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Besides the disagreeable ideas generally connected with the word wife, I had some peculiar reasons for my aversion to my Lady Glenthorn. Before her friends would suffer me to take possession of her fortune, they required from me a solemn oath against gambling: so I was compelled to abjure the hazard-table and the turf, the only two objects in life that could keep me awake.
Soon after my return to Glenthorn Castle, I received a letter of warm thanks from Devereux, and a polite postscript from Lady Geraldine, declaring that, though she felt much pleasure, she could feel no surprise in seeing her opinion of Lord Glenthorn justified; persuaded, as she and Mr.
They assured me, that Lord Glenthorn must have such and such things, and must do so and so; and I quietly submitted to this imaginary necessity. All this time I was the envy of my acquaintance; but I was more deserving of their compassion. Without anxiety or exertion, I possessed every thing they wanted; but then I had no motive I had nothing to desire.
My poor foster-brother, the best-natured and most generous fellow in the world, had not sufficient prudence or strength of mind to conduct his own family; his wife filled the castle with tribes of her vagabond relations; she chose to be descended from one of the kings of Ireland; and whoever would acknowledge her high descent, and whoever would claim relationship with her, were sure to have their claims allowed, and were welcome to live in all the barbaric magnificence of Glenthorn Castle.
After reading this note, I thought not of pursuing or saving Lady Glenthorn. I was as anxious for a divorce as she could be. Some months afterwards the affair was brought to a public trial. When the cause came on, so many circumstances were brought in mitigation of damages, to prove my utter carelessness respecting my wife's conduct, that a suspicion of collusion arose.
I cannot say that I was satisfied; but my mind was distended by the sense of the magnitude of my possessions. I had large estates in England; and in one of the remote maritime counties of Ireland, I was lord over an immense territory, annexed to the ancient castle of Glenthorn; a noble pile of antiquity! worth ten degenerate castles of modern days.
They walked on beside my carriage, Christy at their head; and in this species of triumph, melancholy indeed, but grateful to my heart, I quitted Glenthorn Castle, passed through that park which was no longer mine, and at the verge of the county shook hands for the last time with these affectionate and generous people.
One of the lawyers, whom I had seen, or by whom I had been seen, in my former inert state of existence, at some watering-place in England, could not refrain from expressing his astonishment at my change of character; he could scarcely believe that I was the same Lord Glenthorn, of whose indolence and ennui he had formerly heard and seen so much.
My mind being now perfectly satisfied of the truth of Ellinor's story, I was next to consider how I ought to act. To be or not to be Lord Glenthorn, or, in other words, to be or not to be a villain, was now the question.
"I hope," continued I, "that you will be as happy when you are Earl of Glenthorn, as you have been as Christy O'Donoghoe." "May be not, plase your honour; but I trust my childer will be happy after me; and it's them and my wife I'm thinking of, as in duty bound.
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