"You're a fool, Nelly--Ax whom they like!--that's asy said. Is they to ax Barry Lynch, or is they to let it alone, and put the sisther into the sod without a word said to him about it? G.o.d be betwixt us and all evil"--and she took a long pull at the slop-bowl; and, as the liquid flowed down her throat, she gradually threw back her head till the top of her mop cap was flattened against the side of the wide fire-place, and the bowl was turned bottom upwards, so that the half-melted brown sugar might trickle into her mouth. She then gave a long sigh, and repeated that difficult question--"Who is they to ax to the wake?"

It was too much for Nelly to answer: she re-echoed the sigh, and more closely embraced the candlestick.

"Besides, Nelly, who'll have the money when she's gone?--and she's nigh that already, the Blessed Virgin guide and prothect her. Who'll get all her money?"

"Why; won't Mr Martin? Sure, an't they as good as man and wife--all as one?"

"That's it; they'll be fighting and tearing, and tatthering about that money, the two young men will, you'll see. There'll be lawyering, an'

magisthrate's work--an' factions--an' fighthins at fairs; an' thin, as in course the Lynches can't hould their own agin the Kellys, there'll be undherhand blows, an' blood, an' murdher!--you'll see else."

"Glory be to G.o.d," involuntarily prayed Nelly, at the thoughts suggested by Sally's powerful eloquence.

"There will, I tell ye," continued Sally, again draining the tea-pot into the bowl. "Sorrow a lie I'm telling you;" and then, in a low whisper across the fire, "didn't I see jist now Miss Anty ketch a hould of Misther Martin, as though she'd niver let him go agin, and bid him for dear mercy's sake have a care of Barry Lynch?--Shure I knowed what that meant. And thin, didn't he thry and do for herself with his own hands? Didn't Biddy say she'd swear she heard him say he'd do it?--and av he wouldn't boggle about his own sisther, it's little he'd mind what he'd do to an out an out inemy like Misther Martin."

"Warn't that a knock at the hall-door, Sally?"

"Run and see, girl; may-be it's the docthor back again; only mostly he don't mind knocking much."

Nelly went to the door, and opened it to Lord Ballindine, who had left his gig in charge of his servant. He asked for Martin, who in a short time, joined him in the parlour.

"This is a dangerous place for your lordship, now," said he: "the fever is so bad in the house. Thank G.o.d, n.o.body seems to have taken it yet, but there's no knowing."

"Is she still so bad, Martin?"

"Worse than iver, a dale worse; I don't think It'll last long, now: another bout such as this last 'll about finish it. But I won't keep your lordship. I've managed about the money;"--and the necessary writing was gone through, and the cash was handed to Lord Ballindine.

"You've given over all thoughts then, about Lynch's offer--eh, Martin?--I suppose you've done with all that, now?"

"Quite done with it, my lord; and done with fortune-hunting too. I've seen enough this last time back to cure me altogether--at laist, I hope so."

"She doesn't mean to make any will, then?"

"Why, she wishes to make one, but I doubt whether she'll ever be able;"

and then Martin gave his landlord an account of all that Anty had said about her will, her wishes as to the property, her desire to leave something to him (Martin) and his sisters: and last he repeated the strong injunctions which Anty had given him respecting her poor brother, and her a.s.surance, so full of affection, that had she lived she would have done her best to make him happy as her husband.

Lord Ballindine was greatly affected; he warmly shook hands with Martin, told him how highly he thought of his conduct, and begged him to take care that Anty had the gratification of making her will as she had desired to do. "The fact," Lord Ballindine said, "of your being named in the will as her executor will give you more control over Barry than anything else could do." He then proposed at once to go, himself, to Tuam, and explain to Daly what it was Miss Lynch wished him to do.

This Lord Ballindine did, and the next day the will was completed.

For a week or ten days Anty remained in much the same condition.

After each attack of fever it was expected that she would perish from weakness and exhaustion; but she still held on, and then the fever abated, and Doctor Colligan thought that it was possible she might recover: she was, however, so dreadfully emaciated and worn out, there was so little vitality left in her, that he would not encourage more than the faintest hope. Anty herself was too weak either to hope or fear;--and the women of the family, who from continual attendance knew how very near to death she was, would hardly allow themselves to think that she could recover.

There were two persons, however, who from the moment of her amendment felt an inward sure conviction of her convalescence. They were Martin and Barry. To the former this feeling was of course one of unalloyed delight. He went over to Kelly's Court, and spoke there of his betrothed as though she were already sitting up and eating mutton chops; was congratulated by the young ladies on his approaching nuptials, and sauntered round the Kelly's Court shrubberies with Frank, talking over his future prospects; asking advice about this and that, and propounding the pros and cons on that difficult question, whether he would live at Dunmore, or build a house at Toneroe for himself and Anty. With Barry, however, the feeling was very different: he was again going to have his property wrenched from him; he was again to suffer the pangs he had endured, when first he learned the purport of his father's will; after clutching the fruit for which he had striven, as even he himself felt, so basely, it was again to be torn from him so cruelly.

He had been horribly anxious for a termination to Anty's sufferings; horribly impatient to feel himself possessor of the whole. From day to day, and sometimes two or three times a day, he had seen Dr Colligan, and inquired how things were going on: he had especially enjoined that worthy man to come up after his morning call at the inn, and get a gla.s.s of sherry at Dunmore House; and the doctor had very generally done so. For some time Barry endeavoured to throw the veil of brotherly regard over the true source of his anxiety; but the veil was much too thin to hide what it hardly covered, and Barry, as he got intimate with the doctor, all but withdrew it altogether. When Barry would say, "Well, doctor, how is she to-day?" and then remark, in answer to the doctor's statement that she was very bad--"Well, I suppose it can't last much longer; but it's very tedious, isn't it, poor thing?" it was plain enough that the brother was not longing for the sister's recovery. And then he would go a little further, and remark that "if the poor thing was to go, it would be better for all she went at once,"

and expressed an opinion that he was rather ill-treated by being kept so very long in suspense.

Doctor Colligan ought to have been shocked at this; and so he was, at first, to a certain extent, but he was not a man of a very high tone of feeling. He had so often heard of heirs to estates longing for the death of the proprietors of them; he had so often seen relatives callous and indifferent at the loss of those who ought to have been dear to them; it seemed so natural to him that Barry should want the estate, that he gradually got accustomed to his impatient inquiries, and listened to, and answered them, without disgust. He fell too into a kind of intimacy with Barry; he liked his daily gla.s.s, or three or four gla.s.ses, of sherry; and besides, it was a good thing for him to stand well in a professional point of view with a man who had the best house in the village, and who would soon have eight hundred a-year.

If Barry showed his impatience and discontent as long as the daily bulletins told him that Anty was still alive, though dying, it may easily be imagined that he did not hide his displeasure when he first heard that she was alive and better. His brow grew very black, his cheeks flushed, the drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and he said, speaking through his closed teeth, "D---- it, doctor, you don't mean to tell me she's recovering now?"

"I don't say, Mr Lynch, whether she is or no; but it's certain the fever has left her. She's very weak, very weak indeed; I never knew a person to be alive and have less life in 'em; but the fever has left her and there certainly is hope."

"Hope!" said Barry--"why, you told me she couldn't live!"

"I don't say she will, Mr Lynch, but I say she may. Of course we must do what we can for her," and the doctor took his sherry and went his way.

How horrible then was the state of Barry's mind! For a time he was absolutely stupified with despair; he stood fixed on the spot where the doctor had left him, realising, bringing home to himself, the tidings which he had heard. His sister to rise again, as though it were from the dead, to push him off his stool! Was he to fall again into that horrid low abyss in which even the Tuam attorney had scorned him; in which he had even invited that odious huxter's son to marry his sister and live in his house? What! was he again to be reduced to poverty, to want, to despair, by her whom he so hated? Could nothing be done?--Something must be done--she should not be, could not be allowed to leave that bed of sickness alive. "There must be an end of her,"

he muttered through his teeth, "or she'll drive me mad!" And then he thought how easily he might have smothered her, as she lay there clasping his hand, with no one but themselves in the room; and as the thought crossed his brain his eyes nearly started from his head, the sweat ran down his face, he clutched the money in his trousers' pocket till the coin left an impression on his flesh, and he gnashed his teeth till his jaws ached with his own violence. But then, in that sick-room, he had been afraid of her; he could not have touched her then for the wealth of the Bank of England!--but now!

The devil sat within him, and revelled with full dominion over his soul: there was then no feeling left akin to humanity to give him one chance of escape; there was no glimmer of pity, no shadow of remorse, no sparkle of love, even though of a degraded kind; no hesitation in the will for crime, which might yet, by G.o.d's grace, lead to its eschewal: all there was black, foul, and deadly, ready for the devil's deadliest work. Murder crouched there, ready to spring, yet afraid;--cowardly, but too thirsty alter blood to heed its own fears.

Theft,--low, pilfering, pettifogging, theft; avarice, l.u.s.t, and impotent, scalding hatred. Controlled by these the black blood rushed quick to and from his heart, filling him with sensual desires below the pa.s.sions of a brute, but denying him one feeling or one appet.i.te for aught that was good or even human.

Again the next morning the doctor was questioned with intense anxiety; "Was she going?--was she drooping?--had yesterday's horrid doubts raised only a false alarm?" It was utterly beyond Barry's power to make any attempt at concealment, even of the most shallow kind. "Well, doctor, is she dying yet?" was the brutal question he put.

"She is, if anything, rather stronger;" answered the doctor, shuddering involuntarily at the open expression of Barry's atrocious wish, and yet taking his gla.s.s of wine.

"The devil she is!" muttered Barry, throwing himself into an arm-chair.

He sat there some little time, and the doctor also sat down, said nothing, but continued sipping his wine.

"In the name of mercy, what must I do?" said Barry, speaking more to himself than to the other.

"Why, you've enough, Mr Lynch, without hers; you can do well enough without it."

"Enough! Would you think you had enough if you were robbed of more than half of all you have. Half, indeed," he shouted--"I may say all, at once. I don't believe there's a man in Ireland would bear it. Nor will I."

Again there was a silence; but still, somehow, Colligan seemed to stay longer than usual. Every now and then Barry would for a moment look full in his face, and almost instantly drop his eyes again. He was trying to mature future plans; bringing into shape thoughts which had occurred to him, in a wild way at different times; proposing to himself schemes, with which his brain had been long loaded, but which he had never resolved on,--which he had never made palpable and definite. One thing he found sure and certain; on one point he was able to become determined: he could not do it alone; he must have an a.s.sistant; he must buy some one's aid; and again he looked at Colligan, and again his eyes fell. There was no encouragement there, but there was no discouragement. Why did he stay there so long? Why did he so slowly sip that third gla.s.s of wine? Was he waiting to be asked? was he ready, willing, to be bought? There must be something in his thoughts--he must have some reason for sitting there so long, and so silent, without speaking a word, or taking his eyes off the fire.

Barry had all but made up his mind to ask the aid he wanted; but he felt that he was not prepared to do so--that he should soon quiver and shake, that he could not then carry it through. He felt that he wanted spirit to undertake his own part in the business, much less to inspire another with the will to a.s.sist him in it. At last he rose abruptly from his chair, and said,

"Will you dine with me to-day, Colligan?--I'm so down in the mouth, so deucedly hipped, it will be a charity."

"Well," said Colligan, "I don't care if I do. I must go down to your sister in the evening, and I shall be near her here."

"Yes, of course; you'll be near her here, as you say: come at six, then. By the bye, couldn't you go to Anty first, so that we won't be disturbed over our punch?"

"I must see her the last thing,--about nine, but I can look up again afterwards, for a minute or so. I don't stay long with her now: it's better not."

"Well, then, you'll be here at six?"

"Yes, six sharp;" and at last the doctor got up and went away.

It was odd that Doctor Colligan should have sat thus long; it showed a great want of character and of good feeling in him. He should never have become intimate, or even have put up with a man expressing such wishes as those which so often fell from Barry's lips. But he was entirely innocent of the thoughts which Barry attributed to him. It had never even occurred to him that Barry, bad as he was, would wish to murder his sister. No; bad, heedless, sensual as Doctor Colligan might be, Barry was a thousand fathoms deeper in iniquity than he.

As soon as he had left the room the other uttered a long, deep sigh.

It was a great relief to him to be alone: he could now collect his thoughts, mature his plans, and finally determine. He took his usual remedy in his difficulties, a gla.s.s of brandy; and, going out into the garden, walked up and down the gravel walk almost unconsciously, for above an hour.

Yes: he would do it. He would not be a coward. The thing had been done a thousand times before. Hadn't he heard of it over and over again?

Besides, Colligan's manner was an a.s.surance to him that he would not boggle at such a job. But then, of course, he must be paid--and Barry began to calculate how much he must offer for the service; and, when the service should be performed, how he might avoid the fulfilment of his portion of the bargain.