“Yes, and am delighted with its picturesque beauty. It is infinitely finer than I expected, and if I believed they’d let me live there for a few weeks every year, I would even build a house and furnish it.”
“And who doubts it?”
“I do; and so would you, M’Kinlay, if you talked the matter over, as I did with a committee of the whole House. We discussed the thing very coolly and impartially; we entered upon the question of landlordism in all its bearings, what it contained of good, and where it degenerated into evil; and although they failed to convince me that capital, skill, and intelligence, backed by an honest desire to do good, were only unwarrantable interferences with people who wanted none of them, they assuredly made me believe that the pleasure of possession would be dear at the price of being shot at, and that the great probability of being thrown over a precipice rather detracted from one’s enjoyment of wild scenery.”
“The fellows who talk like this are not the stuff murderers are made of, Sir Gervais. They like to frighten away purchasers, just as people get up ghost stories to deter persons from taking a house. If you like the property——”
“I repeat, I am charmed with it.”
“In that case, don’t lose it. Ireland cannot remain for ever out of the law. One day or other she must come into civilisation, and these acres, that are bought for less money than so much land in South Africa or New Zealand, will be as profitable as an estate in the West Riding.”
Vyner smiled and shook his head. “Have you not been hearing this story for more than a century back?”
“Let us hear it for a century still, and the investment will pay cent. per cent. But come, I will tell you of a plan to test this problem fairly. Make the estate the fortune you intend for this young girl, with a power of redemption on your part by payment of a certain sum—let us say half as much more as you are now to pay for it. By the time that she will have grown up to womanhood you will have had the opportunity of deciding whether you desire to become an Irish proprietor or not. At all events, she will have either a good round sum in hand, or an estate which certainly will be no perilous heritage to her, though it might be a dangerous possession to you. This, I think, meets every difficulty.”
“Grenfell would tell us that instead of overcoming one obstacle it raises two,” said Vyner, laughing.
“But why consult him on the matter?”