‘You’re bidding hard to be kicked out, you are.’
‘Am I to leave them here, or will your honour go over the books with me?’
‘Leave the notes, sir, and go to the devil.’
‘I will, my lord; and one comfort at least I’ll have—it won’t be harder to put up with his temper.’
Mr. Gill’s head barely escaped the heavy account-book which struck the door above him as he escaped from the room, and Mathew Kearney sat back in his chair and grasped the arms of it like one threatened with a fit.
‘Where’s Miss Kitty—where’s my daughter?’ cried he aloud, as though there was some one within hearing. ‘Taking the dogs a walk, I’ll be bound,’ muttered he, ‘or gone to see somebody’s child with the measles, devil fear her! She has plenty on her hands to do anywhere but at home. The place might be going to rack and ruin for her if there was only a young colt to look at, or a new litter of pigs! And so you think to frighten me, Peter Gill! You’ve been doing the same thing every Easter, and every harvest, these five-and-twenty years! I can only say I wish you had kept your threat long ago, and the property wouldn’t have as many tumble-down cabins and ruined fences as it has now, and my rent-roll, too, wouldn’t have been the worse. I don’t believe there’s a man in Ireland more cruelly robbed than myself. There isn’t an estate in the county has not risen in value except my own! There’s not a landed gentleman hasn’t laid by money in the barony but myself, and if you were to believe the newspapers, I’m the hardest landlord in the province of Leinster. Is that Mickey Doolan there? Mickey!’ cried he, opening the window, ‘did you see Miss Kearney anywhere about?’
‘Yes, my lord. I see her coming up the Bog road with Miss O’Shea.’
‘The worse luck mine!’ muttered he, as he closed the window, and leaned his head on his hand.