“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—