“I know it, Martin:  I always knew it and felt it.”

“And now, av it’s God’s will that you should go from us, I’d rather Barry had the money than us.  We’ve enough, the Lord be praised; and I wouldn’t for worlds it should be said that it war for that we brought you among us; nor for all County Galway would I lave it to Barry to say, that when you were here, sick, and wake, and dying, we put a pen into your hand to make you sign a will to rob him of what should by rights be his.”

“That’s it, dear Martin; it wouldn’t bless you if you had it; it can bless no one who looks to it alone for a blessing.  It wouldn’t make you happy—­it would make you miserable, av people said you had that which you ought not to have.  Besides, I love my poor brother; he is my brother, my only real relation; we’ve lived all our lives together; and though he isn’t what he should be, the fault is not all his own, I should not sleep in my grave, av I died with his curse upon me; as I should, av he found, when I am gone, that I’d willed the property all away.  I’ve told him he’d have it all—­nearly all; and I’ve begged him, prayed to him, from my dying bed, to mend his ways; to try and be something betther in the world than what I fear he’s like to be.  I think he minded what I said when he was here, for death-bed words have a solemn sound to the most worldly; but when I’m gone he’ll be all alone, there’ll be no one to look afther him.  Nobody loves him—­no one even likes him; no one will live with him but those who mane to rob him; and he will be robbed, and plundered, and desaved, when he thinks he’s robbing and desaving others.”  Anty paused, more for breath than for a reply, but Martin felt that he must say something.

“Indeed, Anty, I fear he’ll hardly come to good.  He dhrinks too much, by all accounts; besides, he’s idle, and the honest feeling isn’t in him.”

“It’s thrue, dear Martin; it’s too thrue.  Will you do me a great great favour, Martin”—­and she rose up a little and turned her moist clear eye full upon him—­“will you show your thrue love to your poor Anty, by a rale lasting kindness, but one that’ll be giving you much much throuble and pain?  Afther I’m dead and gone—­long long after I’m in my cold grave, will you do that for me, Martin?”.

“Indeed I will, Anty,” said Martin, rather astonished, but with a look of solemn assurance; “anything that I can do, I will:  you needn’t dread my not remembering, but I fear it isn’t much that I can do for you.”

“Will you always think and spake of Barry—­will you always act to him and by him, and for him, not as a man whom you know and dislike, but as my brother—­your own Anty’s only brother?—­Whatever he does, will you thry to make him do betther?  Whatever troubles he’s in, will you lend him your hand?  Come what come may to him, will you be his frind?  He has no frind now.  When I’m gone, will you be a frind to him?”

Martin was much confounded.  “He won’t let me be his frind,” he said; “he looks down on us and despises us; he thinks himself too high to be befrinded by us.  Besides, of all Dunmore he hates us most.”