“I was always fond of my brothers and sisters,” answered the doctor; “and we couldn’t well rob each other, for none of us had a penny to lose.”

“That’s a different thing, but just supposing you were exactly in my shoes at this moment, do you mean to tell me that you’d be glad she should get well?—­that you’d be glad she should be able to deprive you of your property, disgrace your family, drive you from your own home, and make your life miserable for ever after?”

“Upon my soul I can’t say; but good night now, you’re getting excited, and I’ve finished my drop of punch.”

“Ah! nonsense, man, sit down.  I’ve something in earnest I want to say to you,” and Barry got up and prevented the doctor from leaving the room.  Colligan had gone so far as to put on his hat and great coat, and now sat down again without taking them off.

“You and I, Colligan, are men of the world, and too wide awake for all the old woman’s nonsense people talk.  What can I, or what could you in my place, care for a half-cracked old maid like Anty, who’s better dead than alive, for her own sake and everybody’s else; unless it is some scheming ruffian like young Kelly there, who wants to make money by her?”

“I’m not asking you to care for her; only, if those are your ideas, it’s as well not to talk about them for appearance sake.”

“Appearance sake!  There’s nothing makes me so sick, as for two men like you and me, who know what’s what, to be talking about appearance sake, like two confounded parsons, whose business it is to humbug everybody, and themselves into the bargain.  I’ll tell you what:  had my father—­bad luck to him for an old rogue—­not made such a will as he did, I’d ’ve treated Anty as well as any parson of ’em all would treat an old maid of a sister; but I’m not going to have her put over my head this way.  Come, doctor, confound all humbug.  I say it openly to you—­to please me, Anty must never come out of that bed alive.”

“As if your wishes could make any difference.  If it is to be so, she’ll die, poor creature, without your saying so much about it; but may-be, and it’s very likely too, she’ll be alive and strong, after the two of us are under the sod.”

“Well; if it must be so, it must; but what I wanted to say to you is this:  while you were away, I was thinking about what you said of the farm—­of being a tenant of mine, you know.”

“We can talk about that another time,” said the doctor, who began to feel an excessive wish to be out of the house.

“There’s no time like the present, when I’ve got it in my mind; and, if you’ll wait, I can settle it all for you to-night.  I was telling you that I hate farming, and so I do.  There are thirty or five-and-thirty acres of land about the house, and lying round to the back of the town; you shall take them off my hands, and welcome.”

This was too good an offer to be resisted, and Colligan said he would take the land, with many thanks, if the rent any way suited him.