If there were circumstances attendant on this step which I by no means fancied, there was one gratification that more than atoned for them all: I should see the ancient home of my family; the halls wherein my father's noble hospitalities had been practised; the chamber which had been my dear mother's! I own that the sight of the princely domain and all its attendant wealth, contrasting with my own poverty, served to extinguish within me the last spark of hope. How could I possibly dream of success against the power of such adjuncts as these? Were my cause fortified by every document and evidence, how little would it avail against the might of vast wealth and resources! Curtis would laugh my pretensions to scorn, if not treat them with greater violence; and with such thoughts I found myself one bright morning of June slowly traversing the approach to the Castle. The sight of the dense dark woods, the swelling lawns dotted over with grazing cattle, the distant corn-fields waving beneath a summer wind, and the tall towers of the Castle itself far off above the trees, all filled my heart with a strange chaos, in which hope, and fear, and proud ambition, and the very humblest terrors were all commingled. Although my plan of procedure had been carefully sketched out for me by Ragge, so confused were all my thoughts that I forgot everything. I could not even bethink me in what character and with what pretension I was to present myself, and I was actually at the very entrance of the Castle, still trying to remember the part I was to play.
There before me rose the grand and massive edifice, to erect which had been one of the chief elements of my poor father's ruin. Though far from architecturally correct in its details, the effect of the whole was singularly fine. Between two square towers of great size extended a long facade, in which, from the ornamented style of architraves and brackets, it was easy to see the chief suite of apartments lay; and in front of this the ground had been artificially terraced, and gardens formed in the Italian taste, the entire being defended by a deep fosse in front, and crossed by a drawbridge. Neglect and dilapidation had, however, disfigured all these; the terraces were broken down by the cattle, the cordage of the bridge hung in fragments in the wind, and even the stained-glass windows were smashed, and their places filled by paper or wooden substitutes. As I came nearer, these signs of ruin and devastation were still more apparent. The marble statues were fractured, and fissured by bullet-marks; the pastures were cut up by horses' feet; and even fragments of furniture were strewn about, as though thrown from the windows in some paroxysm of passionate debauchery. The door of the mansion was open, and evidences of even greater decay presented themselves within. Massive cornices of carved oak hung broken and shattered from the walls; richly cut wainscotings were split and fissured; a huge marble table of immense thickness was smashed through the centre, and the fragments still lay scattered on the floor where they had fallen. As I stood, in mournful mood, gazing on this desecration of what once had been a noble and costly estate, an ill-dressed, slatternly woman-servant chanced to cross the hall, and stopped with some astonishment to stare at me. To my inquiry if I could see Mr. Curtis, she replied by a burst of laughter too natural to be deemed offensive.
“By coorse you couldn't,” said she, at length; “sure there's nobody stirrin', nor won't be these two hours.”
“At what time, then, might I hope to be more fortunate?”
If I came about three or four in the afternoon, when the gentlemen were at breakfast, I might see Mr. Archy,—Archy M'Clean.
This gentleman was, as she told me, the nephew of Mr. Curtis, and his reputed heir.
Having informed her that I was a stranger in Ireland, and come from a long distance off to pay this visit, she good-naturedly suffered me to enter the house and rest myself in a small and meanly furnished chamber adjoining the hall. If I could but recall the sensations which passed through my mind as I sat in that solitary room, I could give a more correct picture of my nature than by all I have narrated of my actual life. Hour after hour glided by at first, in all the stillness of midnight; but gradually a faint noise would be heard afar off, and now and again a voice would echo through the long corridors, the very accents of which seemed to bring up thoughts of savage revelry and debauch. It had been decided by my lawyers that I should present myself to Curtis, without any previous notification of my identity or my claim; that, in fact, not to prejudice my chances of success by any written application for an audience, I should contrive to see him without his having expected me; and thus derive whatever advantage might accrue from any admissions his surprise should betray him into. I had been drilled into my part by repeated lessons. I was instructed as to every word I was to utter, and every phrase I was to use; but now that the moment to employ these arts drew nigh, I had utterly forgotten them all. The one absorbing thought: that beneath the very roof under which I now stood, my father and mother had lived; that these walls were their own home; that within them had been passed the short life they had shared together,—overcame me so completely that I lost all consciousness about myself and my object there.
At length the loud tones of many voices aroused me from my half stupor, and on drawing nigh the door I perceived a number of servants, ill-dressed and disorderly looking, carrying hurriedly across the hall the materials for a breakfast. I addressed myself to one of these, with a request to know when and how I could see Mr. Curtis. A bold stare and a rude burst of laughter was, however, the only reply he made me. I tried another, who did not even vouchsafe to hear more than half my question, when he passed on.
“Is it possible,” said I, indignantly, “that none of you will take a message for your master?”
“Begad, we have so many masters,” said one, jocosely, “it's hard to say where we ought to deliver it;” and the speech was received with a roar of approving laughter.