The Macdermots of Ballycloran Part 18

"Would you want me to go and sell all that's left in the family, without giving me a day to consider?--without asking my friends what's best to do for the old man, and for poor Feemy? Surely, Mr.

Keegan--"

"Surely, nonsense. You see how it is; I want to give Flannelly an answer; he's not asking anything of you--he's offering a provision to you all, which you might go far to look for if the law takes its course,--as of course it will do if you oppose his offer. But perhaps you're thinking we can't sell the estate; and from the old man's state, because he's not _compos_, you can get Ballycloran into your own hands. If that's the game you're playing, you'll soon find yourself in the wrong box, my lad."

"It's not of myself I'm thinking; and it's only you, and such as you, would be saying so of me. But supposing now, the owld man consinted to this bargain,--how would he be sure of his money?"

"Sure of his money! why, wouldn't it be settled on him?--wouldn't it be named as one of the conditions of the sale? He'd be a deal surer of that, than he is now of his daily dinner; for that I believe he's not very sure of as things are going at Ballycloran."

Thady looked at the attorney as though he longed to answer him in the same strain; but he said nothing of the sort; he remained looking out of the window for a short time, considering what he should do.

"Well, Macdermot, I can't be waiting here all day you know; what do you say to it?"

"I'll spake to my father; it's he must decide you know, at last, and not me. Larry, you heard what Mr. Keegan said, didn't you?" and he explained to his father the nature of the offer; and tried to make him understand that at any rate Ballycloran must go; and that it would be better to go at once, with some provision to look to, than to stay there, and be driven out, without any; and that Mr. Flannelly would not be content any longer with getting the interest for his money, but that he was determined to get the princ.i.p.al, either by having the property sold, or by taking possession of it himself. It was long before he could make the old man precisely understand what it was that was required of him; during which time Keegan remained at the window, as if he was not hearing a word that pa.s.sed between the father and son.

"And does he want us to go clane out of it, Thady?"

"Root and branch, father, for iver and iver; and there'll be the finish of the Macdermots of Ballycloran; but Larry,"--and he put his hand, with more tenderness than seemed to belong to his rough nature, on his father's arm;--"but Larry, you know you'll never want for anything then; you'll be snug enough jist wherever you plaze; and your money coming due and paid every week--you'd be better than in this wretched place; eh Larry?"

"And what's to become of Feemy?"

"Why, we must get Feemy a husband; till then she'll stay with you; she'll have a thrifle of money herself, you know; she'll be poor enough, though, G.o.d knows!--It's the thought of her that throubles me most."

"And yourself, Thady, where would you go, till you got Ballycloran again?"

"Got Ballycloran again! why Larry, you're to sell it outright; clane away altogether. As for me, I must get a bit of land, I suppose, or 'list, or do something; go to America, perhaps."

"And was it Keegan wanted to buy Ballycloran?"

"Oh, it's between them, I suppose; but what does it matter--Keegan or Flannelly?"

"And what did you say, Thady?"

"What did I say! Oh, I could say nothing, you know; it's for you to do it. But, Larry, I think it's the best for you, and you may be sure I'll not be complaining afther; or saying ill of you for what you did, when you could do no other."

"And you didn't tell the blackguard ruffian robber to be gone out of that, when he asked you to dhrive your own family out of your own house?"

"Whist, father, whist!"

When Keegan heard old Macdermot break out in this way, he was obliged to turn round: so he walked up to the fire, and said, "Mr. Macdermot, may I ask who you are speaking of?"

Larry was again commencing, when Thady held him down gently, and said,

"It's not so asy, Mr. Keegan, for an old man to hear for the first time, that he's to lave his house and his home for iver; where he and his father and his grandfather have lived. You'd better let me talk to him a while."

"Oh! for the matter of that, I don't care for his pa.s.sion; but if he means to come to reason, let him do so at once, for as I said before, I won't wait here all day."

"n.o.body wants you to wait--n.o.body wants you to wait!" said the father.

"Whist, Larry, whist! be asy a while."

"I won't whist, and I won't be asy: so, Mr. Keegan, if you want to have my answer, take it, and carry it down to that old bricklayer in Carrick, whose daughter has the divil's bargain in you; and for the like of that you're not bad matched. Tell him from me, Larry Macdermot--tell him from me, that I'm not so owld yet, nor so poor, nor so silly, that he can swindle me out of my lands and house that way. So clever as you think yourself, Mr. Keegan, you may walk back to Carrick again, and don't think to call yourself masther of Ballycloran yet awhile."

"Very well, Mr. Macdermot; very well, my fine fellow; look to yourself, and mind, I tell you I'll have a cheaper bargain of the place by this day six months, than I should have now by the terms I'm offering myself."

"You dirthy mane ruffian--if it was only myself you was wanting to turn out of it--but to be robbing the boy there of his property, that has been working his sowl out these six years for that dirthy owld bricklayer!--And you want the place all to yourself, do you, Mr.

Keegan? Faix, and a fine estated gintleman you'd make, any how!"

"Well now; you'll repent the day you made yourself such a fool.

However, good morning, Mr. Macdermot--good morning; I'll tell them down at Carrick, to keep a warm corner for you in the lane there, where them old beggars sleep at night!"

"Kick him out, Thady: kick him out, will ye?--Have ye none of the owld blood left round your heart, that you'll not kick him out of the house, for a pettifogging schaming blackguard!" and Larry got up as though he meant to have a kick at the attorney himself.

"Be asy, father, and let him go of himself; he'll go fast enough now.

Sit down awhile; sit down till I come back," and Thady followed the attorney down the steps on to the gravel road.

"You'll see, my boy," said Keegan--and now the benevolent attorney had altogether lost his smile,--"you'll see, my boy, whether I won't make the two of you pay for this; ay! and the whole family too, for a set of proud, beggarly, starved-out paupers. By G----, I'll sell every rotten stick of old furniture left in the house, on the 6th of next month; and the three of you shall be tramping in the roads before the winter's over!"

"You're worse than the old man with your pa.s.sion, Mr. Keegan," said Thady; "ten times worse; you know I did what I could to advise him; and even now, if you'll lave him to me, I'll bring him round."

"Be d----d to you with your bringing round! I'll have no more to do with the pack of you."

"Would you go to remember the pa.s.sionate words of an owld man that's lost his senses, Mr. Keegan? for shame on you. If you'll stick to the offer you made before, I'll bring the old man round yet."

"I tell you I'll do no such thing, Master Thady; but root and branch I'll have you out of that, and that right soon; a pack of beggars like you! What right have you to be keeping a respectable man out of his money?"

"Respictable indeed! very respictable!--Look at the house, Mr.

Keegan, for which you want to take the whole property,--tumbling down already; and you call that respictable! And to be threatening to be dhriving an owld man, past his senses, out of his house for a few foolish words; and a poor innocent defenceless girl too!" Thady himself was beginning to get in a pa.s.sion now,--"And since you will have it, the owld man was not far wrong, for it is robbers you are, both of you, and that's your respictability!"

"Robbers are we? and what are you and your innocent sister? You know, Thady, she can go to Ussher; he says he'll keep her. She won't be a huckster's wife, you say? better that than a captain's misthress, as all agree she is now."

As Keegan said this, he seemed to expect that he would be answered by some personal violence. The two were together, standing at the end of the avenue, all but on the public road. Keegan had a stout walking-stick in his hand, and he walked out into the road as he said the last words, turning round as he did so, so as to face Thady.

The young man stood still for a second or two, as if the meaning of the words had hardly reached him, and then rushed at the attorney with his clenched fist; but the man of law was too quick for him, for striking out with his stick, he cried,

"By the Lord of heaven, if you come nearer I'll brain you!" and, as the young man endeavoured to get within the sweep of the stick, he received a blow on the arm and elbow, which, for the moment, disabled him; and the pain was so sharp, as to prevent him from any further immediate attack.

"Mr. Keegan, by the living Lord, this day's work shall cost you dear!" and then, indulging that ready profuseness of threats in which the less educated of his countrymen are so p.r.o.ne to indulge, he returned within the gateway of the avenue, and proceeded a short way towards the house. Here he reached a felled tree, lying somewhat across the path, on which he sat down; for he felt that he could not go to the house before he had considered, in his sad heart, what he would say there, and how he would say it.

Keegan, when he found that his antagonist, like a dog cowed by a blow, was not inclined to come again to the fight, turned on his heel, and walked back to the place where he had left his horse.

For some time Thady did not recover from the immediate sharp pain arising from the blow, and during these minutes firm determinations of signal vengeance filled his imagination, damped by no thought of the punishment to which he might thereby be subjecting himself. But the luxury of these resolves--for they had a certain luxury--was soon banished by the thoughts that crowded on his mind, when pain gave him liberty to think. Firstly, his own impotence with regard to retaliating on Keegan; secondly, the horrid charge brought against Feemy, and the conviction that the scurrility of it would not have occurred to Keegan had it not previously been rumoured or suggested by others; and the dreadful doubt--for it was dreadful to Thady--whether there could be any grounds for it: then the recollection of their defenceless state--the certainty that Flannelly would take every legal step against them, and that Keegan's threat, that they should be turned out to wander through the roads, would be realized:--all these things forced themselves on his recollection, and he could not go up to the house. He could not meet his father, and tell him that, between them, they had destroyed all hopes of conciliation; that they must wander forth as beggars, to starve. He could not ask counsel from Feemy; his inability to protect her made him averse to see her.

In his misery, and half broken-hearted as he was, he all but made up his mind to join the boys, who, he knew, were meeting with some secret plans for proposed deliverance from their superiors. Better, at any rate, join them now, thought he, than be driven to do it when he was no better than them--as would soon be the case; and, if he was to perish, better first strike a blow at those who had pressed him so low! And then it occurred to him that, at any rate, he would first go to his only good counsellor; and he accordingly retraced his steps to the bottom of the avenue, resolved, if he could find him, to tell all his new sorrow to Father John.

CHAPTER XI.