air would probably act as a stepping-stone, on which he might walk
into Ballycloran even sooner than he had hitherto thought to do; and
when, as one of the jurors at the coroner's inquest, on the next
morning, he saw that poor Larry had evidently fallen into absolute
idiotcy, and heard that Thady had, in fact, escaped, he instantly
determined to take such legal steps on behalf of his father-in-law as
would put the property under his management. And this, accordingly,
he did. The proper steps for proving the old man to be of unsound
mind would have been attended with very great expense; instead
of doing this, he got himself made receiver over the property,
and determined to arrest Larry, which, in his existing state, he
conceived he should have no difficulty in doing. Here, however, he
found himself very much mistaken, for nothing could induce the old
man to leave his own room, or so much as allow the front door to
be unlocked. Mary Brady still continued to attend him every day,
returning home to her husband after sunset, and she found him very
easy to manage in every other particular, as long as he was allowed
to have his own way in this.

He had quite lost the triumphant feeling which led him to boast
in the streets of Carrick, after leaving the inquest, that he had
escaped from Flannelly's power, and that he would never have to pay
him another farthing; for now if he heard a strange step, he fancied
it to be a bailiff's, and if there was the slightest noise in the
house, he thought that an attempt was being made to drag him off by
violence. It was a miserable sight to see the old man, thin, wan, and
worn out, sitting during that cold winter, by a few sods of turf,
with the door of his own room ajar, watching the front door from
morning till night, to see that no one opened it. Before Christmas he
had his bed brought down into the same room, in order that he might
not be betrayed into the hands of his enemies in the morning before
he was up, and from that time no inducement could prevail on him to
leave the room for a moment.

During this time his poverty was very great; the tenants had been
served with legal notices to pay neither to him nor to Thady any
portion of their rents, and consequently provisions were very low and
very scarce at Ballycloran; in fact, had it not been for the kindness
of Father John, Mr. McKeon, and Counsellor Webb, whose property
was adjoining to Ballycloran, Larry would have been starved in