CHAPTER VI. 'Yes-she was fair! -Hers was like the sunny glow That laughs on earth, and all below! We wedded secret ROKEBY. "Have I sought every country, far and near, IT is time that we should unravel the clue of this dark and melancholy history; but, in order to do so, we must carry our readers back to scenes and events of many years before. In a small and very poor village, in a desolate part of Ireland, there lived an Englishman, who earned his livelihood by working as under gardener for the lord of the neighbouring castle, an absentee, but one whose property was better managed than is often the case under such circumstances. Why this man had established himself there, was never accurately known, and often excited wonder. The truth was, that an imprudent love-match, without the consent of his family, which had occasioned an irreconcilable quarrel with them, and had been followed a few years after by the sudden death of his wife, had made a kind of misanthrope of him; and when he lost her, he had gone forth for ever from his own land and people, 'the world before him were to choose,' and finding in this spot both the objects he sought -employment and seclusion-had ended by establishing himself there. His life since self-denying and solitary, had rendered even sterner his naturally severe and rigid character. He did his duty conscientiously; but duty was all in all to him. He was punctual to his work; industrious, and scrupulous in the performance of it; but, work once over, he was a misanthrope once more, resolutely shunning all intercourse, and admitting of no companionship, save that of his own little girl. For this child, indeed, he did cherish a most deep affection; but even that affection seemed to partake, in a measure, of the sternness that so remarkably characterised his nature. He never addressed to her the fond and endearing words that parents are wont to lavish on their children—he rarely even caressed her and it was only by his constant thought of her his unremitting attention to her, and his earnest prayers in her behalf, that he manifested the engrossing attachment, which was, in fact, interwoven with every fibre of his heart. This man was deeply, though unostentatiously, pious. Never since he had come to live at this place, had he been known to retire to rest without first taking down the well-worn Bible, and reverently reading, or causing to be read, a chapter aloud;-and the severest remark he was ever heard to make against the Roman Catholics around, was-that he pitied every unhappy mother's son of them who could not do the same. Of late years, and since his VOL. III. G eyesight had begun to fail, it was his daughter who performed this office for him, for he had taught her both to read and write-a work of no small labour; since, without being actually idiotic, she was decidedly feeble in intellect; and to master anything that required mental exertion of any kind, was to her a matter of extreme difficulty. With this daughter, the old man was exceedingly strict; indeed, her beauty was sufficient to warrant any degree of particularity, especially as she had that kind of simple credulity which totally unfitted her to guard against danger in any shape. He had brought her up in habits of the most implicit obedience; and, with the exalted respect she entertained for him, was mingled something of that fear which is apt to be occasioned by the influence of decided mental superiority over a capacity of meaner grade. She had long, from her great beauty, been an object of admiration to all in her humble neighbourhood. The wild, untutored peasants around, looked upon her almost as an angel, and worshipped her all the more for her very innocent simplicity. But, that she was one far beyond their sphere, her father took continual means of reminding them-indeed, it was notorious that he had sworn she should never be the wife of a Romanist; and he was not one to break his word. Unfortunately for her, none but Romanists existed in that remote place; so that she not only ran a great risk of not marrying in what her father chose to consider her proper sphere, but also, of not marrying at all. It was however ordained otherwise. It was during a severe and tedious illness of that father's, when, for the first time in his life, he had been laid aside for many weeks, and was beginning to be seriously embarrassed in consequence, that a travelling artist suddenly presented himself in quest of lodgings, having been directed to his cottage as the cleanest and most comfortable in the place. Well might it be so described! It was a truly English abode-a picture of rural comfort and simplicity, affording a strange contrast to the miserable mud hovels and filthy cabins of the surrounding peasantry. Old Morgan, indeed, piqued himself, not only upon its neatness, but its adornment. The little plot of garden ground in front, tilled by his own hands, and gay throughout the year with a succession of flowers, might have put many a |