it to be so completely left to ruin?"

"Anan!" muttered he, as if not well comprehending the question, but,
in reality, a mere device employed to give him more time to scan the
stranger, and guess at his probable object.

"I was asking," said Linton, "how it happened that a fine old place like
this was suffered to go to wreck and ruin?"

"Faix, it's ould enough, anyhow," said the other, with a coarse laugh.

"And large too."

"Yer honer was here afore?" said Tom, stealthily glancing at him under
his brows. "I 'm thinking I remember yer honer's faytures. You would n't
be the gentleman that came down with Mr. Duffy?"

"No; this is my first visit to these parts; now, where does this little
road lead? It seems to be better cared for than the rest, and the gate,
too, is neatly kept."

"That goes down to the cottage, sir--Tubber-beg, as they call it. Yer
honer isn't Mr. Cashel himself?" said Tom, reverentially taking off his
tattered hat, and attempting an air of courtesy, which sat marvellously
ill upon him.

"I have not that good luck, my friend."

"'T is good luck ye may call it," sighed Tom; "a good luck that does n't
fall to many; but, maybe, ye don't want it; maybe yer honer--"

"And who lives in the cottage of Tubber-beg?" said Linton, interrupting.

"One Corrigan, sir; an old man and his granddaughter."

"Good kind of people, are they?"

"Ayeh! there's worse, and there 's betther! They 're as proud as
Lucifer, and poor as naygurs."

"And this is the Hall itself?" exclaimed Linton, as he stopped directly
in front of the old dilapidated building, whose deformities were only
exaggerated by the patchy effect of a faint moonlight.

"Ay, there it is," grinned Tom, "and no beauty either; and ugly as it
looks without, it's worse within! There 'a cracks in the walls ye could
put your hand through, and the windows is rotten, where they stand."

"It is not very tempting, certainly, as a residence," said Linton,
smiling.

"Ah, but if ye heerd the rats, the way they do be racin' and huntin'
each other at night, and the wind bellowsin' down the chimbleys, such
screechin' and yellin' as it keeps, and then the slates rattlin', till
ye'd think the ould roof was comin' off altogether,--be my soul, there's
many a man would n't take the property and sleep a night in that house."

"One would do a great deal, notwithstanding, for a fine estate like
this," said Linton, dryly.

There was something, either in the words