“Av’ I’m in want of legal advice, Mr Daly, which thank God, I’m not, nor likely to be—­but av’ I war, it’s not from Barry Lynch’s attorney I’d be looking for it.”

“I’d be sorry to see you in want of it, Martin; but if you mane to keep out of the worst kind of law, you’d better have done with Anty Lynch.  I’d a dale sooner be drawing up a marriage settlement between you and some pretty girl with five or six hundred pound fortune, than I’d be exposing to the counthry such a mane trick as this you’re now afther, of seducing a poor half-witted ould maid, like Anty Lynch, into a disgraceful marriage.”

“Look here, Mr Daly,” said the other; “you’ve hired yourself out to Barry Lynch, and you must do his work, I suppose, whether it’s dirthy or clane; and you know yourself, as well as I can tell you, which it’s likely to be—­”

“That’s my concern; lave that to me; you’ve quite enough to do to mind yourself.”

“But av’ he’s nothing betther for you to do, than to send you here bally-ragging and calling folks out of their name, he must have a sight more money to spare than I give him credit for; and you must be a dale worse off than your neighbours thought you, to do it for him.”

“That’ll do,” said Mr Daly, knocking at the door of the inn; “only, remember, Mr Kelly, you’ve now received notice of the steps which my client feels himself called upon to take.”

Martin turned to go away, but then, reflecting that it would be as well not to leave the women by themselves in the power of the enemy, he also waited at the door till it was opened by Katty.

“Is Miss Lynch within?” asked Daly.

“Go round to the shop, Katty,” said Martin, “and tell mother to come to the door.  There’s a gentleman wanting her.”

“It was Miss Lynch I asked for,” said Daly, still looking to the girl for an answer.

“Do as I bid you, you born ideot, and don’t stand gaping there,” shouted Martin to the girl, who immediately ran off towards the shop.

“I might as well warn you, Mr Kelly, that, if Miss Lynch is denied to me, the fact of her being so denied will be a very sthrong proof against you and your family.  In fact, it amounts to an illegal detention of her person, in the eye of the law.”  Daly said this in a very low voice, almost a whisper.

“Faith, the law must have quare eyes, av’ it makes anything wrong with a young lady being asked the question whether or no she wishes to see an attorney, at eleven in the morning.”

“An attorney!” whispered Meg to Jane and Anty at the top of the stairs.

“Heaven and ’arth,” said poor Anty, shaking and shivering—­“what’s going to be the matter now?”

“It’s young Daly,” said Jane, stretching forward and peeping clown the stairs:  “I can see the curl of his whiskers.”

By this time the news had reached Mrs Kelly, in the shop, “that a sthrange gentleman war axing for Miss Anty, but that she warn’t to be shown to him on no account;” so the widow dropped her tobacco knife, flung off her dirty apron, and, having summoned Jane and Meg to attend to the mercantile affairs of the establishment—­turned into the inn, and met Mr Daly and her son still standing at the bottom of the stairs.