soul you ought to make him pay something
for it; upon my soul you ought, for it's only fair!"
"I've tould you, Mr Lynch, what I'll propose to Martin Kelly; if you
don't think the terms fair, you can propose any others yourself; or
you're at liberty to employ any other agent you please."
Barry sighed again, but he yielded. He felt broken-hearted, and
unhappy, and he longed to quit a country so distasteful to him, and
relatives and neighbours so ungrateful; he longed in his heart for the
sweet, easy haunts of Boulogne, which he had never known, but of which
he had heard many a glowing description from congenial spirits whom he
knew. He had heard enough of the ways and means of many a leading
star in that Elysium, to be aware that, with five hundred a-year,
unembarrassed and punctually paid, he might shine as a prince indeed.
He would go at once to that happy foreign shore, where the memory of no
father would follow him, where the presence of no sister would degrade
and irritate him, where billiard-tables were rife, and brandy cheap;
where virtue was easy, and restraint unnecessary; where no duties would
harass him, no tenants upbraid him, no duns persecute him. There,
carefully guarding himself against the schemes of those less fortunate
followers of pleasure among whom he would be thrown in his social
hours, he would convert every shilling of his income to some purpose of
self-enjoyment, and live a life of luxurious abandonment. And he need
not be altogether idle, he reflected within himself afterwards, as he
was riding home: he felt that he was possessed of sufficient energy and
talent to make himself perfectly master of a pack of cards, to be a
proficient over a billiard-table, and even to get the upper hand of a
box of dice. With such pursuits left to him, he might yet live to be
talked of, feared, and wealthy; and Barry's utmost ambition would have
carried him no further.
As I said before, he yielded to the attorney, and commissioned him
fully to treat with Martin Kelly in the manner proposed by himself.
Martin was to give him five hundred a-year for his share of the
property, and three hundred pounds for the furniture, &c.; and Barry
was to give his sister his written and unconditional assent to her
marriage; was to sign any document which might be necessary as to her
settlement, and was then to leave Dunmore for ever. Daly made him write
an authority for making such a proposal, by which he bound himself to
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