“I know! I know!” said the other bitterly. “God help me! but I know too well how it was gother up.”
“Well! niver mind that now; we all know that. Anyhow, it is gother up. An’ them as finds most fault wid the manes, mayhap ’d be the first to get hould iv it av they could. Well, anyhow, I’m warrum enough to ask any girrul in these parts to share it wid me. There’s many min and weemin between this and Galway, that’d like to talk over the fortin iv their daughter wid Murtagh Murdock—for all he’s a gombeen man.”
As he spoke, the clasp of Norah’s hand and mine grew closer. I could feel in her clasp both a clinging, as for protection, and a restraining power on myself. Murdock went on:—
“But there’s none of thim girls what I’ve set me harrt on—except wan!” He paused. Joyce said quietly:—
“An’ who, now, might that be?”
“Yer own daughther, Norah Joyce!” Norah’s hand restrained me as I was instinctively rising.
“Go on!” said Joyce, and I could notice that there was a suppressed passion in his voice:—
“Well, I’ve set me harrt on her; and I’m willin’ to settle a fortin on her, on wan condition.”
“And what, now, might that be?”—the tone was of veiled sarcasm.
“She’ll have all the money that I settle on her to dale wid as she likes—that is, the intherest iv it—as long as she lives; an’ I’m to have the Cliff Fields that is hers, as me own to do what I like wid, an’ that them an’ all in them belongs to me.” Joyce paused a moment before answering:—