"You'll see, my boy," said Keegan—and now the benevolent attorney had altogether lost his smile,—"you'll see, my boy, whether I won't make the two of you pay for this; ay! and the whole family too, for a set of proud, beggarly, starved-out paupers. By G——, I'll sell every rotten stick of old furniture left in the house, on the 6th of next month; and the three of you shall be tramping in the roads before the winter's over!"
"You're worse than the old man with your passion, Mr. Keegan," said Thady; "ten times worse; you know I did what I could to advise him; and even now, if you'll lave him to me, I'll bring him round."
"Be d——d to you with your bringing round! I'll have no more to do with the pack of you."
"Would you go to remember the passionate words of an owld man that's lost his senses, Mr. Keegan? for shame on you. If you'll stick to the offer you made before, I'll bring the old man round yet."
"I tell you I'll do no such thing, Master Thady; but root and branch I'll have you out of that, and that right soon; a pack of beggars like you! What right have you to be keeping a respectable man out of his money?"
"Respictable indeed! very respictable!—Look at the house, Mr. Keegan, for which you want to take the whole property,—tumbling down already; and you call that respictable! And to be threatening to be dhriving an owld man, past his senses, out of his house for a few foolish words; and a poor innocent defenceless girl too!" Thady himself was beginning to get in a passion now,—"And since you will have it, the owld man was not far wrong, for it is robbers you are, both of you, and that's your respictability!"
"Robbers are we? and what are you and your innocent sister? You know, Thady, she can go to Ussher; he says he'll keep her. She won't be a huckster's wife, you say? better that than a captain's misthress, as all agree she is now."
As Keegan said this, he seemed to expect that he would be answered by some personal violence. The two were together, standing at the end of the avenue, all but on the public road. Keegan had a stout walking-stick in his hand, and he walked out into the road as he said the last words, turning round as he did so, so as to face Thady.
The young man stood still for a second or two, as if the meaning of the words had hardly reached him, and then rushed at the attorney with his clenched fist; but the man of law was too quick for him, for striking out with his stick, he cried,
"By the Lord of heaven, if you come nearer I'll brain you!" and, as the young man endeavoured to get within the sweep of the stick, he received a blow on the arm and elbow, which, for the moment, disabled him; and the pain was so sharp, as to prevent him from any further immediate attack.