And on the outside of the building matters are not much better.

There are no gardens close up to the house, no flower-beds in the nooks and corners, no sweet shrubs peeping in at the square windows.

Gardens there are, but they are away, half a mile off; and the great hall door opens out upon a flat, bleak park, with hardly a scrap around it which courtesy can call a lawn.
Here, at this period of ours, lived Clara, Countess of Desmond, widow of Patrick, once Earl of Desmond, and father of Patrick, now Earl of Desmond.

These Desmonds had once been mighty men in their country, ruling the people around them as serfs, and ruling them with hot iron rods.

But those days were now long gone, and tradition told little of them that was true.