“Yes, but what can I do, Mrs. Tyrrell? I have no power to let any one off, even where I feel inclined, as I do in your case. It really is not in my power; Lord Cumber took care to leave me no discretion in the business at all.”
“But surely, sir, you don't mean to say, that unless I pay the rent, you will seize upon my property.'
“This,” said Val, as if to himself, “is really very distressing— unfortunately, Mrs. Tyrrell, I must indeed, unless you can raise the money in some way; wouldn't your friends, for instance, stand by you, until your butter is made up?”
“I have no such friends,” replied the poor woman, “them that would, arn't able; and them that are able, won't; and, that's only the way of the world, sir.”
“It's too true, indeed, Mrs. Tyrrell; I am very sorry, exceedingly sorry, for what must be done. It is such circumstances as these that make me wish I never had become an agent.”
“For God's sake, sir, have patience with me for about a month or six weeks, and I will be able to pay it all easily.”
“If I was my own master,” returned Val, “it would give me pleasure to do so, but I am not.”
Here there was a groan from Solomon of compassion for the poor widow, followed by a second, which was clearly a comment upon the first. What a pity, said the first, to see so interesting a young widow without the means of paying her rent—and is it not a wicked and hard-hearted world, said the second that has not in it one individual to befriend her! Mrs. Tyrrell looked round on hearing an expression of sympathy, and there was Solomon gazing on her with a look, in which admiration and sympathy were so well feigned, that she felt grateful to Solomon in her heart. As for Phil, whether he gazed at her, his father, or at the attorney, such was the comprehensive latitudinarianism of his squint, that she felt it impossible to tell; neither, indeed, did she care. She was now in tears, and Val having declared his determination to proceed, was silent, as if out of respect to her feelings. At length she rose up, and when on the eve of going out, she asked for the last time:—
“Mr. M'Clutchy is there no hope? I trust, sir, that when you consider how long my family and my husband have been living on this property, you'll think better of it than to bring myself and my poor orphan boy to beggary and ruin. What will become of him and myself!”
“D—n my honor, Mrs. Tyrrell, but I feel for you,” said Phil, eagerly, as if rushing head foremost into a fit of the purest humanity.