“There, there, my dear father, don't puzzle my brain and your own with a statement we'll never get to the end of. The point I want to learn is, they are your tenants——”
“Yes, at least for part of the land they occupy. There is a dispute about another portion; but I believe Hemsworth has got the Attorney-General's opinion, that their case cannot stand.”
“Tush—never mind the Attorney-General. Give up the question at issue; send him, or his father, or whoever it is, the receipt for the rent due, and take care Hemsworth does not molest him in future.”
“But you don't see, boy, what we are doing. We hope to obtain the whole of the Ballyvourney property—that is part of our plan; the tenants there are in a state of absolute misery and starvation.”
“Then, in God's name, give them plenty to eat; it doesn't signify much, I suppose, whose tenantry they are, when they're hungry.”
The old gentleman was scarcely prepared for such an extended basis for his philanthropy, and, for a moment or two, seemed quite dumbfounded by his son's proposition, while Fred continued—“If I understand the matter, it lies thus: you owe a debt of gratitude which you are desirous to acquit—you don't care to pay highly.”
“On the contrary, I am quite willing,” interposed Sir Marmaduke; “but let the price be one, which shall realize a benefit equivalent to its amount. If I assure these people in the possession of their land, what security have I, that they will not continue, as of old, the same useless, wasteful, spendthrift set they ever were—presenting the worst possible example to the other tenants, and marring the whole force of the lesson I am endeavouring to inculcate?”
“That, I take it, is more their affair than yours, after all,” said Fred; “you are not to confer the boon, and allocate its advantages afterwards—but come, what kind of people are they?”
“Oh! a species of half-gentry, half-farmer set, I believe—proud as they are poor—deeming themselves, as O'Donoghues, at least our equals; but living, as I believe, in every kind of privation.”
“Very well; sit down there, and let me have a check on your banker for five hundred pounds, and leave the affair to me.”