“So then, I'm not likely to obtain any information from either of you.”
They made no reply, but their looks gave as palpable a concurrence to this speech, as though they swore to its truth.
“Well, I have another question to ask. It was you saved this young gentleman, I understand; what was your motive for doing so? when, as by your own confession, you were at a distance when the fight begun.”
“He was my landlord's son,” said Owen, half roughly; “I hope there is no law agin that.”
“I sincerely trust not,” ejaculated the gentleman; “have you been long on the estate?”
“Three generations of us now, yer honor,” said the old man.
“And what rent do you pay?”
“Oh, musha, we pay enough! we pay fifteen shillings an acre for the bit of callows below, near the lake, and we give ten pounds a year for the mountain—and bad luck to it for a mountain—it's breaking my heart, trying to make something out of it.”
“Then I suppose you'd be well pleased to exchange your farm, and take one in a better and more profitable part of the country?”
Another suspicion here shot across the old man's mind; and turning to Owen he said in Irish: “He wants to get the mountain for sporting over; but I'll not lave it.”