with the fox-hounds; I was about the best shot within twenty miles; I
could swim the Shannon at Holy Island; I drove four-in-hand better than
the coachman himself; and from finding a hare to hooking a salmon my
equal could not be found from Killaloe to Banagher. These were the
staple of my endowments; besides which, the parish priest had taught me
a little Latin, a little French, and a little geometry.

When I add to this portraiture of my accomplishments that I was nearly
six feet high, with more than a common share of activity and strength
for my years, and no inconsiderable portion of good looks, I have
finished my sketch, and stand before my reader.

We were in the thick of canvassing the county for the parliamentary seat
in my uncle's interest. O'Malley Castle was the centre of operations;
while I, a mere stripling, and usually treated as a boy, was entrusted
with an important mission, and sent off to canvass a distant relation,
Mr. Matthew Blake, who might possibly be approachable by a younger
branch of the family, with whom he had never any collision.

I arrived at his house while the company were breakfasting. After the
usual shaking of hands and hearty greetings were over, I was introduced
to Sir George Dashwood, a tall and singularly handsome man of about
fifty, and his daughter, Lucy Dashwood.

If the sweetest blue eyes that ever beamed beneath a forehead of snowy
whiteness, over which dark brown and waving hair fell, less in curls
than masses of locky richness, could only have known what wild work they
were making of my poor heart, Miss Dashwood, I trust, would have looked
at her teacup or her muffin rather than at me, as she actually did, on
that fatal morning.