hero,
for the story does not admit of one. But if there were to be a hero,
Herbert Fitzgerald would be the man.

Sir Thomas Fitzgerald at this period was an old man in appearance,
though by no means an old man in years, being hardly more than fifty.
Why he should have withered away as it were into premature grayness,
and loss of the muscle and energy of life, none knew; unless, indeed,
his wife did know. But so it was. He had, one may say, all that a
kind fortune could give him. He had a wife who was devoted to him; he
had a son on whom he doted, and of whom all men said all good things;
he had two sweet, happy daughters; he had a pleasant house, a fine
estate, position and rank in the world. Had it so pleased him, he
might have sat in Parliament without any of the trouble, and with
very little of the expense, which usually attends aspirants for that
honour. And, as it was, he might hope to see his son in Parliament
within a year or two. For among other possessions of the Fitzgerald
family was the land on which stands the borough of Kilcommon, a
borough to which the old Reform Bill was merciful, as it was to so
many others in the south of Ireland.

Why, then, should Sir Thomas Fitzgerald be a silent, melancholy man,
confining himself for the last year or two almost entirely to his own
study; giving up to his steward the care even of his own demesne and
farm; never going to the houses of his friends, and rarely welcoming
them to his; rarely as it was, and never as it would have been, had
he been always allowed to have his own way?

People in the surrounding neighbourhood had begun to say that Sir
Thomas's sorrow had sprung from shortness of cash, and that money was
not so easily to be had at Castle Richmond now-a-days as was the case
some ten years since. If this were so, the dearth of that very useful
article could not have in any degree arisen from extravagance. It
was well known that Sir Thomas's estate was large, being of a value,
according to that public and well-authenticated rent-roll which the
neighbours of a rich man always carry in their heads, amounting to
twelve or fourteen thousand a year. Now Sir Thomas had come into the
unencumbered possession of this at an early age, and had never been
extravagant himself or in his family. His estates were strictly
entailed, and therefore, as he had only a life interest in them,
it of course was necessary that he should save money and insure
his life, to make provisi