was scarcely a farm on the property without its
mortgage. Upon the house and demesne a bond for three thousand pounds still
remained; and to pay off this, Considine advised my selling a portion of
the property.

"It's old Blake lent the money; and only a week before your uncle died,
he served a notice for repayment. I never told Godfrey; it was no use. It
could only embitter his last few hours; and, besides, we had six months to
think of it. The half of that time has now elapsed, however; we must see to
this."

"And did Blake really make this demand, knowing my poor uncle's
difficulties?"

"Why, I half think he did not; for Godfrey was too fine a fellow ever to
acknowledge anything of the sort. He had twelve sheep killed for the poor
in Scariff, at a time when not a servant of the house tasted meat for
months; ay, and our own table, too, none of the most abundant, I assure
you."

What a picture was this, and how forcibly did it remind me of what I had
witnessed in times past. Thus meditating, we returned to the house; and
Considine, whose activity never slumbered, sat down to con over the
rent-roll with old Maguire the steward.

When I joined the count in the evening, I found him surrounded by maps,
rent-rolls, surveys, and leases. He had been poring over these various
documents, to ascertain from which portion of the property we could best
recruit our failing finances. To judge from the embarrassed look and manner
with which he met me, the matter was one of no small difficulty. The
encumbrances upon the estate had been incurred with an unsparing hand; and
except where some irreclaimable tract of bog or mountain rendered a loan
impracticable, each portion of the property had its share of debt.

"You can't sell Killantry, for Basset has above six thousand pounds on it
already. To be sure, there's the Priest's Meadows,--fine land and in good
heart; but Malony was an old tenant of the family, and I cannot recommend
your turning him over to a stranger. The widow M'Bride's farm is perhaps
the best, after all, and it would certainly bring the sum we want; still,
poor Mary was your nurse, Charley, and it would break her heart to do it."

Thus, wherever we turned, some obstacle presented itself, if not from
moneyed causes, at least from those ties and associations which, in an
attached and faithful tenantry, are sure to grow up between them and the
owner of the soil.

Feeling how all-important these things were--endea