Lord Kilgobbin | Page 2

FORWARD
'YOU ARE RIGHT, I SEE IT ALL,' AND NOW HE SEIZED HER
HAND AND KISSED IT
KATE, STILL DRESSED, HAD THROWN HERSELF ON THE BED,
AND WAS SOUND ASLEEP
'IS NOT THAT AS FINE AS YOUR BOASTED CAMPAGNA?'
'YOU WEAR A RING OF GREAT BEAUTY--MAY I LOOK AT IT?'
'TRUE, THERE IS NO TENDER LIGHT THERE,' MUTTERED HE,
GAZING AT HER EYES
HE KNELT DOWN ON ONE KNEE BEFORE HER
NINA CAME FORWARD AT THAT MOMENT
NINA KOSTALERGI WAS BUSILY ENGAGED IN PINNING UP
THE SKIRT OF HER DRESS
THE BALCONY CREAKED AND TREMBLED, AND AT LAST
GAVE WAY
'JUST LOOK AT THE CROWD THAT IS WATCHING US
ALREADY'
'I SHOULD LIKE TO HAVE BACK MY LETTERS'
WALPOLE LOOKED KEENLY AT THE OTHER'S FACE AS HE
READ THE PAPER
'I DECLARE YOU HAVE LEFT A TEAR UPON MY CHEEK,' SAID
KATE
CHAPTER I
KILGOBBIN CASTLE

Some one has said that almost all that Ireland possesses of picturesque
beauty is to be found on, or in the immediate neighbourhood of, the
seaboard; and if we except some brief patches of river scenery on the
Nore and the Blackwater, and a part of Lough Erne, the assertion is not
devoid of truth. The dreary expanse called the Bog of Allen, which
occupies a tableland in the centre of the island, stretches away for
miles--flat, sad-coloured, and monotonous, fissured in every direction
by channels of dark-tinted water, in which the very fish take the same
sad colour. This tract is almost without trace of habitation, save where,
at distant intervals, utter destitution has raised a mud-hovel,
undistinguishable from the hillocks of turf around it.
Fringing this broad waste, little patches of cultivation are to be seen:
small potato-gardens, as they are called, or a few roods of oats, green
even in the late autumn; but, strangely enough, with nothing to show
where the humble tiller of the soil is living, nor, often, any visible road
to these isolated spots of culture. Gradually, however--but very
gradually--the prospect brightens. Fields with inclosures, and a cabin or
two, are to be met with; a solitary tree, generally an ash, will be seen;
some rude instrument of husbandry, or an ass-cart, will show that we
are emerging from the region of complete destitution and approaching a
land of at least struggling civilisation. At last, and by a transition that is
not always easy to mark, the scene glides into those rich pasture-lands
and well-tilled farms that form the wealth of the midland counties.
Gentlemen's seats and waving plantations succeed, and we are in a
country of comfort and abundance.
On this border-land between fertility and destitution, and on a tract
which had probably once been part of the Bog itself, there stood--there
stands still--a short, square tower, battlemented at top, and surmounted
with a pointed roof, which seems to grow out of a cluster of
farm-buildings, so surrounded is its base by roofs of thatch and slates.
Incongruous, vulgar, and ugly in every way, the old keep appears to
look down on them--time-worn and battered as it is--as might a reduced
gentleman regard the unworthy associates with which an altered fortune
had linked him. This is all that remains of Kilgobbin Castle.

In the guidebooks we read that it was once a place of strength and
importance, and that Hugh de Lacy--the same bold knight 'who had
won all Ireland for the English from the Shannon to the sea'--had taken
this castle from a native chieftain called Neal O'Caharney, whose
family he had slain, all save one; and then it adds: 'Sir Hugh came one
day, with three Englishmen, that he might show them the castle, when
there came to him a youth of the men of Meath--a certain Gilla Naher
O'Mahey, foster-brother of O'Caharney himself--with his battle-axe
concealed beneath his cloak, and while De Lacy was reading the
petition he gave him, he dealt him such a blow that his head flew off
many yards away, both head and body being afterwards buried in the
ditch of the castle.'
The annals of Kilronan further relate that the O'Caharneys became
adherents of the English--dropping their Irish designation, and calling
themselves Kearney; and in this way were restored to a part of the lands
and the castle of Kilgobbin--'by favour of which act of grace,' says the
chronicle, 'they were bound to raise a becoming monument over the
brave knight, Hugh de Lacy, whom their kinsman had so treacherously
slain; but they did no more of this than one large stone of granite, and
no inscription thereon: thus showing that at all times, and with all men,
the O'Caharneys were false knaves and untrue to their word.'
In later times, again, the Kearneys returned to the old faith of their
fathers and followed the fortunes of King James; one