“That’s true, for what need she mind Barry, now?  She may marry whom she pleases, and needn’t tell him, unless she likes, until the priest has his book ready.”

“Ah, my lord! but there’s the rub.  She is afraid of Barry; and though she didn’t say so, she won’t agree to tell him, or to let me tell him, or just to let the priest walk into the house without telling him.  She’s fond of Barry, though, for the life of me, I can’t see what there is in him for anybody to be fond of.  He and his father led her the divil’s own life mewed up there, because she wouldn’t be a nun.  But still is both fond and afraid of him; and, though I don’t think she’ll marry anybody else—­at laist not yet awhile, I don’t think she’ll ever get courage to marry me—­at any rate, not in the ordinary way.”

“Why then, Martin, you must do something extraordinary, I suppose.”

“That’s just it, my lord; and what I wanted was, to ask your lordship’s advice and sanction, like.”

“Sanction!  Why I shouldn’t think you’d want anybody’s sanction for marrying a wife with four hundred a-year.  But, if that’s anything to you, I can assure you I approve of it.”

“Thank you, my lord.  That’s kind.”

“To tell the truth,” continued Lord Ballindine, “I’ve a little of your own first feeling.  I’d be glad of it, if it were only for the rise it would take out of my schoolfellow, Barry.  Not but that I think you’re a deal too good to be his brother-in-law.  And you know, Kelly, or ought to know, that I’d be heartily glad of anything for your own welfare.  So, I’d advise you to hammer away while the iron’s hot, as the saying is.”

“That’s just what I’m coming to.  What’d your lordship advise me to do?”

“Advise you?  Why, you must know best yourself how the matter stands.  Talk her over, and make her tell Barry.”

“Divil a tell, my lord, in her.  She wouldn’t do it in a month of Sundays.”

“Then do you tell him, at once.  I suppose you’re not afraid of him?”

“She’d niver come to the scratch, av’ I did.  He’d bully the life out of her, or get her out of the counthry some way.”

“Then wait till his back’s turned for a month or so.  When he’s out, let the priest walk in, and do the matter quietly that way.”

“Well, I thought of that myself, my lord; but he’s as wary as a weazel, and I’m afeard he smells something in the wind.  There’s that blackguard Moylan, too, he’d be telling Barry—­and would, when he came to find things weren’t to be settled as he intended.”

“Then you must carry her off, and marry her up here, or in Galway or down in Connemara, or over at Liverpool, or any where you please.”

“Now you’ve hit it, my lord.  That’s just what I’m thinking myself.  Unless I take her off Gretna Green fashion, I’ll never get her.”

“Then why do you want my advice, if you’ve made up your mind to that?  I think you’re quite right; and what’s more, I think you ought to lose no time in doing it.  Will she go, do you think?”