Of all who had suffered, he who had probably lost the most, and who certainly had been on the brink of losing the greatest part of what he possessed, was the only individual who uttered no reproach.
He was impatient to get down to Castle Hermitage, and if he found that Sir Ulick had acted fairly, to be some comfort to him, to be with him at least when deserted by all the rest of the world.
At all the inns upon the road, as he went from Dublin to Castle Hermitage, even at the villages where he stopped to water the horses, every creature, down to the hostlers, were talking of the bankruptcy—and abusing Sir Ulick O’Shane and his son. The curses that were deep, not loud, were the worst—and the faces of distress worse than all. Gathering round his carriage, wherever it stopped, the people questioned him and his servants about the news, and then turned away, saying they were ruined. The men stood in unutterable despair. The women crying, loudly bewailed “their husbands, their sons, that must waste in the jail or fly the country; for what should they do for the rents that had been made up in Sir Ulick’s notes, and no good now?”
Ormond felt the more on hearing these complaints, from his sense of the absolute impossibility of relieving the universal distress.
He pursued his melancholy journey, and took Moriarty into the carriage with him, that he might not be recognized on the road.
When he came within sight of Castle Hermitage, he stopped at the top of the hill at a cottage, where many a time in his boyish days he had rested with Sir Ulick out hunting. The mistress of the house, now an old woman, came to the door.
“Master Harry dear!” cried she, when she saw who it was. But the sudden flash of joy in her old face was over in an instant.
“But did you hear it?” cried she, “and the great change it caused him—poor Sir Ulick O’Shane? I went up with eggs on purpose to see him, but could only hear—he was in his bed—wasting with trouble—nobody knows any thing more—all is kept hush and close. Mr. Marcus took off all he could rap, and ran, even to—”
“Well, well, I don’t want to hear of Marcus—can you tell me whether Dr. Cambray is come home?”
“Not expected to come till Monday.”