n obtained under false pretences? Why had he not been told of the
Captain's position when he first made himself intimate with the mother
and daughter?

Instead of going as was his custom to Lahinch, and then rowing across
the bay and round the point, he drove his gig to the village of
Liscannor. He was sick of Barney Morony and the canoe, and never desired
to see either of them again. He was sick indeed, of everything Irish,
and thought that the whole island was a mistake. He drove however boldly
through Liscannor and up to Father Marty's yard, and, not finding the
priest at home, there left his horse and gig. He had determined that
he would first go to the priest and boldly declare that nothing should
induce him to marry the daughter of a convict. But Father Marty was not
at home. The old woman who kept his house believed that he had gone into
Ennistown. He was away with his horse, and would not be back till dinner
time. Then Neville, having seen his own nag taken from the gig, started
on his walk up to Ardkill.

How ugly the country was to his eyes as he now saw it. Here and there
stood a mud cabin, and the small, half-cultivated fields, or rather
patches of land, in which the thin oat crops were beginning to be
green, were surrounded by low loose ramshackle walls, which were little
more than heaps of stone, so carelessly had they been built and so
negligently preserved. A few cocks and hens with here and there a
miserable, starved pig seemed to be the stock of the country. Not a
tree, not a shrub, not a flower was there to be seen. The road was
narrow, rough, and unused. The burial ground which he passed was the
liveliest sign of humanity about the place. Then the country became
still wilder, and there was no road. The oats also ceased, and the
walls. But he could hear the melancholy moan of the waves, which he had
once thought to be musical and had often sworn that he loved. Now the
place with all its attributes was hideous to him, distasteful, and
abominable. At last the cottage was in view, and his heart sank very
low. Poor Kate! He loved her dearly through it all. He endeavoured to
take comfort by assuring himself that his heart was true to her. Not for
worlds would he injure her;--that is, not for worlds, had any worlds
been exclusively his own. On account of the Scroope world,--which was a
world general rather than particular,--no doubt he must injure her most
horribly. But still she was his dear Kate, his own