“You can’t sell Killantry, for Basset has above six thousand pounds on it already. To be sure, there’s the Priest’s Meadows,--fine land and in good heart; but Malony was an old tenant of the family, and I cannot recommend your turning him over to a stranger. The widow M’Bride’s farm is perhaps the best, after all, and it would certainly bring the sum we want; still, poor Mary was your nurse, Charley, and it would break her heart to do it.” Thus, wherever we turned, some obstacle presented itself, if not from moneyed causes, at least from those ties and associations which, in an attached and faithful tenantry, are sure to grow up between them and the owner of the soil. Feeling how all-important these things were--endeavoring as I was to fulfil the will and work out the intentions of my uncle--I saw at once that to sell any portion of the property must separate me, to a certain extent, from those who long looked up to our house, and who, in the feudalism of the west, could ill withdraw their allegiance from their own chief to swear fealty to a stranger. The richer tenants were those whose industry and habits rendered them objects of worth and attachment; to the poorer ones, to whose improvidence and whose follies (if you will) their poverty was owing, I was bound by those ties which the ancient habit of my house had contracted for centuries. The bond of benefit conferred can be stronger than the debt of gratitude itself. What was I then to do? My income would certainly permit of my paying the interest upon my several mortgages, and still retaining wherewithal to live; the payment of Blake’s bond was my only difficulty, and small as it was, it was still a difficulty. “I have it, Charley!” said Considine; “I’ve found out the way of doing it. Blake will have no objection, I’m sure, to take the widow’s farm in payment of his debt, giving you a power of redemption within five years. In that time, what with economy, some management, perhaps,” added he, smiling slightly,--“perhaps a wife with money may relieve all your embarrassments at once. Well, well, I know you are not thinking of that just now; but come, what say you to my plan?” “I know not well what to say. It seems to be the best; but still I have my misgivings.” “Of course you have, my boy; nor could I love you if you’d part with an old and faithful follower without them. But, after all, she is only a hostage to the enemy; we’ll win her back, Charley.” “If you think so--” “I do. I know it.” “Well, then, be it so; only one thing I bargain,--she must herself consent to this change of masters. It will seem to her a harsh measure that the child she had nursed and fondled in her arms should live to disunite her from those her oldest attachments upon earth. We must take care, sir, that Blake cannot dispossess her; this would be too hard.”