"Why, Mr. Keegan, father pays Mr. Flannelly 5 per cent., and the property is near to 400 a year, even now."

"Well, of course, if you think so, I wouldn't advise you to the contrary; only, if so, Mr. Flannelly must foreclose at once, in which case the property would be sold out and out; but perhaps you could effect a loan in time--"

"Well, Mr. Keegan, what was it you said you had to propose?"

"What Mr. Flannelly proposes, you mean;--of course I'm only his messenger now. What he proposes is this. You see, the property is so unimproved, and bad--why, the house is tumbling down--it's enough to kill your father, now he's getting a little infirm."

"Well, well, Mr. Keegan; what is it Mr. Flannelly wishes to do with us?"

"Wishes to do?--oh, he doesn't wish anything, of course; the law is open to him to get his own; in fact, the law would give him much more than he wishes to take: but he proposes to buy Ballycloran himself."

"Buy Ballycloran!" screamed Larry.

"Well, well, father; let's hear what Mr. Keegan has to say.--Well, Mr. Keegan, does he propose giving anything but what he has got himself already?--or does he propose to take the estate for the mortgage, and cry quits; so that father, and Feemy, and I, can walk out just where we plaze?"

"Of course not, of course not. It's to make your father what he thinks a fair offer that I'm come up; and it's what I'm sure you must think is a generous offer."

"Well, out with it."

"Well then; what he proposes to do is, to settle an annuity on your father for his life; and give you a sum of money down for yourself and your sister."

"Let's hear what he offers," said Thady.

Larry, whose back was nearly turned to the chair where the attorney was sitting, said nothing; but he gave an ominous look round, which showed that he had heard what had pa.s.sed. But it did not show that he by any means approved of the proposition.

"I'm coming to that. You see the rent is mostly all swallowed up by this mortgage. Now can you say you've 50 a year coming into the house? I'm afraid not, Mr. Thady--I'm afraid not; and then all your time is occupied in collecting it, and sc.r.a.ping it; and if it's true what I hear--to be plain, I fear you'll hardly have the interest money this November; and if you like Mr. Flannelly's proposal, he'll give in that half year; so that you'd have something in hand to begin. And how comfortable Mr. Macdermot would be in lodgings down at Carrick; you've no idea how reasonable he might board there; say at Dargan's for instance, for about ten shillings a week. And I'm very glad, I can a.s.sure you, to hear of the very respectable match your sister is making. Ussher is a very steady nice fellow, knows what's what, and won't be less ready to come to the scratch when he knows he'll have to touch a little ready cash."

"You'd better let us know what your offer is, and lave my sisther alone. It doesn't do to bring every old woman's story in, when we're talking business; so, if you plaze, we won't calculate on Feemy's marriage."

"Well, well, I didn't mean anything more than that I just heard that a match was made between them. So, Mr. Macdermot, Mr. Flannelly will settle 50 a year on you, paid as you like; or come, say a pound a week, as you would probably like to pay your lodgings weekly; and he would give 100 each to your son and daughter, ready money down you know, Mr. Thady. What do you say, Mr. Macdermot?" And he got up and walked round so as to stand over the side of Larry's chair.

"Didn't I tell you, then, I wouldn't be bothered with your business?

If you must come up here jawing and talking, can't you have it out with Thady there?"

"Well, Thady, what do you say? You see how much your father's comfort would be improved; and as I suppose, after all, your sister is to be married, you couldn't well keep the house up; and I'll tell you what more Mr. Flannelly proposes for yourself."

"I don't want what Mr. Flannelly will do for me; but I'm thinking of the old man, and Feemy there."

"Well, don't you see how much more comfortable he must be?--nothing to bother him, you know; no bills coming due; and as for yourself, you should have a lease, say for five years, of any land you liked; say forty acres or so, and with your ready money you know."

"Sure isn't the land crowded with tenants already?" said Thady.

"Ah yes; those wretched cabin holders with their half acres. Mr.

Flannelly would soon get shut of them: he means to have no whiskey making on the land! Let me alone to eject those fellows. By dad! I'll soon clear off most of them."

"What! strip their roofs?"

"Yes, if they wouldn't go quietly; but they most of them know me now; and I give you my word of honour--indeed, Flannelly said as much--you should have any forty acres you please, at a fair rent. Say what the poor devils are paying now, without any capital you know."

"No, Mr. Keegan; I wouldn't have act or part in dhriving off the poor craturs that know me so well; nor would I be safe if I did; nor for the matter of that, could I well bring myself to be one of Mr. Flannelly's tenants at Ballycloran. But I won't say I won't be advising the owld man to take the offer, if you only make it a little fairer. Consider, Mr. Keegan; the whole property--nigh 400 a year, besides the house--and Mr. Flannelly's debt on it only 200."

"Ah! 400 a year and the house is very well," said Keegan; "but did you ever see the 400--and isn't the house half falling down already?"

"Whose fault is that--who built it then, Mr. Keegan?--bad luck to it for a house!"

"Well, I don't know it's much use going into that now; but you can't say but what the proposal is a fair one."

"Ah! Mr. Keegan, 1 a week is too little for the owld man; make it 100 a year for his life, and give Feemy 300, so that she, poor girl, may have some chance of neither begging or starving, if she shouldn't get married, and I'll not go against the bargain. I'd get a bit of land somewhere, though I couldn't be a tenant on Ballycloran.

'Deed for the matter of that, if we must part it, I don't care how long it is before I see a sod of it again."

"Nonsense, Mr. Thady; 100 a year is out of the question; why, your father's hardly to be called an elderly man yet. I couldn't think of advising Mr. Flannelly to give more than he has already proposed.--Don't you think, Mr. Macdermot,"--and he began speaking loudly to the old man;--"1 a week, regularly paid, you know, would be a nice thing for you, now that your daughter is going to get married, and that Thady here thinks of taking a farm for himself?"

"I towld you before I'd nothing to say about it--and I will say nothing about it; the bill don't come round till November, and it's very hard you should be bothering the life out of me this way."

Keegan turned away, and taking Thady by the collar of his coat, led him to the window; he began to find he could do nothing with Larry.

"You see, Macdermot," he said in a half whisper, "it is impossible to get your father to listen to me; and therefore the responsibility must rest upon you as to advising him what he'd better do. And now let me put it to you this way: you know that you have not the means of raising the money to pay off this debt, and that Flannelly can sell the estate any day he pleases; well,--suppose you drive us to this, and suppose the thing fetches a little over what his claim is, don't you know there are great expenses attached to such a sale?

All would have to come out of the property; and your father's other creditors would come on the little remainder, and where would you be then? You see, my boy, it's quite impossible the estate should ever come to you. Now, by what I propose, your father would sell the estate while still he had the power; he would get comfortably settled--and I'd take care to manage the annuity so that the other creditors couldn't touch it; and you'd get a handful of money to set you up something more decently than the way you're going on here with your tenants."

"But my sisther, Mr. Keegan; when the home came to be taken from over her head, what would become of Feemy? She and the owld man could hardly live on a pound a week. And when the owld man should die--"

"Why, nonsense, man! Isn't your sister as good as married? or if not, a strapping girl like her is sure of a husband. Besides, when she's a hundred pounds in her pocket, she won't have to go far to look for a lover. There's plenty in Carrick would be glad to take her."

"Take her, Mr. Keegan! Do you think I'd be offering her that way to any huckster in Carrick that wanted a hundred pound;--or that she would put up with the like of that?--Bad as we are, we an't come to that yet."

"There you go with your family pride, Thady; but family pride won't feed you, and the offer I've made will; so you'd better bring the old man round to accept it."

"Make it 80 a year for my father, and 250 for Feemy, and I'll do the best I can."

"Not a penny more than I offered. Indeed, Mr. Flannelly would get the property cheaper if he sold it the regular way under the mortgage, so that he doesn't care about it: only he'd sooner you got the difference than strangers.--Well, you won't get the old man to take the offer--eh?"

"I can't advise him to sell his property, and his house, and everything, so for nothing."

"Then you know we must sell it for him."

"Will you give me till Monday," said Thady, "till I ask some friend what I ought to do?"

"Some friend;--what friend do you want to be asking--some attorney?

Dolan, I suppose, who of course would tell you not to part with the property, that he might make a penny of it. No, Master Thady, that won't do; either yes or no--no or yes; I don't care which; but an answer, if you please, as Flannelly is determined he will do something."

"It's no lawyer I want to spake to, Mr. Keegan; I've had too much of lawyers; but it's my friend, Father John."

"What, the priest! thank ye for nothing; I'll have no d----d priest meddling; and to tell you the truth at once, it's either now or never. And think where your father 'll be if the house is sold over his head, before he has a place to stretch himself in."

"Oh! you know, and I know, you can't sell it out of hand, in that way,--all at once."

"'Deed but we can though; and, by G----d, if you mean to be stiff about it, you shall be out of the place before the May rents become due."