Cahir, the country assumed a more cultivated and cheerful look,--patches of corn or of meadow-land stretched on either side, and the voice of children and the lowing of oxen mingled with the cawing of the rooks, as in dense clouds they followed the ploughman’s track. The changed features of the prospect resembled the alternate phases of temperament of the dweller on the soil,--the gloomy determination; the smiling carelessness; the dark spirit of boding; the reckless jollity; the almost savage ferocity of purpose, followed by a child-like docility and a womanly softness; the grave, the gay, the resolute, the fickle; the firm, the yielding, the unsparing, and the tender-hearted,--blending their contrarieties into one nature, of whose capabilities one cannot predicate the bounds, but to whom, by some luckless fatality of fortune, the great rewards of life have been generally withheld until one begins to feel that the curse of Swift was less the sarcasm wrung from indignant failures than the cold and stern prophecy of the moralist. But how have I fallen into this strain! Let me rather turn my eyes forward towards my home. How shall I find all there? Have his altered fortunes damped the warm ardor of my poor uncle’s heart? Is his smile sicklied over by sorrow; or shall I hear his merry laugh and his cheerful voice as in days of yore? How I longed to take my place beside that hearth, and in the same oak-chair where I have sat telling the bold adventures of a fox-chase or some long day upon the moors, speak of the scenes of my campaigning life, and make known to him those gallant fellows by whose side I have charged in battle, or sat in the bivouac! How will he glory in the soldier-like spirit and daring energy of Fred Power! How will he chuckle over the blundering earnestness and Irish warmth of O’Shaughnessy! How will he laugh at the quaint stories and quainter jests of Maurice Quill! And how often will he wish once more to be young in hand as in heart to mingle with such gay fellows, with no other care, no other sorrow, to depress him, save the passing fortune of a soldier’s life! CHAPTER XLII. THE RETURN. A rude shock awoke me as I lay asleep in the corner of the chaise; a shout followed, and the next moment the door was torn open, and I heard the postilion’s voice crying to me:-- “Spring out! Jump out quickly, sir!”