"The object of my coming," continued the sly-looking little man, "is to tell you that there is a writ out against Captain O'Rooney for four hundred pounds. He will not show up to-day. He is a Sunday man: now the race is ours—yours I ought to say—you will only have to go over the course. Good-morning."
But he was not allowed to depart in that way. He was soon in the mess-room, and all were put in possession of the facts.
In the meantime the good Colonel rode on at a rapid pace, wondering at the contents of the note, and conjuring up all sorts of things. Five-and-twenty minutes brought him to the gate, or what should have been the gate, of Clough-bally-More Castle, but it was gone. Cantering up the neglected wilderness-like avenue, he was soon in front of a ruinous-looking pile. This was Clough-bally-More Castle—a place best described by a quotation from Hood's beautiful poem of "The Haunted House"—
"Unhinged the iron gates half open hung,
Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many winters,
That from its crumbled pedestal had flung
One marble globe in splinters.
* * * * *
"With shatter'd panes the grassy court was starr'd;
The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after;