“Just a pleasant walk before your breakfast.”
“And is there not a short cut to O’Malley Castle over that mountain?”
“Faix, and so there is; and ye can be no stranger to these parts if ye know that.”
“I have travelled it before now. Just tell me, is the wooden bridge standing over the little stream? It used to be carried away every winter in my time.”
“It’s just the same now. You’ll have to pass by the upper ford; but it comes to the same, for that will bring you to the back gate of the demesne, and one way is just as short as the other.”
“I know it, I know it; so now, do you follow me with my luggage to the castle, and I’ll set out on foot.”
So saying, I threw off my cloak, and prepared myself for a sharp walk of some eight miles over the mountain. As I reached the little knoll of land which, overlooking the Shannon, affords a view of several miles in every direction, I stopped to gaze upon the scene where every object around was familiar to me from infancy: the broad, majestic river, sweeping in bold curves between the wild mountains of Connaught and the wooded hills and cultivated slopes of the more fertile Munster, the tall chimneys of many a house rose above the dense woods where in my boyhood I had spent hours and days of happiness. One last look I turned towards the scene of my late catastrophe ere I began to descend the mountain. The postboy, with the happy fatalism of his country, and a firm trust in the future, had established himself in the interior of the chaise, from which a blue curl of smoke wreathed upward from his pipe; the horses grazed contentedly by the roadside; and were I to judge from the evidence before me, I should say that I was the only member of the party inconvenienced by the accident. A thin sleeting of rain began to fall; the wind blew sharply in my face, and the dark clouds, collecting in masses above, seemed to threaten a storm. Without stopping for even a passing look at the many well-known spots about, I pressed rapidly on. My old experience upon the moors had taught me that sling trot in which jumping from hillock to hillock over the boggy surface, you succeed in accomplishing your journey not only with considerable speed, but perfectly dryshod.
By the lonely path which I travelled, it was unlikely I should meet any one. It was rarely traversed except by the foot of the sportsman, or some stray messenger from the castle to the town of Banagher. Its solitude, however, was in no wise distasteful to me; my heart was full to bursting. Each moment as I walked some new feature of my home presented itself before me. Now it was all happiness and comfort; the scene of its ancient hospitable board, its warm hearth, its happy faces, and its ready welcome were all before me, and I increased my speed to the utmost, when suddenly a sense of sad and sorrowing foreboding would draw around me, and the image of my uncle’s sick-bed, his worn features, his pallid look, his broken voice would strike upon my heart, and all the changes that poverty, desertion, and decay can bring to pass would fall upon my heart, and weak and trembling I would stand for some moments unable to proceed.
Oh, how many a reproachful thought came home to me at what I scrupled not to call to myself the desertion of my home! Oh, how many a prayer I uttered, in all the fervor of devotion, that my selfish waywardness and my yearning for ambition might not bring upon me, in after-life, years of unavailing regret! As I thought thus, I reached the brow of a little mountain ridge, beneath which, at a distance of scarcely more than a mile, the dark woods of O’Malley Castle stretched, before me. The house itself was not visible, for it was situated in a valley beside the river. But there lay the whole scene of my boyhood: there the little creek where my boat was kept, and where I landed on the morning after my duel with Bodkin; there stretched for many a mile the large, callow meadows, where I trained my horses, and schooled them for the coming season; and far in the distance, the brown and rugged peak of old Scariff was lost in the clouds. The rain by this time had ceased, the wind had fallen, and an almost unnatural stillness prevailed around; but yet the heavy masses of vapor frowned ominously, and the leaden hue of land and water wore a gloomy and depressing aspect. My impatience to get on increased every moment, and descending the mountain at the top of my speed, I at length reached the little oak paling that skirted the wood, opened the little wicket, and entered the path. It was the self-same one I had trod in revery and meditation the night before I left my home. I remember, too, sitting down beside the little well which, enclosed in a frame of rock, ran trickling across the path to be lost among the gnarled roots and fallen leaves around. Yes, this was the very spot.
Overcome for the instant by my exertion and by my emotion, I sat down upon the stone, and taking off my cap, bathed my heated and throbbing temples in the cold spring, Refreshed at once, I was about to rise and press onward, when suddenly my attention was caught by a sound which, faint from distance, scarce struck upon my ear. I listened again; but all was still and silent, the dull splash of the river as it broke upon the reedy shore was the only sound I heard. Thinking it probably some mere delusion of my heated imagination, I rose to push forward; but at the moment a slight breeze stirred in the leaves around me, the light branches rustled and bent beneath it, and a low moaning sound swelled upward, increasing each instant as it came; like the distant roar of some mighty torrent it grew louder as the wind bore it towards me, and now falling, now swelling, it burst forth into one loud, prolonged cry of agony and grief. O God! it was the death-wail! I fell upon my knees, my hands clasped in agony; the sweat of misery dropped off my brow, and with a heart bleeding and breaking I prayed—I know not what. Again the terrible cry smote upon my ear, and I could mark the horrible cadences of the death-song, as the voices of the mourners joined in chorus.