‘And what, weak and ill, and dying as I am, I’ve strength enough left in me to prevent, Mathew Kearney—and if you’ll give me that Bible there, I’ll kiss it, and take my oath that, if he marries her, he’ll never put foot in a house of mine, nor inherit an acre that belongs to me; and all that I’ll leave in my will shall be my—well, I won’t say what, only it’s something he’ll not have to pay a legacy duty on. Do you understand me now, or ain’t I plain enough yet?’
‘No, not yet. You’ll have to make it clearer still.’
‘Faith, I must say you did not pick up much cuteness from your adopted daughter.’
‘Who is she?’
‘The Greek hussy that you want to marry my nephew, and give a dowry to out of the estate that belongs to your son. I know it all, Mathew. I wasn’t two hours in the house before my old woman brought me the story from Mary. Ay, stare if you like, but they all know it below-stairs, and a nice way you are discussed in your own house! Getting a promise out of a poor boy in a brain fever, making him give a pledge in his ravings! Won’t it tell well in a court of justice, of a magistrate, a county gentleman, a Kearney of Kilgobbin? Oh! Mathew, Mathew, I’m ashamed of you!’
‘Upon my oath, you’re making me ashamed of myself that I sit here and listen to you,’ cried he, carried beyond all endurance. ‘Abusing, ay, blackguarding me this last hour about a lying story that came from the kitchen. It’s you that ought to be ashamed, old lady. Not, indeed, for believing ill of an old friend—for that’s nature in you—but for not having common sense, just common sense to guide you, and a little common decency to warn you. Look now, there is not a word—there is not a syllable of truth in the whole story. Nobody ever thought of your nephew asking my niece to marry him; and if he did, she wouldn’t have him. She looks higher, and she has a right to look higher than to be the wife of an Irish squireen.’
‘Go on, Mathew, go on. You waited for me to be as I am now before you had courage for words like these.’
‘Well, I ask your pardon, and ask it in all humiliation and sorrow. My temper—bad luck to it!—gets the better, or, maybe, it’s the worse, of me at times, and I say fifty things that I know I don’t feel—just the way sailors load a gun with anything in the heat of an action.’
‘I’m not in a condition to talk of sea-fights, Mr. Kearney, though I’m obliged to you all the same for trying to amuse me. You’ll not think me rude if I ask you to send Kate to me? And please to tell Father Luke that I’ll not see him this morning. My nerves have been sorely tried. One word before you go, Mathew Kearney; and have compassion enough not to answer me. You may be a just man and an honest man, you may be fair in your dealings, and all that your tenants say of you may be lies and calumnies, but to insult a poor old woman on her death-bed is cruel and unfeeling; and I’ll tell you more, Mathew, it’s cowardly and it’s—’
Kearney did not wait to hear what more it might be, for he was already at the door, and rushed out as if he was escaping from a fire.