"And so he will, and it'll be a great temptation to me to know where I can get it so easily. But he was telling me all about this woman before I thought of my own concerns—and I didn't like to be talking to him of what I wanted myself, when he'd been asking a favour of me. It would be too much like looking for payment."
"There, you're wrong; fair barter is the truest and honestest system, all the world over.—'Ca me, ca thee,' as the Scotch call it, is the best system to go by. I never do, or ask, a favour; that is, for whatever I do, I expect a return; and for whatever I get, I intend to make one."
"I'll get the money from Guinness. After all, that'll be the best, and as you say, the cheapest."
"There you're right. His business is to lend money, and he'll lend it you as long as you've means to repay it; and I'm sure no Connaught man will do more—that is, if I know them."
"I suppose he will, but heaven only knows how long that'll be!" and the young lord threw himself back on the sofa, as if he thought a little meditation would do him good. However, very little seemed to do for him, for he soon roused himself, and said, "I wonder how the devil, Dot, you do without borrowing? My income's larger than yours, bad as it is; I've only three horses in training, and you've, I suppose, above a dozen; and, take the year through, I don't entertain half the fellows at Kelly's Court that you do at Handicap Lodge; and yet, I never hear of your borrowing money."
"There's many reasons for that. In the first place, I haven't an estate; in the second, I haven't a mother; in the third, I haven't a pack of hounds; in the fourth, I haven't a title; and, in the fifth, no one would lend me money, if I asked it."
"As for the estate, it's devilish little I spend on it; as for my mother, she has her own jointure; as for the hounds, they eat my own potatoes; and as for the title, I don't support it. But I haven't your luck, Dot. You'd never want for money, though the mint broke."
"Very likely I mayn't when it does; but I'm likely to be poor enough till that happy accident occurs. But, as far as luck goes, you've had more than me; you won nearly as much, in stakes, as I did, last autumn, and your stable expenses weren't much above a quarter what mine were. But, the truth is, I manage better; I know where my money goes to, and you don't; I work hard, and you don't; I spend my money on what's necessary to my style of living, you spend yours on what's not necessary. What the deuce have the fellows in Mayo and Roscommon done for you, that you should mount two or three rascals, twice a-week, to show them sport, when you're not there yourself two months in the season? I suppose you don't keep the horses and men for nothing, if you do the dogs; and I much doubt whether they're not the dearest part of the bargain."
"Of course they cost something; but it's the only thing I can do for the country; and there were always hounds at Kelly's Court till my grandfather got the property, and they looked upon him as no better than an old woman, because he gave them up. Besides, I suppose I shall be living at Kelly's Court soon, altogether, and I could never get on then without hounds. It's bad enough, as it is."
"I haven't a doubt in the world it's bad enough. I know what Castleblakeney is. But I doubt your living there. I've no doubt you'll try; that is, if you do marry Miss Wyndham; but she'll be sick of it in three months, and you in six, and you'll go and live at Paris, Florence, or Naples, and there'll be another end of the O'Kellys, for thirty or forty years, as far as Ireland's concerned. You'll never do for a poor country lord; you're not sufficiently proud, or stingy. You'd do very well as a country gentleman, and you'd make a decent nobleman with such a fortune as Lord Cashel's. But your game, if you lived on your own property, would be a very difficult one, and one for which you've neither tact nor temper."
"Well, I hope I'll never live out of Ireland. Though I mayn't have tact to make one thousand go as far as five, I've sense enough to see that a poor absentee landlord is a great curse to his country; and that's what I hope I never shall be."
"My dear Lord Ballindine; all poor men are curses, to themselves or some one else."
"A poor absentee's the worst of all. He leaves nothing behind, and can leave nothing. He wants all he has for himself; and, if he doesn't give his neighbours the profit which must arise somewhere, from his own consumption, he can give nothing. A rich man can afford to leave three or four thousand a year behind him, in the way of wages for labour."
"My gracious, Frank! You should put all that in a pamphlet, and not inflict it on a poor devil waiting for his dinner. At present, give your profit to Morrison, and come and consume some mock-turtle; and I'll tell you what Sheil's going to do for us all."
Lord Ballindine did as he was bid, and left the room to prepare for dinner. By the time that he had eaten his soup, and drank a glass of wine, he had got rid of the fit of blue devils which the thoughts of his poverty had brought on, and he spent the rest of the evening comfortably enough, listening to his friend's comical version of Shell's speech; receiving instruction from that great master of the art as to the manner in which he should treat his Derby colt, and being flattered into the belief that he would be a prominent favourite for that great race.
When they had finished their wine, they sauntered into the Kildare Street Club.
Blake was soon busy with his little betting-book, and Lord Ballindine followed his example. Brien Boru was, before long, in great demand. Blake took fifty to one, and then talked the horse up till he ended by giving twenty-five. He was soon ranked the first of the Irish lot; and the success of the Hibernians had made them very sanguine of late. Lord Ballindine found himself the centre of a little sporting circle, as being the man with the crack nag of the day. He was talked of, courted, and appealed to; and, I regret to say, that before he left the club he was again nearly forgetting Kelly's Court and Miss Wyndham, had altogether got rid of his patriotic notions as to the propriety of living on his own estate, had determined forthwith to send Brien Boru over to Scott's English stables; and then, went to bed, and dreamed that he was a winner of the Derby, and was preparing for the glories of Newmarket with five or six thousand pounds in his pocket.
Martin Kelly dined with his brother at Jude's, and spent his evening equally unreasonably; at least, it may be supposed so from the fact that at one o'clock in the morning he was to be seen standing on one of the tables at Burton Bindon's oyster-house, with a pewter pot, full of porter, in his hand, and insisting that every one in the room should drink the health of Anty Lynch, whom, on that occasion, he swore to be the prettiest and the youngest girl in Connaught.
It was lucky he was so intoxicated, that no one could understand him; and that his hearers were so drunk that they could understand nothing; as, otherwise, the publicity of his admiration might have had the effect of preventing the accomplishment of his design.
He managed, however, to meet his patron the next morning at the lawyer's, though his eyes were very red, and his cheeks pale; and, after being there for some half hour, left the office, with the assurance that, whenever he and the lady might please to call there, they should find a deed prepared for their signature, which would adjust the property in the manner required.
That afternoon Lord Ballindine left Dublin, with his friend, to make instant arrangements for the exportation of Brien Boru; and, at two o'clock the next day, Martin left, by the boat, for Ballinaslie, having evinced his patriotism by paying a year's subscription in advance to the "Nation" newspaper, and with his mind fully made up to bring Anty away to Dublin with as little delay as possible.
IV
THE DUNMORE INN
Anty Lynch was not the prettiest, or the youngest girl in Connaught; nor would Martin have affirmed her to be so, unless he had been very much inebriated indeed. However young she might have been once, she was never pretty; but, in all Ireland, there was not a more single-hearted, simple-minded young woman. I do not use the word simple as foolish; for, though uneducated, she was not foolish. But she was unaffected, honest, humble, and true, entertaining a very lowly idea of her