THE DEAD HEAT 117 



twenty minutes brought him to the gate, or what 



should have been the gate, of Clough-bally-More 



Castle, but it was gone. Cantering up the neglected 



wilderness-like avenue, he was soon in front of a 



ruinous-looking pile. This was Clough-bally-More 



Castle — a place best described by a quotation 



from Hood's beautiful poem of " The Haunted 



House " — 



" (Jiihinged the iron gates half open hung, 



Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many winters, 

 That from its crumbled pedestal had flung 

 One marble globe in splinters. 



^ -x- -x- -x- * 



" With sliatter'd panes the grassy court was starr'd ; 

 The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after ; 

 And through the ragged roof the sky shone, barr'd 

 AVith naked beam and rafter." 



Getting off his horse and walking up the broken, 

 moss-covered steps, the Colonel rang the bell, which 

 gave forth a melancholy sound that scared a colony 

 of jackdaws who had established themselves un- 

 molested for many a year in the chimneys and 

 uninhabited rooms. 



On the second summons a shock head was 

 cautiously poked out of an upper window. " Sure 

 now, it's no use at all, at all, av yer ringing away 

 like that : the master's gone abroad these six 

 months ; he told me to say so last night. Divil a 

 I I 



