"
"Well, sir, I wish you all success."
"Farewell, Mr. O'Brien; I shall see you immediately after my return."
The Colonel performed his journey by slow stages, until he reached "the
hall of his fathers,"--for it was such, although he had not for years
resided in it. It presented the wreck of a fine old mansion, situated
within a crescent of stately beeches, whose moss-covered and ragged
trunks gave symptoms of decay and neglect. The lawn had been once
beautiful, and the demesne a noble one; but that which blights the
industry of the tenant--the curse of absenteeism--had also left the
marks of ruin stamped upon every object around him. The lawn was
little better than a common; the pond was thick with weeds and sluggish
water-plants, that almost covered its surface; and a light, elegant
bridge, that spanned a river which ran before the house, was also
moss-grown and dilapidated. The hedges were mixed up with briers, the
gates broken, or altogether removed, the fields were rank with the
ruinous luxuriance of weeds, and the grass-grown avenues spoke of
solitude and desertion. The still appearance, too, of the house itself,
and the absence of smoke from its time-tinged chimneys--all told a
tale which constitutes one, perhaps the greatest, portion of Ireland's
misery! Even then he did not approach it with the intention of residing
there during his sojourn in the country. It was not habitable, nor had
it been so for years. The road by which he travelled lay near it, and
he could not pass without looking upon the place where a long line
of gallant ancestors had succeeded each other, lived their span, and
disappeared in their turn.
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