and but little assisted by cultivation or improvement. A belt of
bald-looking firs ran round the demesne inside the dilapidated wall;
but this was hardly sufficient to relieve the barren aspect of the
locality. Fine trees there were none, and the race of O'Kellys had
never been great gardeners.

Captain O'Kelly was a man of more practical sense, or of better
education, than most of his family, and he did do a good deal to
humanise the place. He planted, tilled, manured, and improved; he
imported rose-trees and strawberry-plants, and civilised Kelly's Court
a little. But his reign was not long. He died about five years after he
had begun his career as a country gentleman, leaving a widow and two
daughters in Ireland; a son at school at Eton; and an expensive
lawsuit, with numerous ramifications, all unsettled.

Francis, the son, went to Eton and Oxford, was presented at Court by
his grandfather, and came hack to Ireland at twenty-two, to idle away
his time till the old lord should die. Till this occurred, he could
neither call himself the master of the place, nor touch the rents. In
the meantime, the lawsuits were dropped, both parties having seriously
injured their resources, without either of them obtaining any benefit.
Barry Lynch was recalled from his English education, where he had not
shown off to any great credit; and both he and his father were obliged
to sit down prepared to make the best show they could on eight hundred
pounds a-year, and to wage an underhand internecine war with the
O'Kellys.

Simeon and his son, however, did not live altogether alone. Anastasia
Lynch was Barry's sister, and older than him by about ten years. Their
mother had been a Roman Catholic, whereas Sim was a Protestant; and, in