Kelly.”

“Ah, mother,” said Martin, “Mr Daly couldn’t hurt her, av’ he war wishing, and he’s not. Go and bring her in.”

The widow went out, and in a few minutes returned, bringing Anty with her, trembling from head to foot. The poor young woman had not exactly heard what had passed between the attorney and the mother and her son, but she knew very well that his visit had reference to her, and that it was in some way connected with her brother. She had, therefore, been in a great state of alarm since Meg and Jane had left her alone. When Mrs Kelly came into the little room where she was sitting, and told her that Mr Daly had come to Dunmore on purpose to see her, her first impulse was to declare that she wouldn’t go to him; and had she done so, the widow would not have pressed her. But she hesitated, for she didn’t like to refuse to do anything which her friend asked her; and when Mrs Kelly said, “Martin says as how the man can’t hurt you, Anty, so you’d betther jist hear what it is he has to say,” she felt that she had no loophole of escape, and got up to comply.

“But mind, Anty,” whispered the cautious widow, as her hand was on the parlour door, “becase this Daly is wanting to speak to you, that’s no rason you should be wanting to spake to him; so, if you’ll be said by me, you’ll jist hould your tongue, and let him say on.”

Fully determined to comply with this prudent advice, Anty followed the old woman, and, curtseying at Daly without looking at him, sat herself down in the middle of the old sofa, with her hands crossed before her.

“Anty,” said Martin, making great haste to speak, before Daly could commence, and then checking himself as he remembered that he shouldn’t have ventured on the familiarity of calling her by her Christian name in Daly’s presence–“Miss Lynch, I mane–as Mr Daly here has come all the way from Tuam on purpose to spake to you, it wouldn’t perhaps be manners in you to let him go back without hearing him. But remember, whatever your brother says, or whatever Mr Daly says for him–and it’s all–one you’re still your own mistress, free to act and to spake, to come and to go; and that neither the one nor the other can hurt you, or mother, or me, nor anybody belonging to us.”

“God knows,” said Daly, “I want to have no hand in hurting any of you; but, to tell the truth, Martin, it would be well for Miss Lynch to have a better adviser than you or she may get herself, and, what she’ll think more of, she’ll get her friends–maning you, Mrs Kelly, and your family–into a heap of throubles.”

“Oh, God forbid, thin!” exclaimed Anty.

“Niver mind us, Mr Daly,” said the widow. “The Kellys was always able to hould their own; thanks be to glory.”

“Well, I’ve said my say, Mr Daly,” said Martin, “and now do you say your’n: as for throubles, we’ve all enough of thim; but your own must have been bad, when you undhertook this sort of job for Barry Lynch.”

“Mind yourself, Martin, as I told you before, and you’ll about have enough to do.–Miss Lynch, I’ve been instructed by your brother to draw up an indictment against Mrs Kelly and Mr Kelly, charging them with conspiracy to get possession of your fortune.”

“A what!” shouted the widow, jumping up from her chair–“to rob Anty Lynch of her fortune! I’d have you to know, Mr Daly, I wouldn’t demane myself to rob the best gentleman in Connaught, let alone a poor unprotected young woman, whom I’ve–“

“Whist, mother–go asy,” said Martin. “I tould you that that was what war in the paper he gave me; he’ll give you another, telling you all about it just this minute.”

“Well, the born ruffian! Does he dare to accuse me of wishing to rob his sister! Now, Mr Daly, av’ the blessed thruth is in you this minute, don’t your own heart know who it is, is most likely to rob Anty Lynch?–Isn’t it Barry Lynch himself is thrying to rob his own sisther this minute? ay, and he’d murdher her too, only the heart within him isn’t sthrong enough.”

“Ah, mother! don’t be saying such things,” said Martin; “what business is that of our’n? Let Barry send what messages he plazes; I tell you it’s all moonshine; he can’t hurt the hair of your head, nor Anty’s neither. Go asy, and let Mr Daly say what he has to say, and have done with it.”

“It’s asy to say ‘go asy’–but who’s to sit still and be tould sich things as that? Rob Anty Lynch indeed!”

“If you’ll let me finish what I have to say, Mrs Kelly, I think you’ll find it betther for the whole of us,” said Daly.

“Go on thin, and be quick with it; but don’t talk to dacent people about robbers any more. Robbers indeed! they’re not far to fitch; and black robbers too, glory be to God.”

“Your brother, Miss Lynch, is determined to bring this matter before a jury at the assizes, for the sake of protecting you and your property.”

“Protecthing Anty Lynch!–is it Barry? The Holy Virgin defind her from sich prothection! a broken head the first moment the dhrink makes his heart sthrong enough to sthrike her!”

“Ah, mother! you’re a fool,” exclaimed Martin: “why can’t you let the man go on?–ain’t he paid for saying it? Well, Mr Daly, begorra I pity you, to have such things on your tongue; but go on, go on, and finish it.”

“Your brother conceives this to be his duty,” continued Daly, rather bothered by the manner in which he had to make his communication, “and it is a duty which he is determined to go through with.”

“Duty!” said the widow, with a twist of her nose, and giving almost a whistle through her lips, in a manner which very plainly declared the contempt she felt for Barry’s ideas of duty.

“With this object,” continued Daly, “I have already handed to Martin Kelly a notice of what your brother means to do; and I have another notice prepared in my pocket for his mother. The next step will be to swear the informations before a magistrate, and get the committals made out; Mrs Kelly and her son will then have to give bail for their appearance at the assizes.”

“And so we can,” said the widow; “betther bail than e’er a Lynch or Daly–not but what the Dalys is respictable–betther bail, any way, than e’er a Lynch in Galway could show, either for sessions or ‘sizes, by night or by day, winter or summer.”

“Ah, mother! you don’t understhand: he’s maning that we’re to be tried in the dock, for staling Anty’s money.”

“Faix, but that’d be a good joke! Isn’t Anty to the fore herself to say who’s robbed her? Take an ould woman’s advice, Mr Daly, and go back to Tuam: it ain’t so asy to put salt on the tail of a Dunmore bird.”

“And so I will, Mrs Kelly,” said Daly; “but you must let me finish what I have to tell Miss Lynch.–This will be a proceeding most disagreeable to your brother’s feelings.”

“Failings, indeed!” muttered the widow; “faix, I b’lieve his chief failing at present’s for sthrong dhrink!”

“–But he must go on with it, unless you at once lave the inn, return to your own home, and give him your promise that you will never marry Martin Kelly.”

Anty blushed deep crimson over her whole face at the mention of her contemplated marriage; and, to tell the truth, so did Martin.

“Here is the notice,” said Daly, taking the paper out of his pocket; “and the matter now rests with yourself. If you’ll only tell me that you’ll be guided by your brother on this subject, I’ll burn the notice at once; and I’ll undertake to say that, as far as your property is concerned, your brother will not in the least interfere with you in the management of it.”

“And good rason why, Mr Daly,” said the widow–“jist becase he can’t.”

“Well, Miss Lynch, am I to tell your brother that you are willing to oblige him in this matter?”

Whatever effect Daly’s threats may have had on the widow and her son, they told strongly upon Anty; for she sat now the picture of misery and indecision. At last she said: “Oh, Lord defend me! what am I to do, Mrs Kelly?”

“Do?” said Martin; “why, what should you do–but just wish Mr Daly good morning, and stay where you are, snug and comfortable?”

“Av’ you war to lave this, Anty, and go up to Dunmore House afther all that’s been said and done, I’d say Barry was right, and that Ballinasloe Asylum was the fitting place for you,” said the widow.

“The blessed virgin guide and prothect me,” said Anty, “for I want her guidance this minute. Oh, that the walls of a convent was round me this minute–I wouldn’t know what throuble was!”

“And you needn’t know anything about throuble,” said Martin, who didn’t quite like his mistress’s allusion to a convent. “You don’t suppose there’s a word of thruth in all this long story of Mr Daly’s?–He knows,–and I’ll say it out to his face–he knows Barry don’t dare carry on with sich a schame. He knows he’s only come here to frighten you out of this, that Barry may have his will on you again.”

“And God forgive him his errand here this day,” said the widow, “for it was a very bad one.”

“If you will allow me to offer you my advice, Miss Lynch,” said Daly, “you will put yourself, at any rate for a time, under your brother’s protection.”

“She won’t do no sich thing,” said the widow. “What! to be locked into the parlour agin–and be nigh murdhered? holy father!”

“Oh, no,” said Anty, at last, shuddering in horror at the remembrance of the last night she passed in Dunmore House, “I cannot go back to live with him, but I’ll do anything else, av’ he’ll only lave me, and my kind, kind friends, in pace and quiet.”

“Indeed, and you won’t, Anty,” said the widow; “you’ll do nothing for him. Your frinds–that’s av’ you mane the Kellys–is very able to take care of themselves.”

“If your brother, Miss Lynch, will lave Dunmore House altogether, and let you have it to yourself, will you go and live there, and give him the promise not to marry Martin Kelly?”

“Indeed an’ she won’t,” said the widow. “She’ll give no promise of the kind. Promise, indeed! what for should she promise Barry Lynch whom she will marry, or whom she won’t?”

“Raily, Mrs Kelly, I think you might let Miss Lynch answer for herself.”

“I wouldn’t, for all the world thin, go to live at Dunmore House,” said Anty.

“And you are determined to stay in this inn here?”

“In course she is–that’s till she’s a snug house of her own,” said the widow.

“Ah, mother!” said Martin, “what for will you be talking?”

“And you’re determined,” repeated Daly, “to stay here?”

“I am,” faltered Anty.

“Then I have nothing further to do than to hand you this, Mrs Kelly”–and he offered the notice to the widow, but she refused to touch it, and he consequently put it down on the table. “But it is my duty to tell you, Miss Lynch, that the gentry of this counthry, before whom you will have to appear, will express very great indignation at your conduct in persevering in placing poor people like the Kellys in so dreadful a predicament, by your wilful and disgraceful obstinacy.”

Poor Anty burst into tears. She had been for some time past trying to restrain herself, but Daly’s last speech, and the horrible idea of the gentry of the country browbeating and frowning at her, completely upset her, and she hid her face on the arm of the sofa, and sobbed aloud.

“Poor people like the Kellys!” shouted the widow, now for the first time really angry with Daly–“not so poor, Mr Daly, as to do dirthy work for anyone. I wish I could say as much this day for your mother’s son! Poor people, indeed! I suppose, now, you wouldn’t call Barry Lynch one of your poor people; but in my mind he’s the poorest crature living this day in county Galway. Av’ you’ve done now, Mr Daly, you’ve my lave to be walking; and the less you let the poor Kellys see of you, from this time out, the betther.”

When Anty’s sobs commenced, Martin had gone over to her to comfort her, “Ah, Anty, dear,” he whispered to her, “shure you’d not be minding what such a fellow as he’d be saying to you?–shure he’s jist paid for all this–he’s only sent here by Barry to thry and frighten you,”–but it was of no avail: Daly had succeeded at any rate in making her miserable, and it was past the power of Martin’s eloquence to undo what the attorney had done.

“Well, Mr Daly,” he said, turning round sharply, “I suppose you have done here now, and the sooner you turn your back on this place the betther–An’ you may take this along with you. Av’ you think you’ve frightened my mother or me, you’re very much mistaken.”

“Yes,” said Daly, “I have done now, and I am sorry my business has been so unpleasant. Your mother, Martin, had betther not disregard that notice. Good morning, Miss Lynch: good morning, Mrs Kelly; good morning, Martin;” and Daly took up his hat, and left the room.

“Good morning to you, Mr Daly,” said Martin: “as I’ve said before, I’m sorry to see you’ve taken to this line of business.”

As soon as the attorney was gone, both Martin and his mother attempted to console and re-assure poor Anty, but they did not find the task an easy one. “Oh, Mrs Kelly,” she said, as soon as she was able to say anything, “I’m sorry I iver come here, I am: I’m sorry I iver set my foot in the house!”

“Don’t say so, Anty, dear,” said the widow. “What’d you be sorry for–an’t it the best place for you?”

“Oh! but to think that I’d bring all these throubles on you! Betther be up there, and bear it all, than bring you and yours into law, and sorrow, and expense. Only I couldn’t find the words in my throat to say it, I’d ‘ve tould the man that I’d ‘ve gone back at once. I wish I had–indeed, Mrs Kelly, I wish I had.”

“Why, Anty,” said Martin, “you an’t fool enough to believe what Daly’s been saying? Shure all he’s afther is to frighthen you out of this. Never fear: Barry can’t hurt us a halfporth, though no doubt he’s willing enough, av’ he had the way.”

“I wish I was in a convent, this moment,” said Anty. “Oh! I wish I’d done as father asked me long since. Av’ the walls of a convent was around me, I’d niver know what throubles was.”

“No more you shan’t now,” said Martin: “Who’s to hurt you? Come, Anty, look up; there’s nothing in all this to vex you.”

But neither son nor mother were able to soothe the poor young woman. The very presence of an attorney was awful to her; and all the jargon which Daly had used, of juries, judges, trials, and notices, had sounded terribly in her ears. The very names of such things were to her terrible realities, and she couldn’t bring herself to believe that her brother would threaten to make use of such horrible engines of persecution, without having the power to bring them into action. Then, visions of the lunatic asylum, into which he had declared that he would throw her, flitted across her, and made her whole body shiver and shake; and again she remembered the horrid glare of his eye, the hot breath, and the frightful form of his visage, on the night when he almost told her that he would murder her.

Poor Anty had at no time high or enduring spirits, but such as she had were now completely quelled. A dreadful feeling of coming evil–a foreboding of misery, such as will sometimes overwhelm stronger minds than Anty’s, seemed to stifle her; and she continued sobbing till she fell into hysterics, when Meg and Jane were summoned to her assistance. They sat with her for above an hour, doing all that kindness and affection could suggest; but after a time Anty told them that she had a cold, sick feeling within herself, that she felt weak and ill, and that she’d sooner go to bed. To bed they accordingly took her; and Sally brought her tea, and Katty lighted a fire in her room, and Jane read to her an edifying article from the lives of the Saints, and Meg argued with her as to the folly of being frightened. But it was all of no avail; before night, Anty was really ill.

The next morning, the widow was obliged to own to herself that such was the case. In the afternoon, Doctor Colligan was called in; and it was many, many weeks before Anty recovered from the effects of the attorney’s visit.

XX. VERY LIBERAL

When the widow left the parlour, after having placed her guest in the charge of her daughters, she summoned her son to follow her down stairs, and was very careful not to leave behind her the notice which Daly had placed on the table. As soon as she found herself behind the shutter of her little desk, which stood in the shop-window, she commenced very eagerly spelling it over. The purport of the notice was, to inform her that Barry Lynch intended immediately to apply to the magistrates to commit her and her son, for conspiring together to inveigle Anty into a marriage; and that the fact of their having done so would be proved by Mr Moylan, who was prepared to swear that he had been present when the plan had been arranged between them. The reader is aware that whatever show of truth there might be for this accusation, as far as Martin and Moylan himself were concerned, the widow at any rate was innocent; and he can conceive the good lady’s indignation at the idea of her own connection, Moylan, having been seduced over to the enemy. Though she had put on a bold front against Daly, and though she did not quite believe that Barry was in earnest in taking proceedings against her, still her heart failed her as she read the legal technicalities of the papers she held in her hand, and turned to her son for counsel in considerable tribulation.

“But there must be something in it, I tell you,” said she. “Though Barry Lynch, and that limb o’ the divil, young Daly, ‘d stick at nothin in the way of lies and desait, they’d niver go to say all this about Moylan, unless he’d agree to do their bidding.”

“That’s like enough, mother: I dare say Moylan has been talked over–bought over rather; for he’s not one of them as’d do mischief for nothin.”

“And does the ould robber mane to say that I–. As I live, I niver as much as mentioned Anty’s name to Moylan, except jist about the agency!”

“I’m shure you didn’t, mother.”

“And what is it then he has to say agin us?”

“Jist lies; that’s av’ he were called on to say anything; but he niver will be. This is all one of Barry’s schames to frighten you, and get Anty turned out of the inn.”

“Thin Master Barry doesn’t know the widdy Kelly, I can tell him that; for when I puts my hand to a thing, I mane to pull through wid it. But tell me–all this’ll be costing money, won’t, it? Attorneys don’t bring thim sort of things about for nothing,” and she gave a most contemptuous twist to the notice.

“Oh, Barry must pay for that.”

“I doubt that, Martin: he’s not fond of paying, the mane, dirthy blackguard. I tell you what, you shouldn’t iver have let Daly inside the house: he’ll make us pay for the writing o’ thim as shure as my name’s Mary Kelly: av’ he hadn’t got into the house, he couldn’t’ve done a halfporth.”

“I tell you, mother, it wouldn’t have done not to let him see Anty. They’d have said we’d got her shut up here, and wouldn’t let any one come nigh her.”

“Well, Martin, you’ll see we’ll have to pay for it. This comes of meddling with other folks! I wonder how I was iver fool enough to have fitched her down here!–Good couldn’t come of daling with such people as Barry Lynch.”

“But you wouldn’t have left her up there to be murdhered?”

“She’s nothin’ to me, and I don’t know as she’s iver like to be.”

“May-be not.”

“But, tell me, Martin–was there anything said between you and Moylan about Anty before she come down here?”

“How, anything said, mother?”

“Why, was there any schaming betwixt you?”

“Schaming?–when I want to schame, I’ll not go shares with sich a fellow as Moylan.”

“Ah, but was there anything passed about Anty and you getting married? Come now, Martin; I’m in all this throuble along of you, and you shouldn’t lave me in the dark. Was you talking to Moylan about Anty and her fortune?”

“Why, thin, I’ll jist tell you the whole thruth, as I tould it all before to Mister Frank–that is, Lord Ballindine, up in Dublin; and as I wouldn’t mind telling it this minute to Barry, or Daly, or any one else in the three counties. When Moylan got the agency, he come out to me at Toneroe; and afther talking a bit about Anty and her fortune, he let on as how it would be a bright spec for me to marry her, and I won’t deny that it was he as first put it into my head. Well, thin, he had schames of his own about keeping the agency, and getting a nice thing out of the property himself, for putting Anty in my way; but I tould him downright I didn’t know anything about that; and that ‘av iver I did anything in the matter it would be all fair and above board; and that was all the conspiracy I and Moylan had.”

“And enough too, Martin,” said the widow. “You’ll find it’s quite enough to get us into throuble. And why wouldn’t you tell me what was going on between you?”

“There was nothing going on between us.”

“I say there was;–and to go and invaigle me into your schames without knowing a word about it!–It was a murdhering shame of you–and av’ I do have to pay for it, I’ll never forgive you.”

“That’s right, mother; quarrel with me about it, do. It was I made you bring Anty down here, wasn’t it? when I was up in Dublin all the time.”

“But to go and put yourself in the power of sich a fellow as Moylan! I didn’t think you were so soft.”

“Ah, bother, mother! Who’s put themselves in the power of Moylan?”

“I’ll moyle him, and spoil him too, the false blackguard, to turn agin the family–them as has made him! I wondher what he’s to get for swearing agin us?”–And then, after a pause, she added in a most pathetic voice “oh, Martin, to think of being dragged away to Galway, before the whole counthry, to be made a conspirather of! I, that always paid my way, before and behind, though only a poor widdy! Who’s to mind the shop, I wondher?–I’m shure Meg’s not able; and there’ll be Mary’ll be jist nigh her time, and won’t be able to come! Martin, you’ve been and ruined me with your plots and your marriages! What did you want with a wife, I wondher, and you so well off!”–and Mrs Kelly began wiping her eyes, for she was affected to tears at the prospect of her coming misery.

“Av’ you take it so to heart, mother, you’d betther give Anty a hint to be out of this. You heard Daly tell her, that was all Barry wanted.”

Martin knew his mother tolerably well, or he would not have made this proposition. He understood what the real extent of her sorrow was, and how much of her lamentation he was to attribute to her laudable wish to appear a martyr to the wishes and pleasures of her children.

“Turn her out!” replied she, “no, niver; and I didn’t think I’d ‘ve heard you asking me to.”

“I didn’t ask you, mother,–only anything’d be betther than downright ruin.”

“I wouldn’t demane myself to Barry so much as to wish her out of this now she’s here. But it was along of you she came here, and av’ I’ve to pay for all this lawyer work, you oughtn’t to see me at a loss. I’m shure I don’t know where your sisthers is to look for a pound or two when I’m gone, av’ things goes on this way,” and again the widow whimpered.

“Don’t let that throuble you, mother: av’ there’s anything to pay, I won’t let it come upon you, any way. But I tell you there’ll be nothing more about it.”

Mrs Kelly was somewhat quieted by her son’s guarantee, and, muttering that she couldn’t afford to be wasting her mornings in that way, diligently commenced weighing out innumerable three-halfporths of brown sugar, and Martin went about his own business.

Daly left the inn, after his interview with Anty and the Kellys, in anything but a pleasant frame of mind. In the first place, he knew that he had been signally unsuccessful, and that his want of success had been mainly attributable to his having failed to see Anty alone; and, in the next place, he felt more than ever disgusted with his client. He began to reflect, for the first time, that he might, and probably would, irretrievably injure his character by undertaking, as Martin truly called it, such a very low line of business: that, if the matter were persevered in, every one in Connaught would be sure to hear of Anty’s persecution; and that his own name would be so mixed up with Lynch’s in the transaction as to leave him no means of escaping the ignominy which was so justly due to his employer. Beyond these selfish motives of wishing to withdraw from the business, he really pitied Anty, and felt a great repugnance at being the means of adding to her troubles; and he was aware of the scandalous shame of subjecting her again to the ill-treatment of such a wretch as her brother, by threatening proceedings which he knew could never be taken.

As he got on the car to return to Tuam, he determined that whatever plan he might settle on adopting, he would have nothing further to do with prosecuting or persecuting either Anty or the Kellys. “I’ll give him the best advice I can about it,” said Daly to himself; “and if he don’t like it he may do the other thing. I wouldn’t carry on with this game for all he’s worth, and that I believe is not much.” He had intended to go direct to Dunmore House from the Kellys, and to have seen Barry, but he would have had to stop for dinner if he had done so; and though, generally speaking, not very squeamish in his society, he did not wish to enjoy another after-dinner _tete-a-tete_ with him–“It’s better to get him over to Tuam,” thought he, “and try and make him see rason when he’s sober: nothing’s too hot or too bad for him, when he’s mad dhrunk afther dinner.”

Accordingly, Lynch was again summoned to Tuam, and held a second council in the attorney’s little parlour. Daly commenced by telling him that his sister had seen him, and had positively refused to leave the inn, and that the widow and her son had both listened to the threats of a prosecution unmoved and undismayed. Barry indulged in his usual volubility of expletives; expressed his fixed intention of exterminating the Kellys; declared, with many asseverations, his conviction that his sister was a lunatic; swore, by everything under, in, and above the earth, that he would have her shut up in the Lunatic Asylum in Ballinasloe, in the teeth of the Lord Chancellor and all the other lawyers in Ireland; cursed the shades of his father, deeply and copiously; assured Daly that he was only prevented from recovering his own property by the weakness and ignorance of his legal advisers, and ended by asking the attorney’s advice as to his future conduct.

“What the d—-l, then, am I to do with the confounded ideot?” said he.

“If you’ll take my advice, you’ll do nothing.”

“What, and let her marry and have that young blackguard brought up to Dunmore under my very nose?”

“I’m very much afraid, Mr Lynch, if you wish to be quit of Martin Kelly, it is you must lave Dunmore. You may be shure he won’t.”

“Oh, as for that, I’ve nothing to tie me to Dunmore. I hate the place; I never meant to live there. If I only saw my sister properly taken care of, and that it was put out of her power to throw herself away, I should leave it at once.”

“Between you and me, Mr Lynch, she will be taken care of; and as for throwing herself away, she must judge of that herself. Take my word for it, the best thing for you to do is to come to terms with Martin Kelly, and to sell out your property in Dunmore. You’ll make much better terms before marriage than you would afther, it stands to rason.”

Barry was half standing, and half sitting on the small parlour table, and there he remained for a few minutes, meditating on Daly’s most unpleasant proposal. It was a hard pill for him to swallow, and he couldn’t get it down without some convulsive grimaces. He bit his under lip, till the blood came through it, and at last said,

“Why, you’ve taken this thing up, Daly, as if you were to be paid by the Kellys instead of by me! I can’t understand it, confound me if I can!”

Daly turned very red at the insinuation. He was within an ace of seizing Lynch by the collar, and expelling him in a summary way from his premises, a feat which he was able to perform; and willing also, for he was sick of his client; but he thought of it a second time, and restrained himself.

“Mr Lynch,” he said, after a moment or two, “that’s the second time you’ve made an observation of that kind to me; and I’ll tell you what; if your business was the best in the county, instead of being as bad a case as was ever put into a lawyer’s hands, I wouldn’t stand it from you. If you think you can let out your passion against me, as you do against your own people, you’ll find your mistake out very soon; so you’d betther mind what you’re saying.”

“Why, what the devil did I say?” said Lynch, half abashed.

“I’ll not repeat it–and you hadn’t betther, either. And now, do you choose to hear my professional advice, and behave to me as you ought and shall do? or will you go out of this and look out for another attorney? To tell you the truth, I’d jist as lieve you’d take your business to some one else.”

Barry’s brow grew very black, and he looked at Daly as though he would much like to insult him again if he dared. But he did not dare. He had no one else to look to for advice or support; he had utterly estranged from him his father’s lawyer; and though he suspected that Daly was not true to him, he felt that he could not break with him. He was obliged, therefore, to swallow his wrath, though it choked him, and to mutter something in the shape of an apology.

It was a mutter: Daly heard something about its being only a joke, and not expecting to be taken up so d—- sharp; and, accepting these sounds as an _amende honorable_ [32], again renewed his functions as attorney.

[FOOTNOTE 32: amende honorable–(French) apology]

“Will you authorise me to see Martin Kelly, and to treat with him? You’ll find it the cheapest thing you can do; and, more than that, it’ll be what nobody can blame you for.”

“How treat with him?–I owe him nothing–I don’t see what I’ve got to treat with him about. Am I to offer him half the property on condition he’ll consent to marry my sister? Is that what you mean?”

“No: that’s not what I mean; but it’ll come to much the same thing in the end. In the first place, you must withdraw all opposition to Miss Lynch’s marriage; indeed, you must give it your direct sanction; and, in the next place, you must make an amicable arrangement with Martin about the division of the property.”

“What–coolly give him all he has the impudence to ask?–throw up the game altogether, and pitch the whole stakes into his lap?–Why, Daly, you–“

“Well, Mr Lynch, finish your speech,” said Daly, looking him full in the face.

Barry had been on the point of again accusing the attorney of playing false to him, but he paused in time; he caught Daly’s eye, and did not dare to finish the sentence which he had begun.

“I can’t understand you, I mean,” said he; “I can’t understand what you’re after: but go on; may-be you’re right, but I can’t see, for the life of me. What am I to get by such a plan as that?”

Barry was now cowed and frightened; he had no dram-bottle by him to reassure him, and he became, comparatively speaking, calm and subdued. Indeed, before the interview was over he fell into a pitiably lachrymose tone, and claimed sympathy for the many hardships he had to undergo through the ill-treatment of his family.

“I’ll try and explain to you, Mr Lynch, what you’ll get by it. As far as I can understand, your father left about eight hundred a-year between the two–that’s you and your sisther; and then there’s the house and furniture. Nothing on earth can keep her out of her property, or prevent her from marrying whom she plases. Martin Kelly, who is an honest fellow, though sharp enough, has set his eye on her, and before many weeks you’ll find he’ll make her his wife. Undher these circumstances, wouldn’t he be the best tenant you could find for Dunmore? You’re not fond of the place, and will be still less so when he’s your brother-in-law. Lave it altogether, Mr Lynch; give him a laise of the whole concern, and if you’ll do that now at once, take my word for it you’ll get more out of Dunmore than iver you will by staying here, and fighting the matther out.”

“But about the debts, Daly?”

“Why, I suppose the fact is, the debts are all your own, eh?”

“Well–suppose they are?”

“Exactly so: personal debts of your own. Why, when you’ve made some final arrangement about the property, you must make some other arrangement with your creditors. But that’s quite a separate affair; you don’t expect Martin Kelly to pay your debts, I suppose?”

“But I might get a sum of money for the good-will, mightn’t I?”

“I don’t think Martin’s able to put a large sum down. I’ll tell you what I think you might ask; and what I think he would give, to get your good-will and consent to the match, and to prevent any further difficulty. I think he’d become your tenant, for the whole of your share, at a rent of five-hundred a year; and maybe he’d give you three hundred pounds for the furniture and stock, and things about the place. If so, you should give him a laise of three lives.”

There was a good deal in this proposition that was pleasing to Barry’s mind: five hundred a-year without any trouble in collecting it; the power of living abroad in the unrestrained indulgence of hotels and billiard rooms; the probable chance of being able to retain his income and bilk his creditors; the prospect of shaking off from himself the consequences of a connection with the Kellys, and being for ever rid of Dunmore encumbrances. These things all opened before his eyes a vista of future, idle, uncontrolled enjoyment, just suited to his taste, and strongly tempted him at once to close with Daly’s offer. But still, he could hardly bring himself to consent to be vanquished by his own sister; it was wormwood to him to think that after all she should be left to the undisturbed enjoyment of her father’s legacy. He had been brow-beaten by the widow, insulted by young Kelly, cowed and silenced by the attorney whom he had intended to patronise and convert into a creature of his own: he could however have borne and put up with all this, if he could only have got his will of his sister; but to give up to her, who had been his slave all his life–to own, at last, that he had no power over her, whom he had always looked upon as so abject, so mean a thing; to give in, of his own accord, to the robbery which had been committed on him by his own father; and to do this, while he felt convinced as he still did, that a sufficiently unscrupulous attorney could save him from such cruel disgrace and loss, was a trial to which he could hardly bring himself to submit, crushed and tamed as he was.

He still sat on the edge of the parlour table, and there he remained mute, balancing the pros and cons of Daly’s plan. Daly waited a minute or two for his answer, and, finding that he said nothing, left him alone for a time, to make up his mind, telling him that he would return in about a quarter of an hour. Barry never moved from his position; it was an important question he had to settle, and so he felt it, for he gave up to the subject his undivided attention. Since his boyhood he had looked forward to a life of ease, pleasure, and licence, and had longed for his father’s death that he might enjoy it. It seemed now within his reach; for his means, though reduced, would still be sufficient for sensual gratification. But, idle, unprincipled, brutal, castaway wretch as Barry was, he still felt the degradation of inaction, when he had such stimulating motives to energy as unsatisfied rapacity and hatred for his sister: ignorant as he was of the meaning of the word right, he tried to persuade himself that it would be wrong in him to yield.

Could he only pluck up sufficient courage to speak his mind to Daly, and frighten him into compliance with his wishes, he still felt that he might be successful–that he might, by some legal tactics, at any rate obtain for himself the management of his sister’s property. But this he could not do: he felt that Daly was his master; and though he still thought that he might have triumphed had he come sufficiently prepared, that is, with a considerable quantum of spirits inside him, he knew himself well enough to be aware that he could do nothing without this assistance; and, alas, he could not obtain it there. He had great reliance in the efficacy of whiskey; he would trust much to a large dose of port wine; but with brandy he considered himself invincible.

He sat biting his lip, trying to think, trying to make up his mind, trying to gain sufficient self-composure to finish his interview with Daly with some appearance of resolution and self-confidence, but it was in vain; when the attorney returned, his face still plainly showed that he was utterly unresolved, utterly unable to resolve on anything.

“Well, Mr Lynch,” said Daly, “will you let me spake to Kelly about this, or would you rather sleep on the matther?”

Barry gave a long sigh–“Wouldn’t he give six hundred, Daly? he’d still have two hundred clear, and think what that’d be for a fellow like him!”

“You must ask him for it yourself then; I’ll not propose to him any such thing. Upon my soul, he’ll be a great fool to give the five hundred, because he’s no occasion to meddle with you in the matther at all, at all. But still I think he may give it; but as for asking for more–at any rate I won’t do it; you can do what you like, yourself.”

“And am I to sell the furniture, and everything–horses, cattle, and everything about the place–for three hundred pounds?”

“Not unless you like it, you ain’t, Mr Lynch; but I’ll tell you this–if you can do so, and do do so, it’ll be the best bargain you ever made:–mind, one-half of it all belongs to your sisther.”

Barry muttered an oath through his ground teeth; he would have liked to scratch the ashes of his father from their resting-place, and wreak his vengeance on them, whenever this degrading fact was named to him.

“But I want the money, Daly,” said he: “I couldn’t get afloat unless I had more than that: I couldn’t pay your bill, you know, unless I got a higher figure down than that. Come, Daly, you must do something for me; you must do something, you know, to earn the fees,” and he tried to look facetious, by giving a wretched ghastly grin.

“My bill won’t be a long one, Mr Lynch, and you may be shure I’m trying to make it as short as I can. And as for earning it, whatever you may think, I can assure you I shall never have got money harder. I’ve now given you my best advice; if your mind’s not yet made up, perhaps you’ll have the goodness to let me hear from you when it is?” and Daly walked from the fire towards the door, and placed his hand upon the handle of it.

This was a hint which Barry couldn’t misunderstand. “Well, I’ll write to you,” he said, and passed through the door. He felt, however, that it was useless to attempt to trust himself to his own judgment, and he turned back, as Daly passed into his office–“Daly,” he said, “step out one minute: I won’t keep you a second.” The attorney unwillingly lifted up the counter, and came out to him. “Manage it your own way,” said he; “do whatever you think best; but you must see that I’ve been badly used–infernally cruelly treated, and you ought to do the best you can for me. Here am I, giving away, as I may say, my own property to a young shopkeeper, and upon my soul you ought to make him pay something for it; upon my soul you ought, for it’s only fair!”

“I’ve tould you, Mr Lynch, what I’ll propose to Martin Kelly; if you don’t think the terms fair, you can propose any others yourself; or you’re at liberty to employ any other agent you please.”

Barry sighed again, but he yielded. He felt broken-hearted, and unhappy, and he longed to quit a country so distasteful to him, and relatives and neighbours so ungrateful; he longed in his heart for the sweet, easy haunts of Boulogne, which he had never known, but of which he had heard many a glowing description from congenial spirits whom he knew. He had heard enough of the ways and means of many a leading star in that Elysium, to be aware that, with five hundred a-year, unembarrassed and punctually paid, he might shine as a prince indeed. He would go at once to that happy foreign shore, where the memory of no father would follow him, where the presence of no sister would degrade and irritate him, where billiard-tables were rife, and brandy cheap; where virtue was easy, and restraint unnecessary; where no duties would harass him, no tenants upbraid him, no duns persecute him. There, carefully guarding himself against the schemes of those less fortunate followers of pleasure among whom he would be thrown in his social hours, he would convert every shilling of his income to some purpose of self-enjoyment, and live a life of luxurious abandonment. And he need not be altogether idle, he reflected within himself afterwards, as he was riding home: he felt that he was possessed of sufficient energy and talent to make himself perfectly master of a pack of cards, to be a proficient over a billiard-table, and even to get the upper hand of a box of dice. With such pursuits left to him, he might yet live to be talked of, feared, and wealthy; and Barry’s utmost ambition would have carried him no further.

As I said before, he yielded to the attorney, and commissioned him fully to treat with Martin Kelly in the manner proposed by himself. Martin was to give him five hundred a-year for his share of the property, and three hundred pounds for the furniture, &c.; and Barry was to give his sister his written and unconditional assent to her marriage; was to sign any document which might be necessary as to her settlement, and was then to leave Dunmore for ever. Daly made him write an authority for making such a proposal, by which he bound himself to the terms, should they be acceded to by the other party.

“But you must bear in mind,” added Daly, as his client for the second time turned from the door, “that I don’t guarantee that Martin Kelly will accept these terms: it’s very likely he may be sharp enough to know that he can manage as well without you as he can with you. You’ll remember that, Mr Lynch.”

“I will–I will, Daly; but look here–if he bites freely–and I think he will, and if you find you could get as much as a thousand out of him, or even eight hundred, you shall have one hundred clear for yourself.”

This was Barry’s last piece of diplomacy for that day. Daly vouchsafed him no answer, but returned into his office, and Barry mounted his horse, and returned home not altogether ill-pleased with his prospects, but still regretting that he should have gone about so serious a piece of business, so utterly unprepared.

These regrets rose stronger, when his after-dinner courage returned to him as he sate solitary over his fire. “I should have had him here,” said he to himself, “and not gone to that confounded cold hole of his. After all, there’s no place for a cock to fight on like his own dunghill; and there’s nothing able to carry a fellow well through a tough bit of jobation [33] with a lawyer like a stiff tumbler of brandy punch. It’d have been worth a couple of hundred to me, to have had him out here–impertinent puppy! Well, devil a halfpenny I’ll pay him!” This thought was consolatory, and he began again to think of Boulogne.

[FOOTNOTE 33: jobation–a tedious session; scolding]

XXI. LORD BALLINDINE AT HOME

Two days after the last recorded interview between Lord Ballindine and his friend, Dot Blake, the former found himself once more sitting down to dinner with his mother and sisters, the Honourable Mrs O’Kelly and the Honourable Misses O’Kelly; at least such were the titular dignities conferred on them in County Mayo, though I believe, strictly speaking, the young ladies had no claim to the appellation.

Mrs O’Kelly was a very small woman, with no particularly developed character, and perhaps of no very general utility. She was fond of her daughters, and more than fond of her son, partly because he was so tall and so handsome, and partly because he was the lord, the head of the family, and the owner of the house. She was, on the whole, a good-natured person, though perhaps her temper was a little soured by her husband having, very unfairly, died before he had given her a right to call herself Lady Ballindine. She was naturally shy and reserved, and the seclusion of O’Kelly’s Court did not tend to make her less so; but she felt that the position and rank of her son required her to be dignified; and consequently, when in society, she somewhat ridiculously aggravated her natural timidity with an assumed rigidity of demeanour. She was, however, a good woman, striving, with small means, to do the best for her family; prudent and self-denying, and very diligent in looking after the house servants.

Her two daughters had been, at the instance of their grandfather, the courtier, christened Augusta and Sophia, after the two Princesses of that name, and were now called Guss and Sophy: they were both pretty, good-natured girls–one with dark brown and the other light brown hair: they both played the harp badly, sung tolerably, danced well, and were very fond of nice young men. They both thought Kelly’s Court rather dull; but then they had known nothing better since they had grown up, and there were some tolerably nice people not very far off, whom they occasionally saw: there were the Dillons, of Ballyhaunis, who had three thousand a-year, and spent six; they were really a delightful family–three daughters and four sons, all unmarried, and up to anything: the sons all hunted, shot, danced, and did everything that they ought to do–at least in the eyes of young ladies; though some of their more coldly prudent acquaintances expressed an opinion that it would be as well if the three younger would think of doing something for themselves; but they looked so manly and handsome when they breakfasted at Kelly’s Court on a hunt morning, with their bright tops, red coats, and hunting-caps, that Guss and Sophy, and a great many others, thought it would be a shame to interrupt them in their career. And then, Ballyhaunis was only eight miles from Kelly’s Court; though they were Irish miles, it is true, and the road was not patronised by the Grand Jury; but the distance was only eight miles, and there were always beds for them when they went to dinner at Peter Dillon’s. Then there were the Blakes of Castletown. To be sure they could give no parties, for they were both unmarried; but they were none the worse for that, and they had plenty of horses, and went out everywhere. And the Blakes of Morristown; they also were very nice people; only unfortunately, old Blake was always on his keeping, and couldn’t show himself out of doors except on Sundays, for fear of the bailiffs. And the Browns of Mount Dillon, and the Browns of Castle Brown; and General Bourke of Creamstown. All these families lived within fifteen or sixteen miles of Kelly’s Court, and prevented the O’Kellys from feeling themselves quite isolated from the social world. Their nearest neighbours, however, were the Armstrongs, and of them they saw a great deal.

The Reverend Joseph Armstrong was rector of Ballindine, and Mrs O’Kelly was his parishioner, and the only Protestant one he had; and, as Mr Armstrong did not like to see his church quite deserted, and as Mrs O’Kelly was, as she flattered herself, a very fervent Protestant, they were all in all to each other.

Ballindine was not a good living, and Mr Armstrong had a very large family; he was, therefore, a poor man. His children were helpless, uneducated, and improvident; his wife was nearly worn out with the labours of bringing them forth and afterwards catering for them; and a great portion of his own life was taken up in a hard battle with tradesmen and tithe-payers, creditors, and debtors. Yet, in spite of the insufficiency of his two hundred a-year to meet all or half his wants, Mr Armstrong was not an unhappy man. At any moment of social enjoyment he forgot all his cares and poverty, and was always the first to laugh, and the last to cease to do so. He never refused an invitation to dinner, and if he did not entertain many in his own house, it was his fortune, and not his heart, that prevented him from doing so. He could hardly be called a good clergyman, and yet his remissness was not so much his own fault as that of circumstances. How could a Protestant rector be a good parish clergyman, with but one old lady and her daughters, for the exercise of his clerical energies and talents? He constantly lauded the zeal of St. Paul for proselytism; but, as he himself once observed, even St. Paul had never had to deal with the obstinacy of an Irish Roman Catholic. He often regretted the want of work, and grieved that his profession, as far as he saw and had been instructed, required nothing of him but a short service on every Sunday morning, and the celebration of the Eucharist four times a-year; but such were the facts; and the idleness which this want of work engendered, and the habits which his poverty induced, had given him a character as a clergyman, very different from that which the high feelings and strict principles which animated him at his ordination would have seemed to ensure. He was, in fact, a loose, slovenly man, somewhat too fond of his tumbler of punch; a little lax, perhaps, as to clerical discipline, but very staunch as to doctrine. He possessed no industry or energy of any kind; but he was good-natured and charitable, lived on friendly terms with all his neighbours, and was intimate with every one that dwelt within ten miles of him, priest and parson, lord and commoner.

Such was the neighbourhood of Kelly’s Court, and among such Lord Ballindine had now made up his mind to remain a while, till circumstances should decide what further steps he should take with regard to Fanny Wyndham. There were a few hunting days left in the season, which he intended to enjoy; and then he must manage to make shift to lull the time with shooting, fishing, farming, and nursing his horses and dogs.

His mother and sisters had heard nothing of the rumour of the quarrel between Frank and Fanny, which Mat Tierney had so openly alluded to at Handicap Lodge; and he was rather put out by their eager questions on the subject. Nothing was said about it till the servant withdrew, after dinner, but the three ladies were too anxious for information to delay their curiosity any longer.

“Well, Frank,” said the elder sister, who was sitting over the fire, close to his left elbow–(he had a bottle of claret at his right)–“well, Frank, do tell us something about Fanny Wyndham; we are so longing to hear; and you never will write, you know.”

“Everybody says it’s a brilliant match,” said the mother. “They say here she’s forty thousand pounds: I’m sure I hope she has, Frank.”

“But when is it to be?” said Sophy. “She’s of age now, isn’t she? and I thought you were only waiting for that. I’m sure we shall like her; come, Frank, do tell us–when are we to see Lady Ballindine?”

Frank looked rather serious and embarrassed, but did not immediately make any reply.

“You haven’t quarrelled, have you, Frank?” said the mother.

“The match isn’t off–is it?” said Guss.

“Miss Wyndham has just lost her only brother,” said he; “he died quite suddenly in London about ten days since; she was very much attached to him.”

“Good gracious, how shocking!” said Sophy.

“I’m sorry,” said Guss.

“Why, Frank,” said their mother, now excited into absolute animation; “his fortune was more than double hers, wasn’t it?–who’ll have it now?”

“It was, mother; five times as much as hers, I believe.”

“Gracious powers! and who has it now? Why don’t you tell me, Frank?”

“His sister Fanny.”

“Heavens and earth!–I hope you’re not going to let her quarrel with you, are you? Has there been anything between you? Have there been any words between you and Lord Cashel? Why don’t you tell me, Frank, when you know how anxious I am?”

“If you must know all about it, I have not had any words, as you call them, with Fanny Wyndham; but I have with her guardian. He thinks a hundred and twenty thousand pounds much too great a fortune for a Connaught viscount. However, I don’t think so. It will be for time to show what Fanny thinks. Meanwhile, the less said about it the better; remember that, girls, will you?”

“Oh, we will–we won’t say a word about it; but she’ll never change her mind because of her money, will she?”

“That’s what would make me love a man twice the more,” said Guss; “or at any rate show it twice the stronger.”

“Frank,” said the anxious mother, “for heaven’s sake don’t let anything stand between you and Lord Cashel; think what a thing it is you’d lose! Why; it’d pay all the debts, and leave the property worth twice what it ever was before. If Lord Cashel thinks you ought to give up the hounds, do it at once, Frank; anything rather than quarrel with him. You could get them again, you know, when all’s settled.”

“I’ve given up quite as much as I intend for Lord Cashel.”

“Now, Frank, don’t be a fool, or you’ll repent it all your life: what does it signify how much you give up to such a man as Lord Cashel? You don’t think, do you, that he objects to our being at Kelly’s Court? Because I’m sure we wouldn’t stay a moment if we thought that.”

“Mother, I wouldn’t part with a cur dog out of the place to please Lord Cashel. But if I were to do everything on earth at his beck and will, it would make no difference: he will never let me marry Fanny Wyndham if he can help it; but, thank God, I don’t believe he can.”

“I hope not–I hope not. You’ll never see half such a fortune again.”

“Well, mother, say nothing about it one way or the other, to anybody. And as you now know how the matter stands, it’s no good any of us talking more about it till I’ve settled what I mean to do myself.”