The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-05-10

disposed of her bu9i!le - sAiaow for his
head. and invited him With smile to.a
siests He obeyed ~ readily as if he. had
been 3 child, and she then sat down bestde
him, grooming an old nursery lullaby to hush
salutary oblivion for herself; and no sooner
had his eyes begun to close in sleep than
she rose, and, - If anxiety had rendered her
incapable Of remaining quiet, wandered
restlessly on until she reached the top of n
. hill, which shut in the valley from the
land beyond. There she paused, fear and
foreboding, WEAKNESS and sorrow, NIL for
gotten or swallowed up in the breathless adj
miration which took instant possession Of
her soul. Around her, crumbled and
tumbled in all directions, were hills bare
indeed Of trees, but green to the very sum-
init, and strangely picturesque in the fam
tastic variety Of their FORMS. They were
quiet glens and solemn, rock strewn passes,
with streamlets swelled into cateracts by
the rains of spring, yet looking in the dis
lance like mere threads of liquid silver
spirting from their rugged sides. There
were long brown tracts Of peat land, bright
ened and relieved by patches Of golden,
which, in its perfectly emerald green, is only
to be seen in such like Sb0ggy places and
over and above all this, there were the
shadOwy outlines of more than one far-Of
range of mountains melting into the delicate
blue background of the sky, and changing
color, rs rapidly rs the young cheek Of
beauty, beneath the shifting lights and
shadows of that cloud scenery" which is
nowhere more beautiful or varied than in
Ireland. To the left, and looking, in the
clear atmosphere, SO close that she almost
felt she could have touched it with her ont
stretched hand, rose IS Croagh Patrick"
sacred to the memory of Ireland's great
apostle and Clew Bay lay, or seemed to lie,
bright and shining at her feet-CIew Bay,
with its gracefully winding shore, and its
archipelago of islets; some bold, beetling
rocks, ready and able to do battle with the
storm, others mere baskets of verilure float
ing on the tide while the largest and most
picturesque of them ALL the sea-girt king
dom of Grana-U aile, Glare Island, stood
bravely up, cliff over cliff, at the very
mouth of the harbOr, guarding itagainst the
winter entertainments of~the Atlantic,
which, green as liquid jasper, and calm, in
that summer weather, as giant sleeping in
the sunshine, unro1fed itself beyond Long
and wistfully Nellie fixed her gaze upon
that fair prospect and it was with a strange
reluctance and foreboding of future sorrow
that she at last withdrew in order to ex-
anime attentively that portion of the country
which lay more Immediately around her,
and with which she believed herself about
to be more intimately connected. AS she
did SO, building, Perched half why up
hill rather more inland than that upon
which she herself was standing, attracted
mingling of hope and fear, like a person
choking; for she felt q sudden conviction
that in the wild, uncultivated lands beneath
her she beheld the portion assigned to her
grandfather by the commissioners at
to have been built for the express purpose
of commanding and overawing the entire
district, the house in which they had told
her she was to establish her new home.
House, indeed, it could scarcely be called in
anything like the modern acceptation of the
term, though it was probably perfectly well
suited to the wants and wishes of the wild
chieftains by whom it had been erected. The
original building had consisted of n single
tower, of which the rough rude walls, formed
of huge stones, put unhammered and unce-
mented together, betrayed its origin In
times SO far remote as to have no history
even in the oldest annals of the land. Added
on to his gray relic of the past, however, a
new building was now evidently inprOcess
of erection. It was far from finished yet, as
Nellie knew by the poles and scaffoldings
around it, but even in its embryo state it
bore terribly suspicious resemblance to
that square, simple fortalice type of build
ing which seems to have been the one archi
tectural idea of Cromwell's Irish drafted
soldiers, and which still remains in many
places, the silent but uncontrovertible wit
ness-the seal which they themselves have
set upon their forcible and unjust posses
sion of the land. The very look of that half
finished building seemed to answer to
Nellie's late foreboding, and with q sinking
heart she turned her back upon it and re-
traced her steps to the place where she had
left Lord Netterville. The old man had al
ready shaken off his ftful slumbers, and
was toiling feebly up the hill.
To be Continued.
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