; while of the great house
itself,--an object with few pretensions to architectural elegance,--only
so much was visible as indicated its size and extent. The little
cottage of Tubber-beg, however, could be seen entire, glittering in the
morning's sun like a gem, its bright-leaved hollies and dark laurels
forming a little grove of foliage in the midst of winter's barrenness.

If this was by far the most striking object of the picture, it was not
that which attracted most of Linton's attention. On the contrary, his
eye ranged more willingly over the wide woods which stretched for miles
along the river's side, and rose and fell in many a gentle undulation
inland. A commonplace observer, had such been there to mark him, would
have pronounced him one passionately devoted to scenery,--a man who
loved to watch the passing cloud-shadows of a landscape, enjoying with
all a painter's delight the varying tints, the graceful lines, the
sharp-thrown shadows, and the brilliant lights of a woodland picture; a
deeper physiognomist would, however, have seen that the stern stare
and the compressed lip, the intense preoccupation which every feature
exhibited, did not denote a mind bent upon such themes.

"Tom Linton, of Tubbermore," said he, at length,--and it seemed as if
uttering the words gave relief to his overburdened faculties, for
his face relaxed, and his habitual easy smile returned to his
mouth,--"Linton, of Tubbermore; it sounds well, too." And then the
great game! that game for which I have pined so long and wished so
ardently,--which I have stood by and seen others play and lose, where
I could have won,--ay, won rank, honor, station, and fame. The heaviest
curse that lies on men like me is to watch those who rise to eminence in
the world, and know their utter shallowness and incapacity. There will
soon be an end to that now.

"Stand by, gentlemen; make way, my Lords Charles and Harry; it is Tom
Linton's turn--not Linton the 'adventurer,' as you were gracious enough
to call him--not the bear-leader of a marquis, or the hanger-on of his
grace the duke, but your equal in rank and fortune--more than your equal
in other things; the man who knows you all thoroughly, not fancying
your deficiencies and speculating on your shortcomings, as your vulgar
adversaries, your men of cotton constituencies, are wont to do, but the
man who has seen you in your club and your drawing-room, who has eaten,
drunk, betted, played, and lived with yo