"It's easiness has been my ruin, and faith! it's too late to change."
"Then I?"
Uncle Ulick smiled. "To be sure," he said slily, "there's you, Colonel."
"The whole estate is mine, you see, in law."
"Ay, but there's no law west of Tralee," Uncle Ulick retorted. "That's where old Sir Michael made his mistake. Anywhere through the length and breadth of old Ireland, if 'twas in the Four Courts themselves, and all the garrison round you, you'd be on honour, Colonel, to take no advantage. But here it would not be the cold shoulder and a little unpleasantness, and a meeting or two on the ground, that's neither here nor there—that you'd be like to taste. I'd not be knowing what would happen if it went about that you were ousting them that had the right, and you a Protestant. He's not the great favourite, James McMurrough, and whether he or the girl took most 'd be a mighty small matter. But if you think to twist it, so as to play cuckoo—though with the height of fair meaning and not spying a silver penny of profit for yourself, Colonel—I take leave to tell you, he's a most unpopular bird."
"But, Sir Michael," the Colonel, who had listened with a thoughtful face, answered, "left all to me to that very end—that it might be secured to the girl."
"Sorrow one of me says no!" Ulick rejoined. "But——"
"But what?" the Colonel replied politely. "The more plainly you speak the more you will oblige me."
But all that Ulick Sullivan could be brought to say at that moment—perhaps he knew that curious eyes were on their conference—was that Kerry was "a mighty queer country," and the thief of the world wouldn't know what would pass there by times. And besides, there were things afoot—faith, and there were, that he'd talk about at another time.
Then he changed the subject abruptly, asking the Colonel if he had seen a big ship in the bay.