This Was Castle Something, The
Residence Of The Late Lord Mountmorris.
With a blessing, content and
three hundred a year one could fancy that person sung of by Moore, "With
the heart that is humble," being able to make out life nicely here.
When
a man has a title to his name with all the requirements which it implies
and demands, one could imagine a constant and wearing struggle going on.
I have earnestly and constantly sought to find a reason that could
possibly irritate an ignorant and exasperated peasant to the point of
taking the life of this man, I have found none. He was unhappily
addicted to drink, it is said, but he must have had a large majority of
the inhabitants of Ireland of all creeds and classes on the same side
with him in this, to judge by the number of houses licensed to sell
liquor to be drunk on the premises which are required for the drouthy
part of the population. He is accused of having warped justice to favor
his friends in his capacity of magistrate. I have heard that accusation
brought against other magistrates again and again, who were not
molested. He is said to have boasted when _fou_ that he was a spy
for the castle authorities, and could have any of them he chose to point
at taken up. This was mere bluster, I suppose. There does seem no reason
why the poor man should be cut off in the midst of his days by a guilty
hand, for there is no record of any tangible injury which he had done to
any man. Here on the spot where he fell, among the common people, I did
not hear anything that seemed to give a reason for any hatred that would
lead to murder being entertained against the deceased nobleman.
We turned away from the house and grounds, and I felt sad enough when we
passed the place where he lay in the dark night amid bare, barren
loneliness until the alarm was given. Heath in full blossom of purple
clung to the ditch back, foxglove in stately array nodded at us from
above, flowers that creep and flowers that wave were springing
everywhere, the rains of heaven had washed off the red stain, but I
could not shut my eyes to it. I saw the human body, dignified into
something awful by the presence of death, lying there waiting for the
hands that were to take it up reverently, and bear it away for
investigation and burial. I saw the dyed stones of the road that will
never lose the mark of guilt that colored them with the blood shed
there.
Lord Mountmorris' residence was a nice, roomy house. All these houses
are called castles, and castles they are compared with the cabins. The
land around it did not seem very good. There was something pathetic in
the evident attempt to keep up lordly state on a poor income and off
poor soil.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 140 of 208
Words from 71508 to 72010
of 107283
