THE O'NEILES;

OR,

SECOND SIGHT.

BY

ALISON GARD.

OTHER

London:

PROVOST & CO., 36, HENRIETTA STREET,

COVENT GARDEN.

1870.

250. C. 423.

UNWIN BROTHERS, PRINTERS, BUCKLERSBURY, LONDON.

THE O'NEILES.

CHAPTER I.

"Weep on, weep on your hour is past;
Your dreams of pride are o'er;
The fatal chain is round you cast,
And you are men no more.

Weep on-perhaps in after days,
They'll learn to love your name;
When many a deed may wake in praise
That long hath slept in blame.

And when they tread the ruin'd isle,
Where rest, at length, the lord and slave,
They'll wondering ask, how hands so vile
Could conquer hearts so brave?"

MOORE.

In the early part of the present century, in the west of Ireland (not far from the mouth of the Shannon, which, after traversing one province, divides another on its way to the Atlantic, into which it precipitates itself), lived the last branch of an ancient Irish family of the name of O'Neile.

Upon the broad lands which formerly extended for many miles, but which at the time we write were reduced to as many acres, stood O'Neile Court, partly in ruins, and with little to admire in its structure beyond the time-stained grey walls, revealing in their decaying outlines a style of architecture, common enough in the remote century to which it had belonged, but rare at the time of which we are writing. It was one of the

B