Domestic fiction; Ireland -- Fiction; Land tenure -- Fiction; Landlord and tenant -- Fiction; Landowners -- Fiction
Daly let no grass grow under his feet, for early on the following
morning he hired a car, and proceeded to Dunmore, with the notices in
his pocket. His feelings were not very comfortable on his journey, for
he knew that he was going on a bad errand, and he was not naturally
either a heartless or an unscrupulous man, considering that he was a
provincial attorney; but he was young in business, and poor, and he
could not afford to give up a client. He endeavoured to persuade
himself that it certainly was a wrong thing for Martin Kelly to marry
such a woman as Anty Lynch, and that Barry had some show of justice on
his side; but he could not succeed. He knew that Martin was a frank,
honourable fellow, and that a marriage with him would be the very thing
most likely to make Anty happy; and he was certain, moreover, that,
however anxious Martin might naturally be to secure the fortune, he
would take no illegal or even unfair steps to do so. He felt that his
client was a ruffian of the deepest die: that his sole object was to
rob his sister, and that he had no case which it would be possible even
to bring before a jury. His intention now was, merely to work upon the
timidity and ignorance of Anty and the other females, and to frighten
them with a bugbear in the shape of a criminal indictment; and Daly
felt that the work he was about was very, very dirty work. Two or three
times on the road, he had all but made up his mind to tear the letters
he had in his pocket, and to drive at once to Dunmore House, and tell
Barry Lynch that he would do nothing further in the case. And he would
have done so, had he not reflected that he had gone so far with Moylan,
that he could not recede, without leaving it in the old rogue’s power
to make the whole matter public.
As he drove down the street of Dunmore, he endeavoured to quiet his
conscience, by reflecting that he might still do much to guard Anty
from the ill effects of her brother’s rapacity; and that at any rate he
would not see her property taken from her, though she might be
frightened out of her matrimonial speculation.
He wanted to see the widow, Martin, and Anty, and if possible to see
them, at first, separately; and fortune so far favoured him that, as he
got off the car, he saw our hero standing at the inn door.
“Ah! Mr Daly,” said he, coming up to the car and shaking hands with the
attorney, for Daly put out his hand to him—“how are you again?—I
suppose you’re going up to the house? They say you’re Barry’s right
hand man now. Were you coming into the inn?”
“Why, I will step in just this minute; but I’ve a word I want to spake
to you first.”
“To me!” said Martin.
“Yes, to you, Martin Kelly: isn’t that quare?” and then he gave
directions to the driver to put up the horse, and bring the car round
again in an hour’s time. “D’ you remember my telling you, the day we
came into Dunmore on the car together, that I was going up to the
house?”
“Faith I do, well; it’s not so long since.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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