A Bird of Passage by B.M. Croker — Read

"We have seen better days."

LARRY and Finnigan's mare were not long in dwindling into a little speck in the distance; and when they had completely vanished Helen set out to walk to Cara Cross, the goal of the post-car races. Once there she had no difficulty in discovering the road to the left; and a quarter of a mile brought two massive pillars into view, each surmounted by a battered, wingless griffin. But there were no gates-unless a stone wall and a gate were synonymous terms in Ireland. Three feet of solid masonry completely barred the former entrance, and said "no admittance" in the plainest language. Helen leant her elbows on the coping-stones and gazed in amazement at the scene before her. She saw a grassy track that had once been an avenue lined by a dense thicket of straggling, neglected shrubs. To her right and left stood the roofless shells of two gate lodges. On the step of one of them she descried her bag; and only for this undeniable clue she would certainly have walked on and sought the entrance to Crowmore elsewhere. Being (as Larry had not failed to remark) an active, "souple" young lady, she lost no time in getting over the wall and rejoining her property. As she picked it up, she cast a somewhat timid glance into the interior of the ruin and beheld a most dismal, melancholy-looking kitchen, with the remains of ashes on the hearth; the roof and rugged rafters partly open to the skies; hideous green stains disfiguring the walls, and the floor carpeted with nettles and dockleaves. A bat came flickering out of an inner chamber, which warned her that time was advancing and she was _not_. So she hurriedly turned about and pursued the grass-grown avenue, which presently became almost lost in the wide, surrounding pasture. At first it ascended a gentle incline, over which numbers of sheep were scattered; some, who were reposing in her very track, rose reluctantly, and stared stolidly as she approached. On the top of the hill she came upon a full view of the Castle, and was filled with a sense of injury and disappointment at having been deceived by such a high-sounding title. Certainly there _was_ a kind of square, old keep, out of whose ivy-covered walls half-a-dozen large modern windows stared with unabashed effrontery. But a great, vulgar, yellow house, with long ears of chimneys, and a mean little porch, had evidently married the venerable pile, and impudently appropriated its name. "Yes," murmured Helen to herself, as she descended the hill, "uncle showed his sense in calling it simply 'Crowmore;' a far more suitable name, judging by the rookeries in the trees behind it and the flocks of crows-more crows-who are returning home."