nly, as Neal thought, his eyes shone more brightly
than usual, and he held himself upright. The stoop was gone from his
shoulders, and the peering, peaked look from his eyes.

CHAPTER III

The Lords of Dunseveric once lived in a castle perched on the edge of a
cliff, a place inferior to the neighbouring Dunluce as a stronghold, but
equally uncomfortable as a residence. The walls were thick, the rooms
little larger than prison cells, and the windows very small and narrow,
but they were wide enough to let the wind whistle through them and the
rain trickle over their sills to the stone floors inside. The doctor
of a modern sanatorium for consumptive people would have been well
satisfied with the ventilation of Dunseveric Castle. On stormy days in
winter it must have been most unsafe to venture out of doors. The worst
winds, fortunately, always blow inwards from the sea, but there are
eddies round buildings, and with precipices on three sides of him,
the ancient lord of Dunseveric had need to walk cautiously and provide
himself, when possible, with something to hold on to. Some time at the
end of the seventeenth century the reigning lord, giving up in despair
the attempt to render habitable a home more suited to a seagull than a
nobleman, being also less in dread than his ancestors of sea pirates and
land marauders, determined to build himself a house in which he could
live comfortably. He selected a site about a mile inland from the
original castle, and laid the foundations of Dunseveric House. Then,
despairing perhaps of living to complete his architect's grandiose
plans, he gave up the idea of building and hired a house near Dublin.
During the early part of the eighteenth century he interested himself in
Irish politics, and succeeded, as influential politicians did in those
days, in providing comfortably for outlying members of his family from
the public purse. His son, when it came to his turn to reign, ignored
the foundations which his father had laid, and erected a mansion such as
Irish gentlemen delighted in at the time--a Square block of grey masonry
with small windows to light large rooms, a huge basement storey, and an
impressive flight of stone steps leading up to the front door. He also
enclosed several acres of land with a stone wall, called the space a
garden and planted it with some fruit trees which did not flourish.

His son, the Lord Dunseveric of 1798, having little left him to do in
the way of bu