o
catch one of those English puppies, with their soft voices and their sneers
about Ireland. I never saw her that she wasn't trying to flatter them, and
to please them, and to sing them down, as she called it herself--the very
name fit for it! And that she had the high heart to take a man not only
poor, but with a rope round his neck, shows me how I wronged her. I could
give her five thousand this morning to make her a dowry, and to prove how I
honour her.'

'Can any one tell who he is? What do we know of him?'

'All Ireland knows of him; and, after all, Mat Kearney, she has only done
what her mother did before her.'

'Poor Matty!' said Kearney, as he drew his hand across his eyes.

'Ay, ay! Poor Matty, if you like; but Matty was a beauty run to seed, and,
like the rest of them, she married the first good-looking vagabond she saw.
Now, this girl was in the very height and bloom of her beauty, and she took
a fellow for other qualities than his whiskers or his legs. They tell me he
isn't even well-looking--so that I have hopes of her.'

'Well, well,' said Kearney, 'he has done you a good turn, anyhow--he has
got Peter Gill out of the country.'

'And it's the one thing that I can't forgive him, Mat, just the one thing
that's fretting me now. I was living in hopes to see that scoundrel Peter
on the table, and Counsellor Holmes baiting him in a cross-examination. I
wanted to see how the lawyer wouldn't leave him a rag of character or a
strip of truth to cover himself with. How he'd tear off his evasions, and
confront him with his own lies, till he wouldn't know what he was saying or
where he was sitting! I wanted to hear the description he would give of him
to the jury; and I'd go home to my dinner after that, and not wait for the
verdict.'

'All the same, I'm glad we're rid of Peter.'

'Of course you are. You're a man, and well pleased when your enemy runs
away; but if you were a woman, Mat Kearney, you'd rather he'd stand out
boldly and meet you, and fight his battle to the end. But they haven't done
with me yet. I'll put that little blackguard attorney, that said my letter
was a lease, into Chancery; and it will go hard with me if I don't have him
struck off the rolls. There's a small legacy of five hundred pounds left me
the other day, and, with the blessing of Providence, the Common Pleas shall
have it. Don't shake your head, Mat Kearney. I'm not robbing any one. Your
daughter will have enough and to spare--'