“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?”