“Well, Martin, after that, I think you needn’t go to Sim Lynch, or Barry, for the biggest rogues in Connaught—­to be settling the poor girl’s money between you that way!”

“Well, but listen, my lord.  I gave in to the ould man; that is, I made no objection to his schame.  But I was determined, av’ I ever did marry Anty Lynch, that I would be agent and owner too, myself, as long as I lived; though in course it was but right that they should settle it so that av’ I died first, the poor crature shouldn’t be out of her money.  But I didn’t let on to him about all that; for, av’ he was angered, the ould fool might perhaps spoil the game; and I knew av’ Anty married me at all, it’d be for liking; and av’ iver I got on the soft side of her, I’d soon be able to manage matthers as I plazed, and ould Moylan’d soon find his best game’d be to go asy.”

“Upon my soul, Martin, I think you seem to have been the sharpest rogue of the two!  Is there an honest man in Connaught at all, I wonder?”

“I can’t say rightly, just at present, my lord; but there’ll be two, plaze God, when I and your lordship are there.”

“Thank ye, Kelly, for the compliment, and especially for the good company.  But let me hear how on earth you ever got face enough to go up and ask Anty Lynch to marry you.”

“Oh!—­a little soft sawther did it!  I wasn’t long in putting my com’ether on her when I once began.  Well, my lord, from that day out—­from afther Moylan’s visit, you know—­I began really to think of it.  I’m sure the ould robber meant to have asked for a wapping sum of money down, for his good will in the bargain; but when he saw me he got afeard.”

“He was another honest man, just now!”

“Only among sthrangers, my lord.  I b’lieve he’s a far-off cousin of your own, and I wouldn’t like to spake ill of the blood.”

“God forbid!  But go on, Kelly.”

“Well, so, from that out, I began to think of it in arnest.  The Lord forgive me! but my first thoughts was how I’d like to pull down Barry Lynch; and my second that I’d not demane myself by marrying the sisther of such an out-and-out ruffian, and that it wouldn’t become me to live on the money that’d been got by chating your lordship’s grandfather.”

“My lordship’s grandfather ought to have looked after that himself.  If those are all your scruples they needn’t stick in your throat much.”

“I said as much as that to myself, too.  So I soon went to work.  I was rather shy about it at first; but the girls helped me.  They put it into her head, I think, before I mentioned it at all.  However, by degrees, I asked her plump, whether she’d any mind to be Mrs. Kelly? and, though she didn’t say ‘yes,’ she didn’t say ‘no.’”

“But how the devil, man, did you manage to get at her?  I’m told Barry watches her like a dragon, ever since he read his father’s will.”

“He couldn’t watch her so close, but what she could make her way down to mother’s shop now and again.  Or, for the matter of that, but what I could make my way up to the house.”