‘First and foremost, I don’t think the law will let you. I don’t believe you can charge your estate against the entail. I have a note there to ask McKeown’s opinion, and if I’m right, I’ll set apart a sum in my will to contest it in the Queen’s Bench. I tell you this to your face, Mathew Kearney, and I’m going where I can tell it to somebody better than a hard-hearted, cruel old man.’
‘What is it that I want to do, and that the law won’t let me?’ asked he, in the most imploring accents.
‘At least twelve honest men will decide it.’
‘Decide what! in the name of the saints?’ cried he.
‘Don’t be profane; don’t parade your unbelieving notions to a poor old woman on her death-bed. You may want to leave your daughter a beggar, and your son little better, but you have no right to disturb my last moments with your terrible blasphemies.’
‘I’m fairly bothered now,’ cried he, as his two arms dropped powerlessly to his sides. ‘So help me, if I know whether I’m awake or in a dream.’
‘It’s an excuse won’t serve you where you’ll be soon going, and I warn you, don’t trust it.’
‘Have a little pity on me, Miss Betty, darling,’ said he, in his most coaxing tone; ‘and tell me what it is I have done?’
‘You mean what you are trying to do; but what, please the Virgin, we’ll not let you!’
‘What is that?’