On my first visit to Jersey I had been much struck with the fine situation and commanding aspect of the magnificent castle of Mont Orgueil, and had much pleasure in anticipating a fresh survey of it. But guess the gratified nature of my emotions, when I learnt from an old warder of the castle that Drogo de Barentin, a Norman chieftain, had been its last governor!—that his name was on some of its records, and that he had lost his life in its defence on the outer ramparts! He left no offspring that could be traced, and thus the Norman’s family had become extinct. The old man said that he had left children by a Saxon woman in England; but that the Normans would surely have destroyed them had they come to Barentin.
This I considered as making good progress; and I returned cheerfully to Barentin, to thank my mendicant and his patron the aubergiste, intending to prosecute the inquiry further at Rouen. I will not hazard fatiguing the reader by detailing the result of any more of my investigations; but it is curious enough that at Ivetot, about four leagues from Barentin,—to an ancient château near which place I had been directed by mine host, and where there was to be an auction of old trumpery, the ancient furniture of the château, I met, among a parcel of scattered articles collected for that sale, the portrait of an old Norman warrior, which exactly resembled those of my great-grandfather, Colonel Barrington of Cullenaghmore. But for the difference of scanty black hair in one case, and a large white wig in the other, the heads and countenances would have been quite undistinguishable! I marked this picture with my initials, and left a request with the innkeeper at Ivetot to purchase it for me at any price; but having unluckily forgotten to leave him money likewise, to pay for it, the man, as it afterward appeared, thought no more of the matter. So great was my disappointment, that I advertised for this portrait—but in vain.
I will now bid the reader farewell,—at least for the present.
END OF VOL. II.
PROSPECTUS
OF
SIR JONAH BARRINGTON’S
HISTORIC MEMOIRS OF IRELAND,
WITH SECRET ANECDOTES OF THE UNION;
Illustrated by Delineations of the principal Characters connected with those Transactions, curious Letters and Papers in fac-simile; and numerous Original Portraits engraved by the elder Heath.