"I don't want what Mr. Flannelly will do for me; but I'm thinking of the old man, and Feemy there."
"Well, don't you see how much more comfortable he must be?—nothing to bother him, you know; no bills coming due; and as for yourself, you should have a lease, say for five years, of any land you liked; say forty acres or so, and with your ready money you know."
"Sure isn't the land crowded with tenants already?" said Thady.
"Ah yes; those wretched cabin holders with their half acres. Mr. Flannelly would soon get shut of them: he means to have no whiskey making on the land! Let me alone to eject those fellows. By dad! I'll soon clear off most of them."
"What! strip their roofs?"
"Yes, if they wouldn't go quietly; but they most of them know me now; and I give you my word of honour—indeed, Flannelly said as much—you should have any forty acres you please, at a fair rent. Say what the poor devils are paying now, without any capital you know."
"No, Mr. Keegan; I wouldn't have act or part in dhriving off the poor craturs that know me so well; nor would I be safe if I did; nor for the matter of that, could I well bring myself to be one of Mr. Flannelly's tenants at Ballycloran. But I won't say I won't be advising the owld man to take the offer, if you only make it a little fairer. Consider, Mr. Keegan; the whole property—nigh £400 a year, besides the house—and Mr. Flannelly's debt on it only £200."
"Ah! £400 a year and the house is very well," said Keegan; "but did you ever see the £400—and isn't the house half falling down already?"
"Whose fault is that—who built it then, Mr. Keegan?—bad luck to it for a house!"
"Well, I don't know it's much use going into that now; but you can't say but what the proposal is a fair one."