Accordingly, Lynch was again summoned to Tuam, and held a second council in the attorney’s little parlour.  Daly commenced by telling him that his sister had seen him, and had positively refused to leave the inn, and that the widow and her son had both listened to the threats of a prosecution unmoved and undismayed.  Barry indulged in his usual volubility of expletives; expressed his fixed intention of exterminating the Kellys; declared, with many asseverations, his conviction that his sister was a lunatic; swore, by everything under, in, and above the earth, that he would have her shut up in the Lunatic Asylum in Ballinasloe, in the teeth of the Lord Chancellor and all the other lawyers in Ireland; cursed the shades of his father, deeply and copiously; assured Daly that he was only prevented from recovering his own property by the weakness and ignorance of his legal advisers, and ended by asking the attorney’s advice as to his future conduct.

“What the d——­l, then, am I to do with the confounded ideot?” said he.

“If you’ll take my advice, you’ll do nothing.”

“What, and let her marry and have that young blackguard brought up to Dunmore under my very nose?”

“I’m very much afraid, Mr Lynch, if you wish to be quit of Martin Kelly, it is you must lave Dunmore.  You may be shure he won’t.”

“Oh, as for that, I’ve nothing to tie me to Dunmore.  I hate the place; I never meant to live there.  If I only saw my sister properly taken care of, and that it was put out of her power to throw herself away, I should leave it at once.”

“Between you and me, Mr Lynch, she will be taken care of; and as for throwing herself away, she must judge of that herself.  Take my word for it, the best thing for you to do is to come to terms with Martin Kelly, and to sell out your property in Dunmore.  You’ll make much better terms before marriage than you would afther, it stands to rason.”

Barry was half standing, and half sitting on the small parlour table, and there he remained for a few minutes, meditating on Daly’s most unpleasant proposal.  It was a hard pill for him to swallow, and he couldn’t get it down without some convulsive grimaces.  He bit his under lip, till the blood came through it, and at last said,

“Why, you’ve taken this thing up, Daly, as if you were to be paid by the Kellys instead of by me!  I can’t understand it, confound me if I can!”

Daly turned very red at the insinuation.  He was within an ace of seizing Lynch by the collar, and expelling him in a summary way from his premises, a feat which he was able to perform; and willing also, for he was sick of his client; but he thought of it a second time, and restrained himself.

“Mr Lynch,” he said, after a moment or two, “that’s the second time you’ve made an observation of that kind to me; and I’ll tell you what; if your business was the best in the county, instead of being as bad a case as was ever put into a lawyer’s hands, I wouldn’t stand it from you.  If you think you can let out your passion against me, as you do against your own people, you’ll find your mistake out very soon; so you’d betther mind what you’re saying.”