The answer to this application is still in
my possession, and is penned in an apologetic tone: it states that
the manuscript had been handed in, paid for, and inserted as an
advertisement, without sufficient inquiry, or any knowledge as to whom
it referred. No step, however, was taken to clear my uncle's character in the
judgment of the public; and as he immediately sold a small property,
the application of the proceeds of which was known to none, he was said
to have disposed of it to enable himself to buy off the threatened
information. However the truth might have been, it is certain that no
charges respecting the mysterious murder were afterwards publicly made
against my uncle, and, as far as external disturbances were concerned,
he enjoyed henceforward perfect security and quiet. A deep and lasting impression, however, had been made upon the public
mind, and Sir Arthur T----n was no longer visited or noticed by the
gentry and aristocracy of the county, whose attention and courtesies
he had hitherto received. He accordingly affected to despise these
enjoyments which he could not procure, and shunned even that society
which he might have commanded. This is all that I need recapitulate of my uncle's history, and I now
recur to my own. Although my father had never, within my recollection,
visited, or been visited by, my uncle, each being of sedentary,
procrastinating, and secluded habits, and their respective residences
being very far apart--the one lying in the county of Galway, the other
in that of Cork--he was strongly attached to his brother, and evinced
his affection by an active correspondence, and by deeply and proudly
resenting that neglect which had marked Sir Arthur as unfit to mix in
society. When I was about eighteen years of age, my father, whose health had been
gradually declining, died, leaving me in heart wretched and desolate,
and, owing to his previous seclusion, with few acquaintances, and almost
no friends. The provisions of his will were curious, and when I had sufficiently
come to myself to listen to or comprehend them, surprised me not a
little: all his vast property was left to me, and to the heirs of my
body, for ever; and, in default of such heirs, it was to go after my
death to my uncle, Sir Arthur, without any entail. At the same time, the will appointed him my guardian, desiring that I
might be received within his house, and reside with his family, and
under his care, during the term of my minority; and in consideration of
the increased expense consequent upon such an arrangement, a handsome
annuity was allotted to him during the term of my proposed residence. The object of this last provision I at once understood: my father
desired, by making it the direct, apparent interest of Sir Arthur that
I should die without issue, while at the same time placing me wholly
in his power, to prove to the world how great and unshaken was his
confidence in his brother's innocence and honour, and also to afford
him an opportunity of showing that this mark of confidence was not
unworthily bestowed. It was a strange, perhaps an idle scheme; but as I had been always
brought up in the habit of considering my uncle as a deeply-injured man,
and had been taught, almost as a part of my religion, to regard him as
the very soul of honour, I felt no further uneasiness respecting the
arrangement than that likely to result to a timid girl of secluded
habits from the immediate prospect of taking up her abode for the first
time in her life among total strangers. Previous to leaving my home,
which I felt I should do with a heavy heart, I received a most tender
and affectionate letter from my uncle, calculated, if anything could do
so, to remove the bitterness of parting from scenes familiar and dear
from my earliest childhood, and in some degree to reconcile me to the
change. It was during a fine autumn that I approached the old domain of
Carrickleigh. I shall not soon forget the impression of sadness and of
gloom which all that I saw produced upon my mind; the sunbeams were
falling with a rich and melancholy tint upon the fine old trees, which
stood in lordly groups, casting their long, sweeping shadows over rock
and sward. There was an air of desolation and decay about the spot,
which amounted almost to desolation; the symptoms of this increased in
number as we approached the building itself, near which the ground
had been originally more artificially and carefully cultivated than
elsewhere, and the neglect consequently more immediately and strikingly
betrayed itself. As we proceeded, the road wound near the beds of what had been formerly
two fish-ponds--now nothing more than stagnant swamps, overgrown with
rank weeds, and here and there encroached upon by the straggling
underwood. The avenue itself was much broken, and in many places the
stones were almost concealed by grass and nettles; the loose stone
walls which had here and there intersected the broad park were, in
many places, broken down, so as no longer to answer their original
purpose as fences; piers were now and then to be seen, but the gates
were gone. And, to add to the general air of dilapidation, some huge
trunks were lying scattered through the venerable old trees, either
the work of the winter storms, or perhaps the victims of some extensive
but desultory scheme of denudation, which the projector had not capital
or perseverance to carry into full effect. After the carriage had travelled a mile of this avenue, we reached the
summit of rather an abrupt eminence, one of the many which added to the
picturesqueness, if not to the convenience of this rude passage. From
the top of this ridge the grey walls of Carrickleigh were visible,
rising at a small distance in front, and darkened by the hoary
wood which crowded around them. It was a quadrangular building of
considerable extent, and the front which lay towards us, and in which
the great entrance was placed, bore unequivocal marks of antiquity; the
time-worn, solemn aspect of the old building, the ruinous and deserted
appearance of the whole place, and the associations which connected
it with a dark page in the history of my family, combined to depress
spirits already predisposed for the reception of sombre and dejecting
impressions. When the carriage drew up in the grass-grown courtyard before the hall
door, two lazy-looking men, whose appearance well accorded with that of
the place which they tenanted, alarmed by the obstreperous barking of a
great chained dog, ran out from some half-ruinous out-houses, and took
charge of the horses; the hall door stood open, and I entered a gloomy
and imperfectly lighted apartment, and found no one within.