eavy sea; not a living
voice, save the wild shrill cry of the osprey, as he soars above the
barren cliffs! It is winter, and what desolation can be deeper or
gloomier! The sea-sent mists wrap the mountains and even the lough
itself in their vapory shroud. The cold thin rain falls unceasingly; a
cheerless, damp, and heavy atmosphere dwells even within doors; and the
gray half light gives a shadowy indistinctness even to objects at hand,
disposing the mind to sad and dreary imaginings.

In a deep straw chair, beside the turf fire, sits a very old man, with
a large square volume upon his knee. Dwarfed by nature and shrunk by
years, there is something of almost goblin semblance in the bright
lustre of his dark eyes, and the rapid motion of his lips as he reads to
himself half aloud. The almost wild energy of his features has survived
the wear and tear of time, and, old as he is, there is about him a dash
of vigor that seems to defy age. Poor Billy Traynor is now upwards of
eighty; but his faculties are clear, his memory unclouded, and, like
Moses, his eye not dimmed. "The Three Chronicles of Loughdooner," in
which he is reading, is the history of the Glencores, and contains,
amongst its family records, many curious predictions and prophecies.
The heirs of that ancient house were, from time immemorial, the sport of
fortune, enduring vicissitudes without end. No reverses seemed ever
too heavy to rally from; no depth of evil fate too deep for them to
extricate themselves. Involved in difficulties innumerable, engaged in
plots, conspiracies, luckless undertakings, abortive enterprises, still
they contrived to survive all around them, and come out with, indeed,
ruined fortunes and beggared estate, but still with life, and with what
is the next to life itself, an unconquerable energy of character.

It was in the encouragement of these gifts that Billy now sought for
what cheered the last declining days of his solitary life. His lord,
as he ever called him, had been for years and years away in a distant
colony, living under another name. Dwelling amongst the rough settlers
of a wild remote tract, a few brief lines at long intervals were the
only tidings that assured Billy he was yet living; yet were they enough
to convince him, coupled with the hereditary traits of his house, that
some one day or other he would come back again to resume his proud place
and the noble name of his ancestors. More than once had it been the fate
of th