The writer goes on to describe the fortified domiciles of the gentry. He says: "The castles or houses of the nobility consist of four walls extremely high, thatched with straw; but, to tell the truth, they are nothing but square towers without windows, or, at least, having such small apertures as to give no more light than there is in a prison; they have little furniture, and cover their room with rushes, of which they make their beds in summer, and of straw in winter; they put the rushes a foot deep on their floors, and on their windows, and many of them ornament the ceilings with branches." (The Tour of M. De la Boullaye le Gouz.)
This description is applicable to those numerous, solitary, and gloomy buildings called castles, the ruins of which are so conspicuous in every part of the country, and a considerable number of which were erected by the Undertakers, in the reign of James I.; while it must be confessed that the mode of constructing the hovels of the peasantry, as described in the preceding extract, has not undergone much improvement, up to the present day, in many parts of Ireland.
Translated from the Spanish.
PERICO THE SAD; OR, THE ALVAREDA FAMILY.
CHAPTER XIII.
A tempestuous night covered the sky with flying clouds, which were rushing further on to discharge their torrents. Sometimes they separated in their flight, and the moon appeared between them, mild and tranquil, like a herald of concord and peace in the midst of the strife.
In the short intervals, during which this placid light illumined earth and heaven, a pale and emaciated man might have been seen making his way along a solitary road. The uncertainty of his manner, his apprehensive eyes, and the agitation of his face, would have shown clearly that he was a fugitive.
A fugitive indeed! for he fled from inhabited places; fled from his fellow-men; fled from human justice; fled from himself and from his own conscience. This man was an assassin, and no one who had seen him fleeing, as the clouds above were fleeing before the invisible force which pursued them, would have recognized the honorable man, the obedient son, the loving husband and devoted father of a few days since, in this miserable being, now fallen under the irremissible sentence of the law of expiation.
Yes, this man was Perico, not seeking a peace now and for ever lost, but fleeing from the present and in dread of the future.