"Well, I won"t--and there"s an end of it," said Barry. "It"s all nonsense. You can"t do anything to me: you said so yourself. I"m not going to be made a fool of that way--I"m not going to give up my property and everything."
"Don"t you know, Mr Lynch," said the parson, "that if you are kept in jail till April next, as will be your fate if you persist in staying at Dunmore tonight, your creditors will do much more damage to your property, than your own immediate absence will do? If Mr Daly is your lawyer, send for him, as Martin Kelly suggests. I"m not afraid that he will recommend you to remain in the country, even should you dare to tell him of the horrid accusation which is brought against you. But at any rate make up your mind, for if you do stay in Dunmore tonight it shall be in the Bridewell, and your next move shall be to Galway."
Barry sat silent for a while, trying to think. The parson was like an incubus upon him, which he was totally unable to shake off. He knew neither how to resist nor how to give way. Misty ideas got into his head of escaping to his bed-room and blowing his own brains out.
Different schemes of retaliation and revenge flitted before him, but he could decide on nothing. There he sat, silent, stupidly gazing at nothing, while Lord Ballindine and Mr Armstrong stood whispering over the fire.
"I"m afraid we"re in the wrong: I really think we are," said Frank.
"We must go through with it now, any way," said the parson. "Come, Mr Lynch, I will give you five minutes more, and then I go;" and he pulled out his watch, and stood with his back to the fire, looking at it. Lord Ballindine walked to the window, and Martin Kelly and Doctor Colligan sat in distant parts of the room, with long faces, silent and solemn, breathing heavily. How long those five minutes appeared to them, and how short to Barry! The time was not long enough to enable him to come to any decision: at the end of the five minutes he was still gazing vacantly before him: he was still turning over in his brain, one after another, the same crowd of undigested schemes.
"The time is out, Mr Lynch: will you go?" said the parson.
"I"ve no money," hoa.r.s.ely croaked Barry.
"If that"s the only difficulty, we"ll raise money for him," said Frank.
"I"ll advance him money," said Martin.
"Do you mean you"ve no money at all?" said the parson.
"Don"t you hear me say so?" said Barry.
"And you"ll go if you get money--say ten pounds?" said the parson.
"Ten pounds! I can go nowhere with ten pounds. You know that well enough."
"I"ll give him twenty-five," said Martin. "I"m sure his sister"ll do that for him."
"Say fifty," said Barry, "and I"m off at once."
"I haven"t got it," said Martin.
"No," said the parson; "I"ll not see you bribed to go: take the twenty-five--that will last you till you make arrangements about your property. We are not going to pay you for going, Mr Lynch."
"You seem very anxious about it, any way."
"I am anxious about it," rejoined the parson. "I am anxious to save your sister from knowing what it was that her brother wished to accomplish."
Barry scowled at him as though he would like, if possible, to try his hand at murdering him; but he did not answer him again. Arrangements were at last made for Barry"s departure, and off he went, that very day--not to Roscommon, but to Tuam; and there, at the instigation of Martin, Daly the attorney took upon himself the division and temporary management of the property. From thence, with Martin"s, or rather with his sister"s twenty-five pounds in his pocket, he started to that Elysium for which he had for some time so ardently longed, and soon landed at Boulogne, regardless alike of his sister, his future brother, Lord Ballindine, or Mr Armstrong. The parson had found it quite impossible to carry out one point on which he had insisted. He could not induce Barry Lynch to write to his sister: no, not a line; not a word. Had it been to save him from hanging he could hardly have induced himself to write those common words, "_dear sister_".
"Oh! you can tell her what you like," said he. "It"s you"re making me go away at once in this manner. Tell her whatever confounded lies you like; tell her I"m gone because I didn"t choose to stay and see her make a fool of herself--and that"s the truth, too. If it wasn"t for that I wouldn"t move a step for any of you."
He went, however, as I have before said, and troubled the people of Dunmore no longer, nor shall he again trouble us.
"Oh! but Martin, what nonsense!" said the widow, coaxingly to her son, that night before she went to bed. "The lord wouldn"t be going up there just to wish him good bye--and Parson Armstrong too. What the d.i.c.kens could they be at there so long? Come, Martin--you"re safe with me, you know; tell us something about it now."
"Nonsense, mother; I"ve nothing to tell: Barry Lynch has left the place for good and all, that"s all about it."
"G.o.d bless the back of him, thin; he"d my lave for going long since.
But you might be telling us what made him be starting this way all of a heap."
"Don"t you know, mother, he was head and ears in debt?"
"Don"t tell me," said the widow. "Parson Armstrong"s not a sheriff"s officer, that he should be looking after folks in debt."
"No, mother, he"s not, that I know of; but he don"t like, for all that, to see his t.i.thes walking out of the country."
"Don"t be coming over me that way, Martin. Barry Lynch, nor his father before him, never held any land in Ballindine parish."
"Didn"t they--well thin, you know more than I, mother, so it"s no use my telling you," and Martin walked off to bed.
"I"ll even you, yet, my lad," said she, "close as you are; you see else. Wait awhile, till the money"s wanting, and then let"s see who"ll know all about it!" And the widow slapped herself powerfully on that part where her pocket depended, in sign of the great confidence she had in the strength of her purse.
"Did I manage that well?" said the parson, as Lord Ballindine drove him home to Kelly"s Court, as soon as the long interview was over. "If I can do as well at Grey Abbey, you"ll employ me again, I think!"
"Upon my word, then, Armstrong," said Frank, "I never was in such hot water as I have been all this day: and, now it"s over, to tell you the truth, I"m sorry we interfered. We did what we had no possible right to do."
"Nonsense, man. You don"t suppose I"d have dreamed of letting him off, if the law could have touched him? But it couldn"t. No magistrates in the county could have committed him; for he had done, and, as far as I can judge, had said, literally nothing. It"s true we know what he intended; but a score of magistrates could have done nothing with him: as it is, we"ve got him out of the country: he"ll never come back again."
"What I mean is, we had no business to drive him out of the country with threats."
"Oh, Ballindine, that"s nonsense. One can keep no common terms with such a blackguard as that. However, it"s done now; and I must say I think it was well done."
"There"s no doubt of your talent in the matter, Armstrong: upon my soul I never saw anything so cool. What a wretch--what an absolute fiend the fellow is!"
"Bad enough," said the parson. "I"ve seen bad men before, but I think he"s the worst I ever saw. What"ll Mrs O"Kelly say of my coming in this way, without notice?"
The parson enjoyed his claret at Kelly"s Court that evening, after his hard day"s work, and the next morning he started for Grey Abbey.
x.x.xVI. MR ARMSTRONG VISITS GREY ABBEY ON A DELICATE MISSION
Lord Cashel certainly felt a considerable degree of relief when his daughter told him that Lord Kilcullen had left the house, and was on his way to Dublin, though he had been forced to pay so dearly for the satisfaction, had had to falsify his solemn a.s.surance that he would not give his son another penny, and to break through his resolution of acting the Roman father [50]. He consoled himself with the idea that he had been actuated by affection for his profligate son; but such had not been the case. Could he have handed him over to the sheriff"s officer silently and secretly, he would have done so; but his pride could not endure the reflection that all the world should know that bailiffs had forced an entry into Grey Abbey.
[FOOTNOTE 50: Roman father--Lucius Junius Brutus, legendary founder of the Roman republic, was said to have pa.s.sed sentence of death on his two sons for partic.i.p.ating in a rebellion.]
He closely questioned Lady Selina, with regard to all that had pa.s.sed between her and her brother.
"Did he say anything?" at last he said--"did he say anything about--about f.a.n.n.y?"
"Not much, papa; but what he did say, he said with kindness and affection," replied her ladyship, glad to repeat anything in favour of her brother.
"Affection--pooh!" said the earl. "He has no affection; no affection for any one; he has no affection even for me.--What did he say about her, Selina?"