MEMOIR OF A GENTLEMAN. 259 



plan and to sleep a second night in the same place, would 

 be, according to his theories, an atrocity. I found myself 

 sinking under this excessive happiness ; and when I ventured 

 a gentle protest against being whirled off in a thunder-storm 

 from the ' Star and Garter' to the ( Greyhound,' I received 

 a cross fire that silenced me effectually. From that period 

 I submitted without a murmur ; my days were numbered ; 

 another month like that entitled the honey-one, would consign 

 me to my fathers ; the last of the Dawkinses would vanish 

 from among men, and a mural monument in St. Saviour's 

 record my years and virtues. But accident saved my life, 

 though it annihilated my property. 



" Years before I led Brasilia to the altar, a Connemara 

 estate, which had belonged to her progenitors, and had been 

 ruined in succession by the respective lords, was utterly 

 demolished by a gentleman whom she termed her * lamented 

 father.' The property had been in chancery for half a 

 century, and advertised for sale beyond the memory of man ; 

 but as it was overloaded with every species of encumbrance, 

 no one in his senses would have accepted the fee-simple as a 

 gift. But my wife had determined that Castle Toole should 

 be redeemed, and rise once more, Phoenix-like, from its em- 

 barrassments. It owed, she admitted, more than it was worth, 

 twice told but then, sure, it was the family property. There, 

 for four centuries, O'Tooles had died, and O'Shaughnesseys 

 been born ; and if she could only persuade me to repurchase 

 it with my wealth, she would be the first lady in the barony. 

 To Marc Antony this project was enchanting. Ballybroney 

 had been roofless for the last twenty years, that being about 

 the period when the last of the " dirty acres," which had once 

 appertained to the mansion, had slipped from the fingers of 

 of the Bodkins ; therefore, to establish himself at Castle 

 Toole, would suit my kinsman to a hair. In short, the 

 battery was unmasked; and whether over-persuaded by 

 the eloquence of my wife, the arguments of her cousin, or 

 driven to desperation by a life of pleasure, I consented in due 

 time ; and having accompanied my honoured counsellors to 

 Dublin, found no competitor for Castle Toole proposed for 

 the same paid a large sum of money, and was declared, by 

 the legal functionaries, a gentleman of estate, and that too in 

 Connemara. 



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