>A#^ffifiifVlt-gfi1iaiffmifitt^iiifnf 
 
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 KNOX STREET, BALLINA. 
 
/^C> ^ <_ y^<JW^*e/Ct^ J^C-t-Y^^^^^en^. 
 
^"^n ^Bdnirn 
 
 THE 
 
 BIT 0' WRITIN". 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT AND 
 
 HIS DOUBLE. 
 THE FAMILY OF THE COLD FEET. 
 THE HARE-HOUND AND THE WITCH. 
 THE soldier's BILLET. 
 A PEASANT girl's LOVE. 
 THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 THE HALF BROTHERS. 
 TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 
 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT, 
 
 THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 
 ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 
 THE CHURCH-YARD WATCH. 
 THE LAST OF THE STORM. 
 THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 THE publican's DREAM. 
 THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 BY THE O'HAEA FAMILY. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, 
 
 "WITH INa?K,Or»TJOTION AND NOTES, 
 
 BY MICHAEL BANIM, ESQ., 
 
 THE SUEVIVOR OF THB "O'HAUA FAMILY." 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 JAMES DUFFY, 15, WELLINGTON-QUAY; 
 
 AND 
 
 LONDON ; 22, PATERNOSTER ROW, 
 
 1865. 
 
DUBLIN: PRINTED BY PATTISON JOLLY, 
 22, ESSEX-STREET, WEST. 
 
fir- 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Bit o* Writin' - - - - - 1 
 
 The Irish Lord Lieutenant and his Double - 75 
 
 The Family of the Cold Feet - - . 97 
 
 The Hare-hound and the Witch - - - 119 
 
 The Soldier's Billet « . - - 143 
 
 A Peasant Girl's Love - - - , I49 
 
 The Hall of the Castle - . , . I57 
 
 The Half-Brothers - - * • • I75 
 
 Twice Lost, but Saved - - - - 189 
 
 The Faithful Servant - - . . 207 
 
 The Roman Merchant * . . . 217 
 
 III Got, III Gone ----- 232 
 
 The Church-yard Watch - - - . 247 
 
 The Last of the Storm • . « . 259 
 
 The Rival Dreamers - - - ^ 277 
 
 The Substitute - . - . ^ 295 
 
 The White Bristol - * - - . 313 
 
 The Stolen Sheep - . - - . 321 
 
 The Publican's Dream - - - . 343 
 
 The Ace of Clubs - - - - . 355 
 
 [ . 044 
 
INTRODUCTION TO "THE BIT 0' WRITIF." 
 
 " The Bit o' Writia' " originated with me, and was sent to my 
 brother to Paris with " The Mayor of Wind-gap." It was intended 
 by me to be published along with that story. Subsequent to 
 John Banim's return home, and previous to his death, it was sent 
 before the public, in conjunction with the collection of short tales 
 that follow it. 
 
 All of the short tales had appeared, from time to time, in the 
 " Annuals" of the period, which periodicals, it will be remem- 
 bered, were the favourites of the day. Highly embellished volumes 
 they were, as to illustration, type, paper, and binding — suiting 
 them for the drawing-room table. 
 
 These re- publications from the " Annuals" were all written by 
 my brother, with one exception — " The Hare-hound and the 
 Witch," which is mine. 
 
 When transmitting " The Bit o' Writin' " to my co-partner, 
 Barnes O'Hara, I copied accurately, in its proper place, the ori- 
 ginal " Memorandle o' Sarvice," assumed to have been written by 
 Marty Meehan, at the dictation of " the ould Admiral," with the 
 intention of having it inserted as it came to my hands. The 
 printers were, however, provided with no font of type from which 
 a facsimile could be produced, so that ray copy of the original 
 went for nothing. 
 
 " The Memorandle o' Sarvice" was given to me, as a curiosity 
 in penmanship, by Garret Byrne, the " public writer," whose per- 
 son and occupation are slightly sketched in the tale, and with 
 whom I was on terms of intimacy for my own purposes. "The 
 ould Admiral" was a crony of mine too. In my angling excur- 
 sions I often met with him, and as often listened to his marvellous 
 adventures, with apparent interest and assumed credence. Nearly 
 all his yarns were, however, like the fiction about his nose — out 
 of the range of probability. 
 
 As the incidents of the tales forming the present volume do not 
 afford opportunity for annotation to any extent, I will, with the 
 
iv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reader's permission, insert here the few words of reference I think 
 it necessary to make. 
 
 Garret Byrne is, as I have said, a very slight sketch of an ori- 
 ginal character, who followed the profession of " public writer" in 
 Kilkenny shortly before " The Bit o* Writin* " was put together. 
 He occupied a miserable room in one of the lanes branching off 
 from the main, or " High-street" of our city, over the entrance 
 door to which was a sign-board, black letters on a white ground, 
 announcing— 
 
 " Garret Byrne, Public Writer." 
 
 When Garret Byrne was the " public Avriter" of Kilkenny few 
 and far between were the occasions for his services. It is safe to 
 say, comparing his day with the present, that the writing of letters 
 is now four hundred fold ; so that, even elevated above the illite- 
 rate as Garret Byrne may have been, his profession produced him 
 only meagre fare, evidenced by his shrivelled body, covered with 
 scanty make-out attire. 
 
 Kilkenny is not without its " public writer" at the present day, 
 and our existing scribe is seldom unemployed. Terry Walshe is 
 now the " public writer," and, like the " wine that needs no bush,*' 
 he has no necessity to designate his residence by a sign-board. 
 Terry Walshe is of repute in his calling, and his " ready pen" is 
 seldom idle. His appearance at the post-office, with two or 
 more of his employers under his guidance, is of constant recur- 
 rence. He professes to know as much about the postal arrange- 
 ments as does the guiding Secretary himself. To the exact second of 
 arrival and dispatch of all mails, whether inland or foreign, he is 
 able to give incontrovertible information to his customers ; and 
 when he calls out at the post-office window for " a shillingy stamp 
 for America," or " a sixpenny stamp for Australia," or '' tenpenny 
 stamps for the overland mail," he does so with an air of decision 
 and authority sufficient to convince his wondering and admiring 
 clients that he knows his business, and can not only transfer all 
 they have to say to paper, but send the letters, when written, as 
 directly to the mark as a crow flies, notwithstanding all the chi- 
 canery of the post-office folk. Terry Walshe is constantly at 
 work ; but I apprehend that the fee in kind, ''the glass of sperrits," 
 he receives for the stamping and posting of his productions, and 
 which is distinct from his charge as an amanuensis, by imparting 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 an alcoholic longing to his palate, induces him to liquify the shil- 
 lings he receives for his penmanship. 
 
 A little dell, named ^' Lacken-na-monn," or the Woman's Hill, is 
 at Lavistown, two miles from Kilkenny. The spot was pointed out 
 to me, as the scene of the tragedy made use of in " The Bit o' 
 WritinV where a girl, wiled away from her home by a stranger, 
 was murdered by her seducer, that he might appropriate to his ex- 
 clusive use the money he had induced her to steal from her father's 
 chest. 
 
 THE HARE-HOUND AND THE WITCH. 
 
 TiiQ fact of a witch of the olden time having been hunted, after 
 having assumed the form of a hare, was related to me as a verity. 
 All doubts I might have as to the reality of the event were assumed 
 by the narrator to be removed by the circumstantial detail, that 
 a mouthful of flesh had been bitten by the foremost dog from the 
 haunch of the counterfeit hare — which mouthful of flesh was found, 
 as all the world of the time and place could testify, to have been 
 torn from the witch — her person having been examined before she 
 had had time to exercise her healing art on herself. 
 
 The witch, I was told, had taken the shape of a hare, with the 
 impish design of precipitating down the cliff above her cavern three 
 of her most troublesome persecutors. And I was furthermore in- 
 formed, that her speed as a hare was not to be wondered at, inas- 
 much as witches, although shaky and decrepid while in human 
 shape, and obliged to bestride anointed broomsticks for expeditious 
 travelling, become endowed to the utmost perfection with the quali- 
 ties of the animals they represent while in a state of metamorphose. 
 
 THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 
 
 The tale of " The Roman Merchant" has an actual occurrence for 
 its foundation. 
 
 A foreigner, a dealer in different outlandish commodities, and 
 
vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 supposed to be wealthy, was murdered in Kilkenny many years 
 ago. He resided in a small house in the street leading to the 
 Cathedral, known as Dean-street. It was customary with *' the 
 Roman Merchant" to shut up his dwelling, and be absent for weeks 
 together, travelling, it was supposed, either to vend his wares, or 
 to replenish his stock. Whether the imputed reason for his fre- 
 quent disappearance were accurate or not was matter of surmise 
 only. He lived entirely to himself, holding little or no communi- 
 cation with his neighbours, and altogether there was a mystery 
 about him that was a source of curiosity, and interest, and con- 
 jecture to those amongst whom he had settled. 
 
 When his little shop was found closed one morning, and that 
 days passed by without his re- appearance, the occurrence created 
 only the usual observations, and there was no suspicion of foul play. 
 
 That he had been murdered was discovered, however, by acci- 
 dent. A remarkable circumstance, leading to the discovery, was 
 not known to my brother when he wrote the tale, which, had he 
 been acquainted with, he would, no doubt, have used to heighten 
 the interest of the chance revelation. 
 
 The church-yard surrounding the old Cathedral of Ossory is now 
 very befittingly surrounded by a high wall, and access to the bury- 
 ing-ground can be gained only through secure gates, which are 
 kept locked, except during the hoars of church service, or when 
 an interment is to take place, or when visitors apply for admission. 
 At the time when " The Roman Merchant" dwelt in Dean-street, 
 there was a pathway through the church-yard, across the graves, 
 giving a short passage from one portion of the town to another, 
 and there were stiles for public convenience. 
 
 Of a certain night, when the moon was at the full, there was a 
 total eclipse of our satellite, and the people of the neighbourhood 
 assembled on a high bank, or terrace, which may yet be ascended, 
 in the cathedral cemetery, and which looks north-east. This was 
 a favourable spot whence to view the phenomenon of the night. 
 
 Few, if any, of the observers were astronomers, and the inky 
 shadow that for a time covered the silver surface of the moon ex- 
 cited superstitious forebodings, of various hue and conjecture. 
 Amongst the more serious and reflective of the lookers on was a 
 group of urchins, who, when their favourite re-appeared in splen- 
 dour, sung out the rhyme they had often before chaunted — 
 
 ** I see the moon, and the moon sees me — 
 God bless the moon, and God bless me ;" 
 
 and, with shouts of gladness and recognition, they scampered down 
 
INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 the terrace and iii amongst the graves, singing another of their 
 "boyish refrains — 
 
 ** Boys and girls, come out to play — 
 The moon she shines as bright as day ; 
 Up with the kettle and down with the pan, 
 Come into the moonshine, boy, girl, and man ;** 
 
 their glee at the restoration of the planet causing them to forget 
 altogether that they gamboled over the dead. One of the 
 shouters stumbled and fell, and his scream of terror brought his 
 companions around him. There, fully in the now unclouded moon- 
 light, the affrighted boy lay prostrate, while a hand and arm pro- 
 truded upwards from a grave, and as the child, in his terror, ima- 
 gined, about to descend and strike him, because he had disturbed 
 the rest of the dead, and who, as his fellows receded from the spot, 
 horror-stricken, lay where he had fallen, unable to rise, and ex- 
 pecting the ghostly hand to smite him if he attempted to move. 
 
 The hand and arm which the boy regarded with such terror was 
 that of the " Roman Merchant ;" and thus was it ascertained that 
 he was not away on one of his usual excursions, but that he had 
 been murdered. His body had been hastily interred in a very 
 shallow grave, without a coffin, and in his usual attire ; and one 
 of his arms, that had been kept down by stones and earth, being 
 freed from the pressure by the boy's fall, suddenly regained the 
 extended position, in which the muscles had stiffened while, as it 
 was conjectured, he had endeavoured to keep off his assailant. 
 
 The people did not fail to connect the shadowing of the moon 
 with the " Eoman Merchant's" fate. The murderer was never 
 discovered. At that day, much detective vigilance was not exer- 
 cised, and the murderer was unpunished. 
 
 I had my account of the circumstance here related from an old 
 man, himself the identical boy who had looked up in the moonlight 
 at the threatening hand above him. 
 
 Shortly after the publication of '* The Roman Merchant," a dis- 
 covery, referring to the story, was made in the burying-ground 
 where the body had been accidentally found. 
 
 A young medical practitioner, who had a penchant for antiqua- 
 rian research, went through the church-yard of St. Canice, to 
 enjoy his leisure, examining the inscriptions Qver the occupants of 
 the graves. Close by the porch of the old cathedral he found a 
 very lowly head-stone, almost entirely hidSen by the long grass 
 and rank weeds, that finri v^orous nurture from the decay they 
 spring from* 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The inscription on this little humble tablet had been rendered 
 ambiguous by the ol literating hand of time, and further doubtful 
 by the rust-coloured moss that will fill up the cavities of mortuary 
 relics. After much assiduity and laudable perseverance, the ex- 
 plorer succeeded in deciphering the partly illegible memento. It 
 ran thus : — 
 
 *' Here lyes ye body of Mr. Timothii Carroli Glazi, who departed this 
 life iune ye 29, 1728. 
 II.LP." 
 
 The reader was repaid for his labour. Here was the grave of 
 " The Roman Merchant" of Banim's tale. Here the murdered 
 man had received Christian burial after exhumation from his first 
 hurried concealment. 
 
 The discoverer eagerly sought out a fellow- antiquarian — a me- 
 dical gentleman also. A learned man he was ; grave and astute, 
 as it became him to be, and of great expertness and acuteness in 
 legendary lore. 
 
 The young and the elderly reveal ers, as they knelt together for 
 the purpose of bringing themselves on a level with the little slab 
 they studied, felt certain that their knees rested on the grave of^ — 
 
 " Timothii Carroli Glazi',* 
 ** The Eoman Merchant." 
 
 A certain clergyman, who, I daresay, recollects the denouement, 
 was passing into the cathedral just as the two friends had com- 
 pared notes, and satisfied each other. He was hurried over, that 
 he might, with them, enjoy the perusal, letter by letter, of the 
 memorial they had brought to light. 
 
 The new comer, however, read the epitaph differently : he made 
 it out most convincingly to be — 
 
 " Here lyeth ye body of Mr. Timothy Carroll, Glazier, who departed 
 this hfe iune ye 29, 1728. 
 R.I.P." 
 
 So, then, the grave of " The Eoman Merchant" turned out to 
 be the last resting place of Timothy Carroll, the glazier. 
 
 The second I in Carroll had been mistaken for an z, and an 
 " 6r," for which there had not been continuous space on the little 
 slab, had been chiselled above ; and so " glazier" was read 
 ''Glazi." 
 
 This was a mortifying result for the two learned decipherers* 
 
THE BIT 0' \\RVm\ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On a fine morning in the month of May, Murty Meehan was oc- 
 cupied " threnchinghis little pee-aties." By the term " little" applied 
 to them, ]\Iurty did not by any means wish to convey the idea that 
 his growing staple crop was confined to a small space. In truth, 
 the sloping potato-ridges occupied a goodly portion of the hill-side 
 upon which they were planted. Nor did he convey any apprehen- 
 sion that they must prove of diminutive size, owing either to his 
 choice of seed, or to an unfavourable season, or to any other cause 
 which the unititiated can easily imagine. His " little pee-aties" 
 he, however, called them, signifying thereby, (and his neighbours 
 so understood the adjective,) first, that they were his — his own ; 
 second, that, even in embryo, he bore them a particular affection. 
 
 The French people would understand the term, in the double 
 sense mentioned, better than the English. But to a portion of the 
 rather unfigurative community, for whose edification we write, it 
 seems incumbent on us to explain why Murty Meehan applied to 
 his fine sprouting plot of potatoes the epithet " little." 
 
 By Murty's reasoning, then, they were little ; — yet almost every 
 thing to him. They were dear to Murty — dearly loved ; therefore 
 little. They had cost him, and were costing him, considerable trou- 
 ble ; and, until piled up at home, or in a pit in their own soil, to 
 protect them against the frost, would cost him a good deal more ; 
 therefore he owed them a paternal regard. Under providence, they 
 were to prove, for many a month after gaining maturity, the staple 
 dish of his family, himself, and his " slip of a pig ;" ay, for the 
 whole coming year, they were to stand him and his human depen- 
 dents in lieu of beef, mutton, lamb, veal, venison, and turtle : hence 
 they were his very, very '' little pee-aties."^ And just as "little," in 
 Murty's eyes, or according to his vocabulary, were his " little wife," 
 (a strapping, though a simple dame,) his " little daughter," (a 
 full-grown woman,) and his " little cow," and his " little horse," 
 
 B 
 
2 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 though neither animal shamed the standard proportions of its 
 species. 
 
 Using, therefore, the term in the fond sense infused into it bj 
 Murty Meehan, we repeat, that on a fine morning in May he was 
 employed "threnching his little pee-aties." Which consisted in 
 digging between the potato-ridges, in the interstices which separated 
 them, and throwing the fresh earth among the growing plants. 
 
 His position, as has been intimated, was on a hill-side. This hill- 
 side sloped down to the banks of a little rivulet, covered with the 
 freshest green grass, among which grew a profusion of wild flowers, 
 and Murty's cabin stood within view and sound of the rippling 
 water. Across the stream the ground again rose high, and was 
 mostly wooded ; so that our friend resided in a solitary and pecu- 
 liarly beautiful little valley, owing to the curvings of which, on 
 both sides of the stream, and upward and downward with its arbi- 
 trary course, no other dwelling could be observed from his and our 
 point of view. A pleasing impression of seclusion without desola- 
 tion was therefore conveyed to the mind by the simple scene. Some- 
 thing of the same kind might have been its attractions to the un- 
 usual numbers of small singing birds which frequented it — to the 
 linnet, the chaffinch, the robin, the thrush, the blackbird. To all 
 birds, in fact, not omitting even the chirping, flirting wren, who 
 were made by Providence to pipe or twitter a single note of joy or 
 of contentment. 
 
 So Murty Meehan's " little cabin" is situated amid features of 
 much natural beauty, aided and heightened by cultivation. In this 
 case his favourite and generally- bestowed epithet came true in 
 every sense. " Little," indeed, M^as his mud edifice ; — so little, 
 that some surprise might be expressed as to how he managed to 
 get in or out of its doorway, or even to stand upright under its 
 straw roof — for Murty was a man of no common stature. Having 
 been his own architect, as w^ell as chief workman, one might, at all 
 events, safely assert that, in constructing it, he had not studiously 
 calculated either his natural height or his personal convenience. But 
 no matter. Such instances of disproportion between the miserable 
 houses of his countrymen, and even their own bones and muscles, 
 to say nothing of the bounty and loveliness of nature all around 
 them, Avere and are sufficiently numerous to remove from Murty's 
 architectural practices, according to his means, anything like a 
 charge of waywardness or singularity. 
 
 So Murty " threnched" away, the birds we have spoken of sing- 
 ing loudly to him ; he, as if by mere loudness he would make them 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 3 
 
 admit themselves over-matched in melody, bawling out, — in tones 
 to which the sweet little hollow rang again, — the song which has 
 the frequent chorus of 
 
 ** Cuishla-ma-chree, did you not see 
 What, the rogue, he done to me ? 
 Broke my pitcher, and spilt my wather, 
 Kissed my wife, and married my daughter ! 
 
 Cuishla-ma-chree ?'' 
 
 To observe Murty Meehan at his task, the looker-on might, with 
 some slight assistance from imagination, gain a tolerably accurate 
 notion of the lusty ease and dexterity with which Hercules must 
 have performed his labours : indeed, were our amateur a statuary, he 
 need not have searched fartherfor a model from which to chisel agod 
 of strength. In Murty's person were combined accurate symmetry 
 of parts with almost gigantic proportions ; he stood to the full height 
 of six feet four inches. His face, though not a very intellectual one, 
 was comely, honest, and w^ell-meaning. But, for reasons to be men- 
 tioned, we ought, perhaps, to limit to one or two days in the week, 
 all opportunity for deciding either on its character, or its claims to 
 be considered handsome or ugly. In fact, upon one day alone, out 
 of the seven, he got shaved ; this was on Sunday. The next, his 
 beard began to sprout again, and, even so soon, some change was 
 thereby induced over his physiognomy. By noon on the Tuesday 
 it, " the afther grass," (as he styled it.) gained a goodly growth, 
 Thenceforward, day by day, till shaving-day came round in course, 
 so disguised was his face by the great crop of black bristles sur- 
 rounding it, that it would be very difficult to decipher its cast, hue, 
 or general effect. Light blue eyes hinting good-nature, indeed, 
 continued visible with spots of wholesome red just under them, about 
 half a nose, and a forehead above it. And these were the only 
 glimpses of feature distinguishable amid the luxuriant " afther- 
 grass." 
 
 Notw^ithstanding all his natural qualifications, so far as person 
 went, for bullying his way through the world, and notwithstanding 
 also, the proverbial pugnacity of his countrymen of every stature. 
 Murty Meehan was a quiet, easy man, using his rare strength chiefly 
 for the right lawful purpose of executing, in full ratio with his supe- 
 rior capacity for the task, an extraordinary portion of field labour. 
 But if he otherwise made no display of himself, his neighbours boasted 
 of him. The district in which he resided w as called, far and near, 
 Murty Meehan's parish, as if the honour of having given birth to 
 him entitled it to that distinguishing appellation. AVe must explain. 
 
4 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 Although never known to have quarrelled with any human 
 being, and seldom proposing, himself, a trial of strength with a 
 neighbour, in a friendly way, Murty, without his knowledge, was 
 often staked by his admirers against all comers. Then, for the 
 honour of the parish, he would quietly submit to be led forth 
 against his ambitious challengers, and with invariable and im- 
 measurable success, he exhibited his hidden might in tossing a 
 stone, almost a rock, or in flinging a sledge-hammer, or in perfor- 
 ing, beyond chance of competition, any other of the various rustic 
 feats, in the doing of which massive force is the only qualification 
 for excellence. And on the occasions of his proceeding to the 
 place of trial, he might be seen surrounded by the young and the 
 old, the boys, the girls, and the aged men and women of his little 
 secluded valley and its vicinity, towering above them all, and — 
 without our meaning a threadbare pun — looking down on his escort 
 with all the simple good-nature of his character, and smiling on 
 their enthusiasm, just as any other assured great man might at 
 that of his humble adherents. 
 
 But we are not going to exhibit Murty Meehan in his most dis- 
 tinguished and famous light. Upon a matter widely different from 
 his prowess either in the labouring field or in the arena of manly 
 contention, it is our present duty to record the achievements of 
 this redoubtable personage ; readers may form their own notions 
 of the manner iu which he acquitted himself of the business in 
 hand. One thing is, however, certain, namely — that it proved to 
 honest Murty himself a task much more difficult than if he had 
 engaged to toss a metal weight of one hundred pounds over the 
 roof of his own house. 
 
 Before entering further into the affair, a few lines must be de- 
 voted to a sketch of the individual at whose instance, and for 
 whose advantage, he undertook this serious matter. 
 
 The man in question, for reasons yet to be given, generally 
 went by the name of " the ould Admiral." Standing at Murty 
 Meehan's side, he appeared to no advantage in point of stature ; 
 yet, pigmy he was not, unless a person of nearly six feet high de- 
 serves that epithet. His air, his mode of speech, and carriage were 
 bluff — bluff almost to a challenge to box with )0U. A cicatrized 
 gash, commencing under his left eye, traversing his nose, and termi- 
 nating at the right corner of his mouth, diagonally severed his face 
 into two tolerably equal portions, of which one-half of the nose 
 belonged, or seem to belong, to the upper, and the other half to 
 the lower portion of his physiognomy. This division of property, 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 5 
 
 of identify, indeed, rested, according to his own account, on grounds 
 other than that suggested merely bj the line of demarcation. 
 
 It occurred, he asserted, on " boord the'ould Saint Vincint," dur- 
 ing the American war ; and his story of the transaction, among all 
 the stories he told of his battles, victories, and dreadful escapes 
 from death — which were topics of standing wonder to his friend, 
 Murty Meehan, as well as the whole neighbourhood — was not the 
 least surprising. The crew of the Saint Vincent were in the act of 
 boarding an enemy's ship. Terence O'Brien — our hero's name — 
 figured away, of course, in the thick of the melee — a slash from 
 an opponent's hanger — " a curse-o'-Cromwul, French loober, he 
 was," — conferred the whole gash in question — into the channel of 
 which " he could run his five fingers," — and at the same time 
 "whipped away, clane an' clever, more than the biggest half of his 
 ruddher." Well — what of that ? it was not till the action ceased, 
 and the Frenchman had been made a prize of, and Terence about 
 to put in a rightful claim for some half-and-half grog, that he 
 ascertained his loss ; and " a thrifle grieved" he felt, to be sure, 
 w^hen he first brought to mind, at the moment, what an appear- 
 ance he must make in future, when 
 
 " Terry O'Brien, a-hoy ! would you know this, I say ?" sang out 
 to him his shipmate and fellow-countryman, Tom Ryan, holding 
 up to view what seemed to Terence indubitably the lopped portion 
 of his nose. He was in a great hurry, doubtless, at the time, and 
 did not take particular notice, but Tom Ryan assured him it was a 
 slice of his own features he beheld ; and so, to the cock-pit they 
 made their way together, with it, and the surgeon stitched it on, 
 as well as he could — and — 
 
 " May my ould hulk of a sowl never float aloft," continued 
 Terence, " if I do not tell the blessed thruth. It wasn't the rest 
 o' my own natural nose he fixed on, at all — and that cat-head pet, 
 Tom Ryan, knew the same from the beginin' — fmy heavy curse on 
 
 his tack, wherever he is !) — but a bit of a d d to-the-divvle 
 
 French loober's snout, that Tom picked off deck, from among 
 other odds and ends, af ther the scrimmage, an' that never belonged 
 to myself." And that was the reason why, to the present day, 
 the whole nose on his face, such as it was, never seemed of a 
 piece. " And no blame to the surgeon, by any manes — for may I 
 sink five fathoms deep, but he was as clever a hand as ever spliced 
 a timber ; didn't I see him, wid my own eyes, saw off the right 
 arm from my hulk, while I could shout out ' grog,' and no more 
 about it, only throw it for a tit- bit to the sharks ? An' — my ould 
 
6 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 bones to ould Davy — only he did get through the nose job so well, 
 but I'd haul down the parly's bit o' bad flesh agin, an' throw it 
 into the say, to pison the hungriest fish that ever swum,'' 
 
 There were some obvious collateral proofs of the truth of 
 Terence 0' Brien's biography of his nose, to which he did not fail 
 to allude. " He spoke through his nose," as the saying goes ; 
 " and didn't all the parblues do the same, like so many pigs o' the 
 divvle." Again — it was well known that from his < rndle up to 
 the day of the accident, he had boasted a long hook-backed nose — 
 but what was it like now ? the upper half of it, which had always 
 been on his face, might do well enough, to be sure, and, indeed, 
 gave promise of the beginning of such a conformation as that men- 
 tioned ; but only look at the lower half — the Frenchman's half of 
 it ! " cocked up towards his forehead, like the chaplain's eye, that 
 had a squint in it, towards the sky-rakers, when he sang out 
 prayers, of a Sunday." 
 
 During his term of sea- service, Terence O'Brien had uncon- 
 sciously contracted some characteristics, which rendered him a 
 puzzle|to his present neighbours, and, indeed, a contradiction to 
 himself — or, at least, to Terence O'Brien that then was, and 
 Terence O'Brien that used to be, once upon a time. For instance. 
 In his more youthful days, he had engaged in some one of those 
 many rustic combinations for which the Irish peasantry are cele- 
 brated, and which can best be accounted for by considering that 
 their wants make them discontented, and the injuries that often 
 produce those wants, reckless of all consequences, when their object 
 is vengeance on the nearest palpable aggressor. Terence and his 
 associates violated the law of the land ; rewards for their appre- 
 hension were offered ; some of them were discovered, tried, and 
 hanged; and he himself, to avoid the fate that seemed to await 
 him, absconded from his native place, " and never cried stop, nor 
 let the grass grow under his feet," till he had arrived in " Cork's 
 own town," distant about one hundred miles (Irish) from his 
 starting-post. There, scarce yet pausing to take breath, he entered 
 on board a man-of-war, as his most secure hiding-place ; and thus, 
 the wild Irishman, who, but a few hours before, had been denounced 
 as almost a traitor to the state, became one of its sworn defenders. 
 Ay, and in a very short time, if not at that very moment, one of 
 its most loyal and sincere defenders. This character grew upon 
 him, and in it fully confirmed, he returned home after a long 
 absence, in peaceful and oblivious times, much to the non-edifica- 
 tioQ of his stationary neighbours, as has been intimated. 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 7 
 
 Farther. As a White-boy, before going on his travels, Terence 
 had mortally hated England, England's king, and the very name 
 of everything English : in the same ratio, had loved England's 
 foes, of all denominations — the French, her " natural enemies," as 
 they have been somewhat strangely called, above all others. But 
 none of these youthful prejudices did Terence bring home with him. 
 " Long life, and a long reign to King George !" was now his shout, 
 while the hairs on'his head bristled in enmity against '' parly-woos;" 
 and j2:ood reason why, for both sentiments — sensations rather. 
 During half his amphibious existence, Terence's grog had been 
 sweetened by pouring it down his throat, among his ship-comrades, 
 with a grateful mention of the name of his Britannic majesty, and 
 Terence's only thoughts and efforts constantly directed towards the 
 discomfiture of the ill-wishers of that august personage. The loss of 
 his arm, and of half his nose, with the disgraceful substitution of 
 that half by the half^of a Frenchman's " snub," gave him personal 
 cau=e to detest the Gallic race. So that he might be said to loathe 
 the French to the marrow of his bones — yea, even of those portions 
 of his bones w^hich had been severed from his body, and cast to 
 the sharks. 
 
 Some other exotic peculiarities Terence also transplanted to his 
 native valley. His language seemed, among his old playfellows, 
 absolutely a new dialect — and so, indeed it, was. Grafted on his 
 ancient brogue, which had never quite slipt off his tongue, sea- 
 terms and sea-phrases, and, above all, sea-oaths and imprecations, 
 luxuriantly sprouted out : the former would make his auditors laugh 
 themselves into fits, while the latter astounded or shocked them. 
 We must, in truth, admit that, in the use of those unnatural profa- 
 nations of speech, Terence was indeed too lavish. With some one — 
 if not two — of them he always began a sentence, and thev served 
 him, rhetorically, as conjunctions, copulative and disjunctive, and 
 sometimes to point his periods. 
 
 His parish priest, a man of some humour, as well as of sincere 
 zeal in his vocation — and every parish priest of an Irish congrega- 
 tion, at least of a rustic one, ought to have a spice of humour in 
 him — was fond of listening to Terance O'Brien's accounts of his 
 battles, and other adventures. He it was who had laughingly 
 dubbed Terence " the ould admiral ;" though the title was unhesi- 
 tatingly and gravely accepted and retained, as well by the veteran, 
 as by most of his present friends and associates. But the good 
 priest felt it his duty to take Terence to task on the head of his 
 outlandish cursing, swearing, and imprecating. The sinner ac- 
 
8 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 knowledged his offences, and promised to give tliem up : yet, at the 
 very next encouter between him and his spiritual director, did he 
 salute the chaplain with a good merman oath, at the beginning, and 
 in the middle, and at the end of the well-meant greeting. 
 
 His clergyman, still in pursuance of his sense of duty, then pre- 
 vailed on Terence, after much salutary stratagem, to attend the con-, 
 fessional. Again the penitent was so far amenable, and did " at- 
 tend with the rest of the crew ;" principally because he under- 
 stood the '•' station of confession" to be a kind of " muster of all 
 hands on deck." But the zealous priest soon began to feel hope- 
 less of a real reformation in the nominal convert. Even while at his 
 clergyman's knee, Terence would confess his very transgressions 
 against piety of language with new and awful oaths in confirmation 
 of the truth of his self-accusations. And while acknowledging 
 other sins, of a different and perhaps a still more heinous character, 
 he would, as his energy arose with his vivid recollections, still 
 swear, through thick and thin, to his own great condemnation, so 
 that the priest was obliged to make a drawn battle of the matter. 
 The good man's conscience did not warrant him in permitting the 
 irreclaimed and irreclaimable Terence to approach the sacrament ; 
 and his feelings of comfort were much augmented by the declara- 
 tion, on Terence's part, that '' to his ould soul, if he w^ould 
 
 boord him any longer !" 
 
 He had been kept so long coming and going, he averred, " now 
 on this tack, now on that, an' still no say-room made, but all on the 
 same ' station,' — one time with the wind, the next moment breeze 
 right a-head — so that the ablest sayman in the sarvice could make 
 DO port, and have sich a steerage. His hulk to ould Davy ! but he 
 would hoist sail, an', for the rest o' the voyage, steer in the ould 
 thrack. Aye," — (another tremendous oath) — " if he didn't, might 
 ould ship never weather another gale !" So hoist sail he did, and 
 " scudded afore the wind, steering his ould hulk by the ould com- 
 pass, an' laving the rest o' the looberly crew to the looberly chap- 
 lain." That is, he continued to curse and swear away right and 
 left ; although, in other respects, Teren-je could not be called a veiy 
 wicked sinner. 
 
THE BIT O' WEITIN'. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Such was the man who now accosted Murty Meehan on tlie 
 potato- covered hill-side of their native glen. 
 
 So intent upon his work, as well as upon his marvellous song 
 of " Cuishla-ma-chree^'' had Murty been, that the deafening sound 
 of Terence's voice, very near to him, was the first intimation he 
 received of the presence of his esteemed neighbour. 
 
 " Ould ship a-hoy !" shouted the admiral, bellowing through his 
 truncated fist, by way of speaking-trumpet, almost into the 
 tympanum, as we have intimated, of Murty Meehan's ear. So 
 sudden, so proximate, and withal so tempestuous, that a man of 
 less tension of nerve than that possessed by our honest friend, 
 might, without much censure to his presence of mind, have lawfully 
 started and quaked at it. Murty only turned quietly round, how- 
 ever, pushed his old hat up from his eyes, and smiled good- 
 humouredly, as he answered the hail. 
 
 " Hah ! then, musha, God save you, Admiral." 
 
 "What cheer, lad, what cheer?" 
 
 " What cheer, a bouchal, is it ? English that to me, if there's 
 no offence." 
 
 " What cheer, I say, what cheer ?" 
 
 " Well, I must thry to English it, myself, I suppose. It's all as 
 one, Tm thinkin', as if a country spalpeen^ like myself, 'ud say — 
 ' How is your four bones, Murty ?' " 
 
 " All the same lingo, shipmate." 
 
 " Why, thin, I'm brave and harty. Admiral, as is asy to be 
 seen, by lookin' at me. I give thanks to you for axin." 
 
 '• A fair breeze in your sheets every day you turn up, my 
 hearty." 
 
 ''An', success purshu you, is what/ say, ould Admiral, aroon." 
 
 " I've steered a-head to your station, shipmate, to ax your sarvice 
 on a conthrary little matther, d'ye see me." 
 
 " Och, then, Admiral, isn't it yourself knows well I'd go a sthart 
 or two, any day, from my road, to do a turn for you. An' not mooch 
 noise I'd make about that same." 
 
 "An' for that rason, an' becase I knows it well, d'ye see me, 
 I'm now alongside o' you, my hearty. In the days when I was 
 nothin' but a bit of a loblolly boy " 
 
 " A loblolly boy ! an' what quare sort of a boy is that, Admiral ?" 
 
10 THE BIT WRITIJ^ . 
 
 *' A gorsoon, a gorsoon, as they used to call me here in Muck- 
 alee.'' 
 
 " Aye ; now I'm on your manin', I think. A gorsoon is a gor- 
 soon, in the counthry ; but whin he goes to say, it's a loblolly boy 
 they call him, Admiral ?" 
 
 " Ay, ay. Well, shipmate, whin I was a gorsoon at home, here, 
 d'ye know, the schoolmasther could'nt by no manes cut the larnin' 
 into my lanthron. Though it's often an' often he thried it, at the cat- 
 head, the old Muckalee loober !" 
 
 " At the cat's head ? Why, thin, that was a curious thing for 
 him to do. I never heered of a schoolmasther havin'that fashion 
 afore, Admiral, honey. Stop ; wait; och, but maybe I have you 
 now ; maybe it's wid the cafc's-tail he thried you ? You know the 
 breed o' cats that does the scratchin' at the loblolly boys at school, 
 Admiral ?" 
 
 " All much the same, jolly lad ; all much the same. Cat, head 
 or tail. Aye, many's the day he lent me the rope's end, as if 
 'twas the main-mast he was layin' it on — to ould Davy wid his 
 hulk, to scuttle it well, for the same!" (We have, during our 
 report of this conversation, sunk some of Terence's oaths and im- 
 precations, and it is our intention to do so in future.) Little doubt, 
 shipmate, but he is undher hatches long ago ; an' if ever I happen 
 to steer on that tack," continued Terence, getting animated, and 
 flourishing his one arm, as if it were giving a preparatory shake to 
 the rope's end, "if ever I steer on that tack, — an' when I gee him 
 lashed up, getting his own round dozens — as surely will be the 
 case — if I don't sing out, ' Lay on, ould Davy ! lay on, my jolly lad I 
 
 if I don't, Murty, may shiver my timbers to a parfact wreck, 
 
 Murty ! Aye, or maybe I'd take on to the work myself, ship- 
 mate, an' pay him back on his looberly stern -quarters, some 
 
 o' the ould score wid my own hand !" 
 
 " Bee the gonnies ! an' only right," grinned Murty through his 
 " afther-grass," highly amused with the time, place, and circum- 
 stances of the Admiral's threatened vengeance. 
 
 " A broadside to my sowl in glory, if I don't then ! But, Murty, 
 my hearty, as I was a sayin', I never could pick up as much o' 
 the larnin' as 'ud help me to box the littlest bit iv a compass that 
 ever swum : an' for that same rason I was only fit to do the work 
 of an able-bodied say man, all the blessed days of my say life, aboord 
 the ould ship, d'you see me. Howsomever, Murty, when the decks 
 were cleared for action, an' the guns roarin', and the saywather 
 was bilin' hot, you'd thiuk, round about 'em, I could stand by my 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 11 
 
 owiigiin, or jump aboord a — jabberin' French inimy, wid my pike 
 or my hanger in my hand, well enough. Ay, shipmate, I'd do that 
 for the honour an' glory of ould King George, an' ould Ireland, an' 
 Saint Patrick, into the bargain, as well as ever a Johnny-raw English- 
 man that ever reefed a sail, Marty! Them Enj>lisher3 is bould 
 enough, to be sure, but they're not fit to stand by the side of an 
 Irish sayman, for all that. The fightin', Murty, comes more naatril 
 to us : by land or by wather, it's all the same, the one as welcome 
 as the other." 
 
 *' Why, we're handy at it, somehow, I believe, beyond all doubt, 
 Admiral," 
 
 '- Why, again, Murty. As I tould you, twice over, I never 
 could come at the larnin', my jolly boy. But no matther now ; it's 
 all one, when the ould ship's a hulk. Only this, Murty Meehan. 
 I'm informed as how there's a power o' prize money sarvin' out to 
 the ould crew o' the ould Saint Vincint, or to as many o' them as is 
 over saywather, anyhow, wherever they he's to be found. An' I 
 come to you on the head of it, 'cause I hear, for sart'n sure, you're 
 a good scholard." 
 
 " Musha, I'm thankful to the neighbours for their good word, 
 Admiral," said Murty, blushing, if the occurrence could only have 
 been seen, through his crop of black beard and whiskers, at this 
 acknowledgment of his literary superiority. '' But, surely, you 
 could get as good a hand as ever I was among your own people, 
 avich. There's the born brether o' you, to say nothing of his son, 
 your own namesake " 
 
 "Avast now, shipmate !" interrupted Terence, gruffly andsten- 
 toiiously. ^'Hah! the ould reg'lar sayman isn't goin' to hoist 
 signal for smugglers and pirates to come aboord. The born brether 
 o' me ! No, no, nor that bit of a cockboat he has in tow, his son, 
 either. What ! when I cum back, only to give him a hail, afther 
 
 my last cruise, didn't the land-loober tell me to sheer off, 
 
 an' say I had no call to a berth in my own ould ship, now that the 
 ould commodore, the father of us, had slipped cable ? An, aint 
 I ever since here, in Muckalee station, scuddin' from port to port, 
 not able to ride at anchor among the whole sqnadhron o' ye ? An' 
 now, whin the sliinars is to be put into the locker, am I to sing 
 out to him to help me to keep the kay ? Or ax him for any help 
 at all that might let him into the sacret, or give him a right to 
 
 jaw for share ? No, no, I say again. to my ould timbers ! 
 
 if ever he sees a yallow boy o' mine. You're the man, Murty, an' 
 you only, that must turn out for this musther ; an' what 1 have to 
 
12 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 ax o' you is to write down wid your pen, what we used to call a 
 memorandle o' service." 
 
 " Why thin," replied Marty, '' that^s not so mooch to talk about, 
 that we'd say no to you, for a one ould Admiral. An' so, we'll 
 do it for you ;" and Murty " elevated his figure to its full height," 
 again silently triumphing in the testimony borne to his scholarship, 
 and at the distinguished light in which it placed him. 
 
 " Here, then, — yee-o-ho! heave away, ray hearty ! yee-ho !' 
 piped the Admiral, passing his single arm through one of Murty'ji, 
 and lugging him down the hill-side. And Murty, sticking his 
 shovel in the soil, allowed Terence O'Brien to hurry him still down- 
 ward, toward his cabin ; his features wearing a serious cast, and, 
 indeed, his whole mind bent upon the important task of clerkship 
 which he had undertaken. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 After nearly doubling himself in order to enter the door-way 
 of his dwelling, and when he had stood (almost) erect again, in 
 the middle of its clay floor, Murty addressed his wife. 
 
 " Chevaun, aroon, where's the poor gorsoon's bit of an ink- 
 hom, I wondher?" 
 
 "What cheer, vanithee, what cheer?" demanded the old 
 Admiral, in the same breath, as he kindly, tliough rather smartly, 
 slapped the good woman between the shoulders. 
 
 " Why, thin, brave an' hearty, Admiral honey," answered the 
 housewife Chevaim. Here's the ink-horn, Murty acuishla ; muslia, 
 my heavy hatred on it, for one ink-horn !" 
 
 *' An' why so, Chevaun ?" asked Marty. 
 
 " Why ! I'm as sart'n sure as that I spake the word, that 
 Paudeen put more o' the ink of it on the Sunday shanavast* than 
 he did on the copy-book, Murty." 
 
 " Bee gonnies ! an' likely enough sich a thing 'ud happen," 
 assented her husband. " I remember the first time I was put 
 upon my larnin' the pen-writing' myself, Admiral. Sure it's nothin' 
 ud sarve my turn, in thim days, but I must go an' scoop out amost 
 all the ink in the horn, an' put it all over my clothes, on every 
 * Waistcoat. 
 
• THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 13 
 
 spot w?iere it could be obsarved — Aye, an' my two fists iid liave 
 the colour of a blackmoor's paws. An', bee this pen in my hand ! 
 I done it for no rason in the world, only to let the neighbours see, 
 whin they'd meet me comin' home from the school, of an evenin' 
 or a mornin', that I was makin' use o' the pen, wid the masther 
 himself. 'Twas by way o' braggin' o' myself, afther a manner, 
 Admiral." 
 
 " Aha !" replied the Admiral, " well for you that you hadn't my 
 ould commodore, Fitzgibbon, to pipe you on deck, shipmate, on the 
 head o' that same ; the ould loober, with his ould three-decker of 
 a flax wig, that commanded over our crew whin I was at the 
 schoolin' ! Split my mainsail to tatthers ! if he would not have you 
 up to the cat-head for wastin' the ship's tar. Sink my hulk to ould 
 Davy, if he wouldn't !" 
 
 '' Arrah, then. Admiral, aroon," inquired Mrs. Meehan, " who's 
 that same ould Davy you're always sinkin' your hulk to, afther 
 sich an unnaatural fashion ? I'm tould it's your own self you call 
 bee the name of a hulk. Sure it's a quare name for a Christhen 
 to be puttin' on his body, that has a sowl to be saved, tied to it. 
 But who is this one ould Davy, I'd be thankful to know ?" 
 
 ^' Who is he ? blow us all up, sky-high, if I very well know my- 
 self, misthress." He paused to examine, with a knotted brow and 
 a gruff, puzzled face, a question which he had never before taken 
 into consideration. 
 
 '^ It's like enough, misthress, he's some kind of a Duoivl"* he . 
 resumed, after a pause ; " ay, ay ; he must be a Duowl, I'm thinkin'. 
 I hard 'em aboard, jawin' about his cloven foot, an' Duowls have 
 sich timbers. Yes, an' he hauls away at the parley-woos whin 
 they foundher in action* When we used to be givin' 'em a broad- 
 side, we had a fashion o' sayin', send the d d loobers to ould 
 
 Davy ! Ay, ay :" he paused again to recapitulate in his mind those 
 weighty reasons for investing with a certain character the personage 
 in question — the Jupiter or Pluto, as it might be, of his marine 
 mythology. Then Terence continued, " Ay, misthress, I b'lieve 
 he's all as one at say, as what ye call your Duowl, here on land ; 
 though this isn't quite clear to me, neither. Becase, d'ye see me, 
 ould Davy has his locker at the bottom o' the say, that's sert'n 
 sure ; an' your Duowl is undher hatches — down here, undber ground. 
 But they're close related — Aye, aye, the one is born-brother to the 
 other chap, no doubt of it. An' he bears a hand wid sailors, as 
 
 * Devil. 
 
14 THE BIT O' WRITLX'. 
 
 your Duoivl does uid your landsmen. AYid this differ, that he 
 takes all foundered so wis as belongs to him in the jolly-boat, or in 
 a barge, or in a pinnace, accordin' to the rank aboord. Yes, mis- 
 thress, he's our say-divvle, nothin' less — my hulk to ould Davy, 
 but he io !" 
 
 '• The Lord purtect us from him, and from all his sort, bee say 
 an' land, now an' for ever, amin !" ejaculated the attentive Chevaun 
 Meehan, crossing her forehead. 
 
 ** Bee the gonnies I" as Chevaun says, remarked her husband ; 
 " goodness save us from his two paws ! But, if a body got his 
 pick an' choose o' the both, I believe it would be betther, as tho 
 man said to his wife — (I mane neither myself nor you, Chevaun,) 
 it would be betther keep the Duowl we know, than the Duowl we 
 don't know. Admiral, honey. Though, wid good help, we won't be 
 throublesome to ather the one or the other o' them, plaise God." 
 
 '*Musha, an' gracious forbid, Murty, agra," piously assented 
 Chevaun. 
 
 " That's not my way o' thinkin' teetotally, shipmate," dissented 
 the Admiral, gruffly. *' For whinever I'm bound for the other world, 
 
 if 'tis a thing I must steer for any sich d d port of it, d'yd 
 
 see me " 
 
 '' Ye may call the port bee that name, sure enough, Admiral, an' 
 no sin on you for cursin', this time, anyhow," interrupted Murty. 
 
 " D d or no d d, shipmate," now bellowed Terence, 
 
 becoming vehement ; " ould Davy's jolly-boat for me, far beyant 
 any way o' goin' by land, undher your land-cZwozr/s' colours. Your 
 landsmen are all sharks, as I heered from my cradle up. And your 
 \2iXi^-duowls goes by the same fashion of course. So none o' the 
 
 d d horned loobers for my money, but ould Davy for ever — 
 
 hurrah !" 
 
 "Well, all the harum I wish you, poor ould Admiral, is, that you 
 may keep clear o' the ugly place — you know yourself where I mane — 
 by land or wather ; to go in a boat might be the most cooramucli^ 
 way, no doubt. Only, for our three selves, an' them we wish well 
 to, into the bargain, we'd rather not to be on the voyage, at all 
 at all." 
 
 " It's a bad sarvice, afther all, shipmate," half agreed Terence, 
 beginning to be cooled by his friend's moral reflections; "but hurrah! 
 an' ould able-bodied sayman that does his duty is never clapped 
 undher hatches, foundher as he may, or whenever or wherever he 
 may. No, he goes aloft, my hearty — 'tis as naat'ral for him as to 
 * Comfortable. 
 
THiE BIT AYRITIN . 15 
 
 ship his grog. An', barrin' odd Davy's press-gang claps me ahoord, 
 an' thin scuds off wid me, all canvass crowded, never will I take 
 on wid him or his crew. For, d'ye see me, Murty, when once a 
 man is nabbed by the press-gang, an' lugged 'boord ship, he must 
 stick to his gun, bee course, or be tried for mutiny in the sarvice. 
 So, if ould Davy 'lists me that way, I must stand before the mast, 
 and make the cruise ; but if ever I boord him by my own free will, 
 may I be d d for it, neighbour." 
 
 *• You needn't pray the prayer at all. Admiral," smiled the fa- 
 cetious Murty ; " but I wondher what sort of a pen for the WTitin' 
 is this," putting on a face of much business, approaching the door- 
 way, holding the pen between him and the light, and with much 
 knowing scrutiny examining it. Then he tried its nib on his nail. 
 
 " Looks if it had seen sarvice, remarked Terence ; " but all the 
 betther for that, may be, shipmate. A sayman is never the worse, 
 getting into fresh action, for havin' been in two or three scrimmages 
 
 afore." 
 
 " Sarvice or no sarvice, as regards the pen," pursued Murty, 
 " it's so long since my own self thried my hand at the writin' busi- 
 ness, that I don't well know how ic Avill turn out, in the long run, 
 neighbour." 
 
 These words of modest doubt were accompanied, however, by a 
 smile of self-sufficient confidence. 
 
 "But here goes, in God's name, anyhow, to venture our loock, 
 the best way we can." And while he leisurely pulled the cross- 
 legged table to the door, Murty continued to speak in assured good- 
 humour. 
 
 " When I was in the habit o' goin' to the school. Admiral, the 
 masther usen't to be overan-above ashamed o' the scholar — 
 Though it's raysef says the same, that oughtn't to say it. Admiral." 
 
 " Ko doubt of it — no doubt. Aboord o' the ould Saint Vincint, 
 it's purser's mate they'd make o' you, long ago, to a sart'nty," flat- 
 teredthe Admiral, willing to keep Murty in good humour, that he 
 might get his own business the better done. Not, indeed, that he 
 in the least doubted the scholarly qualifications of his chosen pri- 
 vate secretary. 
 
 '' Maybe it's jest as w^ell wid me as it is. Admiral. \Yho's wise 
 enough to say but that if we were a sailor, all this time, from the 
 schoolln' up, but we'd have a bit of a Frenchman's snout upon our 
 poor face, instid of our own naath'ral nose, this blessed day ?" 
 
 " Ay, like enough — every mother's sowl's hulk o' them to ould 
 Davy 1" assented the Admiral, reddening with anger. Thereupon 
 
16 THE BIT O' WRiriN'. 
 
 he gave his own nose — or what served him as his own, or, at least 
 as half of his own — such a pull that had not the surgeon of the 
 Saint Vincent done his office well, Terence must have torn it from 
 its usurped position. 
 
 " But we had betther go to our work at onct," resumed Murty. 
 And he fell to scraping, with more strength than skill, at the inside 
 of his little son's ink-horn. 
 
 *' Musha, I wondher what meeaw * is on it this turn, for ink?" 
 
 The ink which the amanuensis essayed to get into his pen had 
 been produced by the squeezing together of elder-berries. To pre- 
 vent it spilling out of the horn, which hung by a leathern strap from 
 a button of Paudeen's jacket, as he trudged to school, the primi- 
 tive little vessel had been half filled with old linen, scraped into 
 lint ; into this pulpy substance the liquid became absorbed ; and it 
 required a certain schoolboy knack, acquired by long practice, aud 
 many failures, thence to press and scoop it into the funnel of the 
 quill. 
 
 After sundry awkward attempts, Murty Meehan succeeded in 
 charging his pen, brimful, and began to stir his fingers, wrist, and 
 even arm, when he suddenly exclaimed, " Och! tundher — tundher 
 an' ages ! an* sure we forget oursefs, intirely — where is the paper, 
 Admiral ? Here was raysef goin' to set about writin', widout the 
 paper — an' that's a thing the schoolmasther, his own four bones, 
 couldn't do, I believe." 
 
 " May my hulk go floatin' to ould Davy !" — began Terence 
 O'Brien. 
 
 '' Musha, Admiral, 'tis a schandle for you, an' a great sin, to be 
 goin' on that-a-way, wid your ould Davy, and your strange curses," 
 remonstrated Chevaun. '' Look or grace can niver come of it to 
 the writin'." 
 
 •'Idesarve your word, misthress — I desarve it, but won't agin, 
 this long time." Terence felt selfishly penitent. " Here's the 
 paper, shipmate ; I had it in the locker all the while." 
 
 '' An' see how it wouldn't spake out for idsef," remarked Murty, 
 with a condescending smile, such as any man of parts might vouch- 
 safe to those who admit his possession of them, and whom he was 
 about to amaze with a proof of their excellence. And while thus 
 smiling on the undisguisedly ignorant Admiral, Murty proceeded to 
 smoothen down, as he honestly believed, the paper, which had be- 
 come much crumpled in the Admiral's locker, i.e. under his jacket, 
 and therefore seemed to require some such adjustment. But Murty 's 
 hard, raspish hands only produced a rough, fuzzy surface on the 
 
THE BIT O' WRITLN'. 17 
 
 sheet which was hitended to bear theuiipress of his scholarship. It 
 was at length properly set before him, and he again succeeded in 
 filling the tube of his pen to the utmost it could hold. 
 
 " Now, Admiral, what's the writin' to be about ?" he demanded, 
 approaching the pen to that point of the paper whence he intended 
 to set fortii upon his voyage of venture through the dimly-appre- 
 hended ocean of letters — When, lo ! the overcharged instrument im- 
 mediately voided its contents on the paper, and they flowed over it 
 in a little sable current. 
 
 " Spilt-milk, bee the soukins," said Chevaun, with wife-like 
 sorrow and sympathy. 
 
 " The divvil welcume id, I say," lamented the penman. "Couldn't 
 it stay quietly where it came from ? But w^ait a bit," winking on 
 the sailor, and resumed his self-assured smiles. " We had a way 
 in the school, long ago, to get over a misfort'n like that. I'll bet 
 you anything but you'll see 1 don't forget my larning to this blessed 
 day." And — (shudder, civilized reader!) — Murty protruded his 
 long tongue, and with it began to sponge out of the rivulet of 
 elder-berry ink. 
 
 With much relish for the experiment, the Admiral sedately looked 
 on. '' That's what we call swabbin' decks, shipmate," he observed ; 
 " an' the very thing to do afther shippin' a say, sure enough, barrin' 
 it's a heavy say intirely, an' thin the word's ' bale out,' afore swab- 
 bin,' d'ye see me ?" He paused, still evidently pleased with the 
 dexterity of the operation, which Murty continued with his winks 
 and smiles of promised success. 
 
 But Murty was not quite triumphant over this obstacle to his 
 penmanship. His first eftorts only spread the ink, in rather a 
 lighter shade, over a much larger surface than it had previously 
 occupied. A necessity thus arose for extending and persevering in 
 the process of extraction. And when, at length, the paper was, 
 in his estimation, and in that of his friend and his wife, pretty free 
 from positive stain, its whole superficies had become thoroughly 
 damp. But this latter circumstance did not occur to Murty nor to 
 his observers. 
 
 " Now, at any rate, for the Avritin'," he said, " again scooping out 
 his " tent o' ink." Lest it should serve him the trick it had before 
 done, he cautiously held the pen level till he had stolen it round his 
 back, and then, with a calculating jerk, Murty tried to get rid of 
 the superfluous quantity of ink it held. 
 
 "Ohl" screamed his wife, Chevaun, suddenly slapping her 
 
18 THE BIT o' WRITIN'. 
 
 left ere with her right baiul ; "oli, oh ! Marty, It's now ron done 
 the dhumms* intirely !" 
 
 The elder-berry juice had lodged full in the handsome, though 
 too inquisitive, eye of Chevaun. The good dame was in that state 
 of health iu which, according to a quotation that has often served 
 writers — 
 
 " Ladies wish to be who love their lords ;" 
 
 and her words of alarm expressed a fear, and so Murty well knew, 
 though their meaning was not fully expressed, that '' the young 
 Christhin," who, by this time, was far on his road into the world, 
 would make his appearance among us with, upon his cheek, such 
 a black tear as now welled down that of his mother. 
 
 Murty was at her side iu a moment, anxious to reassure her, 
 though almost as much alarmed as herself. " No, no, ma-chree^'' 
 he cried, in his tenderest accents; ''no harum can come of it. 
 There now." 
 
 We are almost ashamed, this time, to crave pardon of, or other- 
 Avise to conciliate, the refined patron of our humble studies from 
 nature. But we must indicate the shocking fact, that the anxious 
 and loving husband did use to his wife's cheek the very same horrid 
 sponge which he had with so much felicity just before applied to 
 the stained paper. And when he conceived that, as in the former 
 initiating case, success had crowned his efforts, Murty kissed the 
 sufferer. 
 
 *"' Cleared out for action at last, or my hulk toould Davy !" said 
 the patient, never-doubting Admiral, who had observantly regarded 
 this second piece of cleverness on Murty's part, with the same pro- 
 found interest bestowed on the first. 
 
 " Ay, by gonnies ! Now or never, as the ould say in' goe^, Ad- 
 miral, a hage7\" 
 
 Once more the amanuensis sat, right in the door-way, to hh 
 cross-legged table, and once more, with increased sedateness, dis- 
 l)0sed himself to his task. Murty was now a wiser, because a more 
 experienced man. Previous failure and mishap had taught him ex- 
 treme caution. After a third time imparting ink to his pen^ he 
 carefully examined it, in order to ascertain whether or no it con- 
 tained the necessary measure of liquid, and no more. In properly 
 fixing it between his two fingers and thumb, he spent a reasonable 
 ])ortion of time, and, in the eyes of his neighbour and spouse, 
 evinced much ingenuity : — the operation being effected by seizing 
 
 * Mischief. 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 19 
 
 the top, or feathery part of the quill, with the fingers of his left 
 hand, and, by their aid, drawing it upward and downward, and 
 twisting and turning it, till it was poised to his satisfaction. Still, 
 by the joint agency of both hands, Murty guided id to the 
 paper. 
 
 *' Choice steerage, my hearty," said the ever- watchful Admiral, 
 with glee. 
 
 *' Nately done, of a sart'nty," agreed Chevaun. 
 
 All seemed, indeed, most happily ready. The pen took dead 
 aim at the place on the sheet which it was first to hit ; the scribe's 
 mouth screwed itself up ; his eyes intently fixed on the paper, and 
 his head twisted round towards his left shoulder, where stood the 
 Admiral, ready to " pipe" when the signal was made for action. 
 A double-loaded musket, at full cock, levelled at a target, and only 
 wanting a touch on its trigger, to discharge it, would convey an 
 idea of Murty at this big moment. Having waited a second or 
 two — "Now, Admiral, say out, and don't be afeared, what we're to 
 put down," he said, solemnly. 
 
 " We had a fashion o' callin' this sort o' writin' a memorandle 
 o' sarvice — put down that, first," said his employer. But suddenly 
 interrupting himself, he sang out shrilly. " No, no ; avast there — 
 no, not yet, shipmate ; afore any other thing, d'ye see me, put down 
 the time o' the watch." 
 
 " The time o' the watch, avich ? Musha, never a one in the poor 
 house. Nor a clock neither, as you know well yourself. But 
 couldn't we guess the hour o' the day it is by the sun, as we're used 
 to do, an' seldom go wrong somehow ?" 
 
 " Jaw, jabber! — Ax pardon, shipmate. Didn't by no manner o* 
 manes intend an otfence. But what I want you to put down isn't the 
 time o' the hour, d'ye see me, but the date o' the month we have, 
 wid the day of the year." 
 
 " Och, ay ! The day o' the month and the figures o' the year, 
 is to go down first. Admiral ; that's what you mane, we b'lieve," cor- 
 rected Murty. " An' you're right. Yes, the year an' the day goes 
 down, at the first offer, by course." The penman went on, still 
 very cautiously bringing his instrument to bear on the long-covered 
 point of attack. "Well; this is the year aigh teen hundhred an' 
 one, isn't it ?" There was silence, and he paused a moment in 
 deep study. " Yes ; aighteen hundhred an' one." From a confused 
 recollection of the dashing manner in which " the masther in the 
 school", used to commence similar tasks, he gave two or three 
 flourishes of his pen, at a civil distance, however, from the paper, 
 
20 THE BIT WRITIN . 
 
 as many a boastful man will make a show of fighting without soon 
 coming to blows. 
 
 " Aighteen hunclhred an' one," continued Murty, and he repeated 
 the words five times at the least ; and then, giving up his affected 
 mastery over the pen, he once more very cautiously moved it thrice ; 
 resolved on a beginning. 
 
 The Admiral watched him with the keenest attention. Chevaun, 
 sharing his feelings in her own way, pulled her stool close to her 
 husband, and poked her head almost over the table. 
 
 The pen at length touched the oft-threatened mark. But Murty's 
 difliculties were not thereby lessened. It will be recollected that, 
 since the sponging process, the paper had remained damp, and that, 
 previously, Murty's hand had rasped it into a fuzzy surface ; so 
 that, in this state of preparation, as soon as Murty now described 
 upon It the first figure, which he meant to stand at the beginning 
 of the year's date, the lines of that figure chose gradually to swim 
 and mingle together, under his astounded eyes, and so went on till 
 they ended in one unintelligible blot. He paused : his lower jaw 
 dropped, and he stared at the self-defacine: lines, as if he had 
 witnessed witchcraft. 
 
 '' I'll loock agin — an' more an' more of it !" at last groaned 
 Murty ; " an' what holgh is on it now, I wondher ?" 
 
 '' Haze-a-bead," cried the Admiral, slapping Murty, in what he 
 meant to be an encouraging manner, between the shoulders, for he 
 had noticed the undisguised drooping of the man of letters, and 
 sought to prop him up. *' Haze-a-head, and that's all. Cheer 
 up, my jolly boy. Hard tackin', sometimes, getting out o' port. 
 But when you once make say -room enough to spread canvass, nine 
 knots an Lour won't catch you — sink me to ould Davy, if they 
 will !" 
 
 '' Musha, may be it's wet is on the paper," surmised Che- 
 vaun. 
 
 '' Faix, and I believe it is," agreed her husband, somewhat 
 relieved. He arose and held it to the fire, kneeling to his task ; 
 and in this position turned round his head to address his hearers. 
 *' Well, well ; the praises for all. There's no tellin', now-a-days, 
 when a poor boy sits down to do any one thing, what crosses an' 
 what conthrary things may come to pass afore he — och ! tundher 
 an' agis !" 
 
 Thus did Murty interrupt his own moralizing, as the paper sud- 
 denly caught fire, blazed up, and scorched his fingers, causing him 
 instinctively to let it go. ** UUa — loo— -oo !" he went on ; " never 
 
THE BIT O' WKITIN'. 21 
 
 sich a misfort'nit writin* met me in my born days, afore — sure 
 there was some curse on you !" With a countenance of extreme 
 mortification be watched, still kneeling, the expiring ashes of the 
 paper. The breeze came in sharply at the open door, and hastening 
 to get out of the house again as fast as possible, whisked up the 
 wide chimney, and soon carried with it even those relics of old 
 raggery. 
 
 "There!'' resumed Murty. " Ould Nick has you now, an' let 
 him write on you, if he can." 
 
 '^ Auld ship blown up," announced the Admiral, beginning him- 
 self to feel at last discomfited in his hopes of " a memorandle o* 
 sarvice." 
 
 "An' haven't you ne'er another scrap o' paper about you, 
 Admiral ?" asked his secretary. 
 
 " Scuttle an' sink me to ould Davy — no ! locker cleaned out this 
 voyage, shipmate." 
 
 " Maybe I'd find a bit," said Chevaun ; and her husband and his 
 friend fixed their eyes on her movements. When — 
 
 "Fresh squall comin' on — heavy cloud right a-head !" piped 
 the Admiral. 
 
 " Never a welcome to whoever it is,'* grumbled Murty. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A FIGURE suddenly darkened the door- way. It was that of a 
 female, wearing the deep-blue peasant-mantle of the district. She 
 stood still and silent, with her back to the inside of the house, and 
 of course, to our friends. The ample cloak, falling close to her 
 shoulders, and down her sides, in two straight lines, while its 
 gathered hood was drawn over her head, baffled observation as to 
 who or what she was, neighbour or stranger, 
 
 "Never a welcome to whoever it is," grumbled Murty. 
 
 " Amin, say I, till the writin' is over," echoed Chevaun. 
 
 "Ship a-hoy — ii!" hailed the Admiral, angrily, through his 
 speaking-trumpet. 
 
 The person slowly turned sideways on the spot where she stood, 
 and even in her movement there was sadness. Her left hand and 
 arm now appeared through the folds of her cloak, and a pair of 
 
22 THE BIT 0' WRTIF. 
 
 new light blue worsted stockings hung from the hitter, Sh3 spoke 
 a few words in a low tone, and they fell on the ear like the me- 
 lancholy though musical trickling of drops of water in a little basin, 
 half covered with sedge, in a lonely place. They were spoken tears. 
 
 " I don't think you know who it is that's keepin' the May sun 
 from your dour-stone, Chevaim," she said ; and still her face was 
 quite hidden by the cloak-hood which almost closed in front of it. 
 
 " Ochown ! bud sure I know your own poor voice, now !" cried 
 Chevaun, in great interest, as she endeavoured to push her way to 
 the visiter by the side of the cross-legged table, " Mary, a-lanna ! 
 how are you, the mornin' ?" 
 
 ** In good health, I give thanks, Chevaun: an' I'm only come 
 wdd the first o' my knittin' for Murty." She held out the stockings 
 on her arm. The mistress of the house had now gained her side, 
 and greeted her kindly. 
 
 " Och then, Mary ! an' is it you! An' how is every inchi' you, 
 asthore ?" exclaimed Murty, his inhospitable tone also changed for 
 the better, as, in his turn, he seized the visiter's hands, and shook 
 them violently. 
 
 " Ship on her beam-ends !" proclaimed the Admiral^ somewhat 
 reprehensively, as he sprang to set up again the table which, in 
 his amiable haste, Murty had overturned. 
 
 " Come in, a-cuishla, come in," resumed Chevaun. " Sure this 
 is no place for you to be stannin' 1" 
 
 " Yes, roul in the four bones o' you !" said Murty, throwing an 
 arm round her waist ; and Mary passively suffered herself to be 
 led, or rather hurled, into the house. 
 
 The two women proceeded towards the fire-place. Chevaun sat 
 on the hob, almost facing the door, so that her face remained fully 
 visible ; the other on a " boss/''"" confronting Mrs Meehan, the hood 
 of her cloak still unmoved, and her features, as well as her person, 
 still a mystery to the ould Admiral. Murty deposited himself on 
 a second boss, on one side of the women, with the air and manner 
 of a person who, without much intrusion, had a right to loiter 
 within ear-shot of whatever they were about to say. Terence 
 O'Brien remained where he had been, after adjusting the table, his 
 legs apart, his one arm hanging straight by his side, his one fist 
 clenched, and his eyes and whole face angrily — one would think — 
 regarding the group. 
 
 *'An' the poor ould mother — how is she, a4anna-ma-cJiree ?^' 
 
 * A low, round seat, made soHdly with coils of twisted straw. 
 
THE BIT O' WPJTIN'. 23 
 
 resumed Chevaun, stooping her head close to that of the person 
 she addressed. 
 
 Mary answered in a still lower and more saddened voice than 
 she had used at the door, accompanying the mournful sounds with 
 a slow rocking motion of the body. A conversation went on 
 between her and Chevaun, of which the Admiral caught not a 
 sentence, though it might be supposed, from the expression of his 
 visage, as well as from his set attitude, that he listened attentively — • 
 which, however, was not the case. Whatever art might or might 
 not have done to make him a gentleman, the ould Admiral was by 
 nature, one in heart — and he would have spurned the idea of 
 turning eaves-dropper upon the confidential discourse of any persons, 
 gentle or simple. But he could not help observing that Mary's 
 auditors seemed deeply affected with what she told them. Indeed, 
 Marty's huge, good blue eyes grew moist as they fixed on her's, 
 and the tears ran outright down his wife's vermilion cheeks ; while 
 many a sympathizing " och !" and " heart sorry to hear it !" with 
 other ejaculations of sorrow and compassion, broke in loud accents 
 from their lips. And so sweetly touching still w^ere the cadences of 
 Mary's plaintive, though unheard words, whatever they imported, 
 that as a child would do, Terence almost began to follow Chevaun's 
 example on the occasion, " for company ;" when one other query, 
 now put by that good woman, so as to be heard by him, gave 
 his feelings a new direction. 
 
 "An' poor Terry O'Brien, Mary a-cJiorra f* 
 
 " A-hoy ! Here I" answered Terence, making a step forward, 
 and again standing stockstill on his extended legs, as if answering 
 to a " musther on deck." 
 
 But Chevaun and Murty only motioned to him to be quiet and 
 mute, w^hile their visiter, after a bound on her seat, at the boisterous 
 and sudden interruption he had given, drew her cloak tighter round 
 her head and face, and became, after a long-drawn sigh, quite 
 silent. 
 
 All followed her example, and there was a sad pause for some 
 time, which Murty at length broke by softly drawing from Mary's 
 arm the stockings she had already hinted were for his use, and 
 praising them to the skies. Then Chevaun suddenly started up^ 
 withdrew into an inner room — if so we may call that portion of 
 the cabin separated from the place where they sat only by a wicker 
 partition, not reaching to the roof, nor even from wall to wall, 
 across the clay-floor — and returned with a little basket, containing 
 some unseen articles, which, with many entreaties, she forced Mary 
 
24 THE BIT O' WRITL\\ 
 
 to accept. Terence thought he began to surmise the cause of 
 Mary's grief, and formed his resolutions accordingly. 
 
 " Well, I must be stirring now," said the object of his interest. 
 She arose, and, features and person still hidden from him, was 
 passing to the door after a farewell shake-hands on the part of 
 honest Murty, and a kiss, through tears, on that of his spouse. 
 Terence, with another hail, and another step, gained her side, and 
 dropped something into her basket. Mary, again starting, picked 
 out of it '' a raal balloon guinea," instantly deposited the coin on 
 the table, and saying, " No, no — not from you — no, no !" walked 
 smartly away from the house. 
 
 *' But you might, though," bawled Terence after her. " It's a 
 thrue yellow-boy, every splice of id — an' honestly got, 'board ould 
 ship — my hulk to ould Davy, but it is ! But she won't answer 
 hail ; well, well, I see what's in the wind — thinks the ould sayman 
 can't afford it — or else thinks he had it by piracy." Such were 
 Terence's sagacious guesses at Mary's notions, which, however, he 
 was to live to understand a little better. Chevaun and Marty 
 looked expressively at each ether. 
 
 " Ay, ay," resumed Terence ; " but all's one for that. Since 
 she will sheer off", up goes the shiner into the ould locker again. 
 An' so, shipmate, the ould hnlk to shove ofi^, too, on a new tack, 
 without any memorandle a-board — eh, shipmate ?" 
 
 " Och, no, thin, an' blessings on the kind heart in your body !" 
 answered Murty, his mind more full than ever of anxiety to do the 
 Admiral a service, notwithstanding the many interruptions his 
 previous effbrts had undergone. In fact, his own honest nature 
 was grateful for Terence's proof of sympathy towards poor Mary. 
 
 " No, no, don't stir a step, yet, for the life o' you !" seconded 
 Chevaun, in something of the same spirit. 
 
 Again she moved, and again the eyes of her husband and 
 Terence followed her. Chevaun made her way to the cupboard, 
 and was about to open it, when she paused, turned towards her 
 friends, and solemnly addressed them. 
 
 " I'll tell yez what was a loocky thing, afther all." 
 
 Murty anxiously demanded "What?" 
 
 " That when the paper tuk fire there was none o'the writin' on it." 
 
 *' Bee gonnies ! an' so it was," cheerfully assented her husband, 
 rejoicing in any set-off against his undeniable ill-luck. 
 
 "Ay, ay, right, raisthress," also agreed the Admiral. " Good 
 chance iv a sart'nty, that none o' the crew were aboord when ould 
 ship blew up ; for up along wid it they'd ha' gone, and not a sowl 
 saved, d'ye sc2 me ?" 
 
I 
 
 THE BIT WRITIN, 25 
 
 " See that now," resumed Mrs. Meehan, congratulating herself 
 upon her higenions remark ; " there's nothin' so bad in this world, 
 but it might be worse. An' so, Murtj, agra, don't be down-hearted 
 any longer." She laid her hand on that of her husband, and 
 looked commiseratingly into his face ; '' let by-gones be by-gones ; 
 what's past can't be helped if a body were to lay down a life for it.'* 
 
 " Thrue for yon, Chevaun ; but will you be able to make out 
 another scrap o' the paper ?" 
 
 "There's the gorsoon's copy-book in the cupboard — can't we 
 just tear a lafe out o' that, Murty, a cuishla-ma-chree .^" 
 
 "Bee gonnies, an' so we can! you war always an' iver a kind 
 sowl, Chevaun," smiled Murty, greatly relieved. "The heavens 
 prosper you.'' 
 
 It may be surmised that, previous to his wife's happy thought 
 of the gorsoon's copy-book, Murty Meehan had, from his repeated 
 failures, become somewhat cooled in his first estimate of his own 
 capability to master the task before him, and, notwithstanding his 
 seeming anxiety to persevere, might perhaps have half wished to 
 elude it — up the chimney, if he could — with the burnt paper. 
 Now, however, Chevaun's presence of mind left him no excuse for 
 drawing back : either he prepared to renew his efforts in a kind 
 of hopeless determination to do his best, or else the sight of the 
 fresh leaf of paper really renewed his courage, and endowed him 
 with the spirit, and, joined to his experience, wuh the tact which — 
 we are proud to say it — ensured his ultimate success. 
 
 " Yes, plaise the pigs, we'll mind oursef this time, at any rate — 
 and a watched season is never scarce," was the philosophical adage 
 with which he now set down to recommence the " Bit o' Writin'." 
 
 " Sink my ould hulk to " began the Admiral. 
 
 "Whist, Terry O'Brien," suddenly interrupted Chevaun, "we'll 
 have none o' the saltwater cursin', now, if we want to escape more 
 o' the dhunnus,^* 
 
 The Admiral fidgeted, but stood convinced, reproved, and silent. 
 
 " The date o' the year," said Murty. 
 
 " Ay, ay, the date o' the year, first of all, shipmate." 
 
 " Aighteen hundhred an' one, then," Murty repeated, slowly 
 muttering ; and as in deep thought he strove to call to mind the 
 shapes of the figures which should designate the era, his pen de- 
 scribed above the paper two or three cautious flourishes, almost 
 as before. 
 
 A fij>ure of 8, lying on its back, thus, oo , was described. He 
 snatched up the pen, and looked earnestly at the real commence- 
 
26 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 ment of his task. All was right. Neither pen, ink, nor paper 
 played him false, " this turn." He moved the sheet from side to 
 side, accompanying it by wagging his head from shoulder to 
 shoulder. He resumed, still repeating, " aightecn hundhred an' one" 
 
 Two additional figures were produced, and the embryo document 
 became antedated by about one thousand years. The whole of 
 the figures stood thus, " oo 01." 
 
 " There's the date o' the year, plain to be seen, we b'lieve' 
 Admiral," he said, glancing at his neighbour with ill-disguised 
 pride. 
 
 *' I like the cut o' their jibs, well, my hearty ; they're o' the 
 right sort of a sart'inty. Ay, ay, able-bodied saymen, every hand 
 o' them." 
 
 " Musha, the goodness be praised," saidChevaun, with a happy 
 sigh ; " an' see what it is to get the larnin' arly. Not brought up 
 to the handlin' the paper like a cow or a horse." 
 
 "An' isn't the day o' the month to be your tack now, jolly 
 boy?" 
 
 " That's to be put in, by all manes. Admiral." 
 
 There were a few more passing flourishes, and then ensued the 
 actual operation. The pen went up and down, heavily grating 
 against the rough paper. 
 
 " Yee-ho ! yee-ho ! ho-yee !" sung Terence O'Brien, keeping time 
 to the pen's movement, and shrill harsh noise ; "undherway, at 
 last, my hearty. I like the sound o' your tackle — it's like the ould 
 ship in a stiff breeze — yee-ho !" 
 
 Murty smiled with the conscious glee of certain success, thus 
 added to by the Admiral's approbation, while, at his other side, his 
 wife further encouraged him. 
 
 " Didn't I know, Murty, acuishla f didn't I know the second 
 ofier 'ud thrive ? that, an' barrin' the cursin'." 
 
 And so, Murty went on producing, by degrees, a full crew of 
 *^ able-bodied saymen;" not an unapt term, by the way, when ap- 
 plied to his striding, straggling, burly characters. 
 
 For two good hours was the amanuensis' hand at work. He 
 would stop in the middle of a word ; spell over the letters of it 
 which he had just written ; oblige the Admiral to repeat it for him ; 
 endeavour to ascertain how much of its sound he had succeeded 
 in typifying : get the remainder into his mind in a jumble, and 
 then proceed very ambiguously to express what had been very 
 ambiguously apprehended. His " saymen," therefore, stood quite 
 independent of each other, or, at least, but seldom linked together. 
 
THE BIT WRIT1]S\ 27 
 
 And, while placing a point over an i, Murty would steal down 
 the pen, and not always exactly fix it over the proper character, 
 and then turn it round and round, until the point became swollen 
 to a goodly size ; or, in crossing a t, his first essay was very gradu- 
 ally made, and the whole process amusing. He would, as the 
 Admiral called it, steer his instrument with his left hand, and then 
 quietly and slowly scrape it across the upright letter. But, indeed, 
 on this one matter, practice gave him courage, as he got on ; for, 
 at length, he would make a bold dash with his pen, and deviating 
 from a horizontal course, divide into two parts, not invariably 
 equal portions, whatever letters happen to come in his way. And 
 pretty nearly thus, till his task was quite completed, did Murty 
 reduce to paper the stentorian dictation of the ould Admiral. 
 
 But his task was indeed finished. He slowly arose to dry the 
 paper at the fire ; but, in full recollection of a former adventure, 
 as well as in obedience to Terence's warning of — " Fire-ship 
 a-head — a-hoy !" and of Chevaun's — "Have a care now, Murty, 
 agra!" he kept it well clear of the turf-blaze. 
 
 Dried the document became without hap or injury. Murty, 
 suspending it by a corner, strode the few strides which he could 
 take on his cabin floor, and slowly held it up to the full view of 
 his admiring spouse, who well understood his glance and smile to 
 mean — 
 
 " See, Chevaun, what it is to have a scholar for your husband." 
 
 Nor was he slow in apprehending that the answering drawing- 
 up of the muscles about Chevaun's mouth, the poking forward of 
 her head to the invited scrutiny, and the wide-open expression of 
 her eyes as they afterwards met his, plainly said — 
 
 " Yes, Murty, a wondher o' the world you are — an' good rason 
 I have to be proud o' you." 
 
 " Here, it is, now, for you. Admiral," said Murty, then pre- 
 senting the document to its owner. " An' it's loock we wish you 
 wid it, Admiral, avich !" His tones, air, and manner, were graci- 
 ously patronizing. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 After due reflection and consultation on the matter, Terence 
 O'Brien, or the ould Admiral, arrived at several pretty accurate 
 
28 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 conclusions touching the further disposal and progress of the " me- 
 morandle o' sarvice." 
 
 He had heard — beyond doubt he was sure — of such a place as 
 the Admiralty Office, " in the port of London," and judged that 
 thither he ought to forward it. As a first step towards this, he 
 soon became aware that the document should be " put aboord the 
 post-office," in the neighbouring town, and thence that it was to 
 continue its voyage " aboord the mail-coach." Right well was he 
 aware that he at present lived on an island, separated from another 
 island, in which was the " port o' Lunnon," by a sea. That his 
 *' memorandle" was to be received and forwarded, on and from, 
 the coast of that first island, as one of " ould ship's papers," with- 
 out at the same time shipping the mail-coach or its other contents, 
 Terence rather suspected, but, indeed, could not be quite certain of 
 the fact. Nor did he find Murty Meehan, who had never yet 
 caught a glimpse of the sea, nor received or forwarded a letter of 
 any kind, in his life, able to enlighten him on the subject. It 
 might be so, or it might not be so ; thus they decided between 
 them ; and eventually the Admiral, suddenly struck with the con- 
 viction that the question, turn out as it might, was no concern of 
 his, made up his mind to leave it undecided. " The Captain o' the 
 Post-office" was the man whom it concerned, and not him, Terence 
 O'Brien. Every commander of a vessel knew how everything ought 
 to be done aboard his own ship, from the splicing of a cable to the 
 firing of a broadside ; and agreeably to this notion of the post- 
 master's competency in his duties, Terence argued that his paper, 
 once delivered into the hands of that person — just as it had come 
 out of Murty Meehan's hands — by-the-way, unfolded and undi- 
 rected — ought to arrive safe at the end of its voyage ; a mere an- 
 nouncement of its destination being obviously sufficient to enable 
 the Captain to supply and superintend all the details of its progress 
 upon the way. 
 
 " What else was the ould loober upon that station for ? and so 
 Terence set forward for the post-town nearest to his residence. 
 
 The postmaster was in the act of delivering the morning letters, 
 and a crowd of people gathered round the window of his office. 
 Had we leisure we might attempt to produce some pathetic and 
 some ludicrous surmises as to the different feelings in which differ- 
 ent individuals of the throng stretched forward their hands, and 
 exerted their voices, claiming their expected despatches. But we 
 must not pause to indulge our speculations, or show our skill, at 
 the expense of the reader's patience. With one person alone, of 
 all present, we dally for a moment. 
 
THE BIT 0' WRITIN'. 29 
 
 He stood on the outskirts of the crowd, quietly awaiting his turn 
 to go to the window, saying nothing, pushing or hurrying nobody, 
 and resting both his hands upon his stick. He seemed a very per- 
 sonification of patience and humility. Either he had never, even 
 in youth, possessed any dash in his character, or the pinching 
 poverty now visible in his sharp features, and peculiar attire, had 
 long ago frozen it out of him. His head-gear was very ancient, 
 and yet made the most of; he would seem fully to have studied 
 and approved the celebrated adage, that " the life of an old hat 
 consists in cocking it." His person was draped in a kind of frock- 
 coat of coarse grey kersey, reaching below his knees, so fashioned 
 as to save him from the sarcasm of going too heavily clad in sum- 
 mer, or of having an appearance of almost nakedness in very cold 
 weather : for the garment could not be called an outside coat at 
 the one season, nor a thin coat at the other. Originally his leg 
 had been well shaped ; and at such a period of its existence, had 
 first taken possession of that part of the pantaloon which at pre- 
 sent covered it ; but abstemious living, for many years, since then, 
 had shrunk its calf, so that it now allowed its vesture to ruffle in 
 wrinkles to the wind. And it was not difiicult to conjecture, from 
 his general appearance, and the hints supplied by his face and de- 
 portment, that bis blay stockings had been " darned" by his own 
 careful hands ; while his shoes were water-proof, in sole, upper, 
 and quarter, because, from year to year, they had been diligently 
 watched ; and the moment time made a rent or a crack in them, 
 no matter how small, immediately and intently patched in the frail 
 place, with a view to prevent each breach from widening. 
 
 We have not much to do with this man, so we crave pardon for 
 volunteering this sketch of him. 
 
 " A-hoy, my hearty !" bellowed Terence O'Brien at his ear, in a 
 tone that would have made him sart, or at least look ofi*ended, had 
 he not long abandoned all hastiness of movement or of feeling ; or 
 he might have deemed that, as the term " hearty" could cer- 
 tainly not apply to him, he was not the person addressed. At all 
 events, he only turned, slowly and quietly, his sharp little face to 
 the speaker. 
 
 "Post-office thransport a-head — eh, my jolly lad ?" still ques- 
 tioned the tar, pointing to the window. 
 
 " If it's the post-office you want, yes, there it is ; though it's no 
 thransport, as I know of, my honest man," answered little Patience. 
 
 '• Scuttle my hulk to ould Davy ! you don't mean to call it a 
 frigate, do you ?" 
 
30 THE BIT WRITIN . 
 
 " You have my lave to call it a man-o'-war if that same gives 
 you the laste pleasure." 
 
 " No — shiver my timbers to splinters if I do ! Hah ! do you 
 want to come over the ould sayman that way, you loober ? Fd 
 spy out a man-o'-war seven leagues to windward, you land-shark." 
 
 "Well, well, just as you like." 
 
 " Capt'n gives ordhers at the gunnel — eh ?" 
 
 " I don't well undherstand your meaning." 
 
 Muttering something like contempt for the ignorance of all 
 " land-loobers," Terence steered direct for the post-office window, 
 
 " Scud, scud — avast, my hearties ! I say," he bellowed forth, 
 forcing his way through all opposition ; and he presented his unique 
 vissage at the open wooden pane through which letters were dis- 
 tributed. 
 
 '* Ship's paper — ould ship's — will your honour take it aboord ?'" 
 and he held out his "memorandle o' sarvice." 
 
 *' What do you want ? what do you call this ?" questioned the 
 postmaster . 
 
 " Sink my hulk ! what do I call it ? Why, are your lights out, 
 Capt'n, or can't you take an observation ?" 
 
 The Captain peered and peered. He took off his spectacles and 
 wiped them in the ample though rather soiled muslin frill of his 
 shirt. He peered again, and his lips moved, as if in an honest ef- 
 fort to spell his way through the manuscript. He raised up his 
 head and looked attentively from it to the disfigured face of the 
 '* sayman ;" then to the paper again ; and then to that index 
 visage again. 
 
 " What is it at all, man ? and what do you wish me to do 
 about it ?" 
 
 " Why, don't you see it's a memorandle o' sarvice ? what else 
 would it be ?" 
 
 " And pray, inform me how am I to dispose of such a dirty 
 piece of nonsense ?" 
 
 " Avast there, Capt'n, you loober ! Fair weather between us ; 
 'tis as thrue as the log, every word of it." 
 
 Once more the goodnatured postmaster bent his eyes studiously 
 upon Murty Meehan's penmanship, and began to mutter — " ' Terry 
 — O'Brien' — I suppose, um — um — 'a la burbe' — um — um — 
 ' shot close to his body' — here, my man," interrupting himself, and 
 handing back the document, as many impatient voices called aloud 
 for their letters — " I can make no hand of your paper or yourself — 
 take it away, and leave the window clear." 
 
THE BIT O' WKITIN'. 31 
 
 '* Take it away, Capt'n/' echoed poor Terence, rather crest- 
 fallen ; it wasn't to take it away I towed it in here, from 
 Muckalee — you'll just ship it for the Admiralty board — eh, 
 Capt n ?" 
 
 " Get away with it — take it out of my hand, I tell you — 
 there — go — get it properly written — stand back — and let sensible 
 people come for their letters." 
 
 Beginning to entertain some slight doubt of the clerkship of his 
 Muckalee friend, the ould Admiral was obliged to retire with his 
 *' memorandle :" not, indeed, until he had fought hard to have it 
 received " aboord." Having cleared the crowd, he stopt in the 
 middle of the street, to ponder what next was to be done. 
 
 The little man he had before accosted, followed him closely, 
 though quietly, at a cat's pace, when she steals step by step within 
 springing distance of a fat mouse. He had overheard the dialogue 
 between Terence and the postmaster, and it was not quite thrown 
 away upon him. In his imagination — we use an inapt word — in 
 his sober, unromantic, practical calculations, we should rather say — 
 the document had already set the kettle singing, and the pot boil- 
 ing for a better breakfast and a more substantial dinner than he 
 had for some time been intimate with. 
 
 When arrived close to Terence, that worthy fragment of a Jack 
 was holding the paper close to his eyes — and, to help him stiU 
 more, turned upside down — endeavouring to discover in what re- 
 spect it was deficient for a voyage " 'boord the Post-office thrans- 
 port." 
 
 " Looking as wise as a pig at a sun-dial," commenced bis future 
 friend to himself ; then he continued aloud — 
 
 " Honest man, was that wrote wid a spade or a shovel ? which 
 o' the two ?" 
 
 " What jaw, now ? what jaw !" demanded Terence, angrily and 
 ominously. 
 
 " I say it's either the spade or the shovel wrote that paper. 
 
 Terence nearly lost all command of temper at this double slight 
 of his own importance, and of the zealous and hitherto but slightly 
 questioned services of an esteemed neighbour. " It's a lie, you 
 loober ! it's a lie !" he thundered forth, raising the document to 
 slap it across the face of the commentator. 
 
 Notwithstanding the incivility of the commencement of their 
 dialogue, these dissimilar men were, however, in a short time bet- 
 ter acquainted. However ignorant at first of the right road to an 
 object, self-interest is generally a ready scholar in finding it out. 
 
32 THE BIT WRITING 
 
 Veiy graducally the iiselessness of the document became explained 
 to Terence, and was comprehended by him ; and the little half- 
 starved man and he eventually struck a bargain on the business, 
 and were seen to walk down the street together. 
 
 The Admiral was led up a narrow, dirty lane, and he and his 
 convoy entered a dilapidated house, over the door of which was a 
 sign-board, announcing it as the abode of 
 
 " GARRET BYRNE, 
 PUBLICK WRITTER." 
 
 The personage so described, Garret Byrne, fixed a wicker-backed 
 chair as his desk, sat to it upon a three-legged stool, and, without 
 a tithe of poor Murty Meehan's preparations, with none of his 
 failures or misfortunes, and devoting to his task an incredibly short 
 portion of time, in the opinion of Terence O'Brien, produced some- 
 thing like a proper letter to the Admiralty Board. It was even 
 folded, directed, and wafered, and then Garret Byrne asked and 
 received a reward, dishonest in him to propose, and very improvi- 
 dent in his employer to bestow. Finally, Terence saw him " put 
 it aboord" at the post-office ; after which, the public writer and his 
 dupe adjourned into a dram-shop, to pour down, at the expense of 
 but one of the party, libations to its prosperous voyage. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 After the sailing of his despatches, the Admiral kept a sharp 
 look-out for a,n answer. But he was not impatient in point of time. 
 He made due allowance for the weather-gage, and reckoning a 
 certain number of knots to an hour, for the out-bound and the in- 
 bound voyage, did not begin to hail " the post-office thransport" 
 again till his nautical experience told him he was warranted in doing 
 so. Kor was Terence much out in his calculations, when a letter, 
 directed to him — absolutely to him — appeared at the post-office in 
 due course. 
 
 It did not, however, contain money, nor an order for money ; it 
 only called on him to prepare and forward various certificates and 
 affidavits. Ko matter. The certificates and affidavits were soon 
 ready, under the superintendence of his now established agent. 
 Garret Byrne, and a cheque for a good round sum came at last. 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 33 
 
 At the bank of the town, being conducted still by Garret Byrne, 
 the ould Admiral sunk " all thim bits o' notes to ould Davy," and 
 would accept nothing but gold — " the y allow boys, an' nothin' else 
 for him ;" and so gold he got. We wish the reader were pre- 
 sent on the occasion, to notice the expression of the eyes and even 
 of the pointed nose of the " publick writer," as the guineas jingled 
 on the counter. But it is enough to say that out of them he 
 managed to extract a second enormous fee for his services since the 
 despatch of the first letter. A second jorum of grog, too, was 
 shared between him and the sailor, to the heart's content of Terence 
 and to Garret's slight and momentary vivification. 
 
 The evening began to fall, and it was time to go homewards. As- 
 sisted by his companion, Terence tied up his gold in the useless 
 sleeve of his jacket, using two strings, one below, and another above 
 the bulk made by his hoard ; he further secured it by crossing the 
 sleeve upon his breast, and stuffing it into his bosom : and then he 
 clutched his cudgel in his left (and only) hand, and scudded home- 
 ward, every inch of canvass to the breeze. 
 
 " Praise be to the Heavens ! never, since the day I was born,'did 
 mysef set my two eyes on sich a hape o' the goold," said Murty 
 Meehan, as he, Chevaun, and the Admiral, contemplated it on their 
 table, where it had been tossed out by its owner among the pile of 
 potatoes served up for their evening supper. 
 
 "It's wondherful to look at it," agreed Chevaun. 
 
 " Many a rough gale the ould hulk weathered for it, misthress, 
 an' many and many a broadside went to win it." 
 
 " No doubt o' that," continued Murty. " Bud, bee gonnies ! you 
 can't say but you're well paid for all your throubles an' losses, ould 
 Admiral, aroon ; it isn't the half o' my nose, bud the whole o' my 
 nose I'd give for sich a f ort'n ; ay, even supposin' they stuck a 
 turkey-cock's baik to my face instid — not to talk of a Frinchman's. 
 Ay, or I'd go widout e'er an arum at all, or I'd hop on only one 
 leg into the bargain all the blessed days o' my life, for the honest 
 gainin' o' so much threasure." 
 
 " God forgive you, Murty Meehan," said Chevaun ; '^ take care o' 
 what you're sayin'. The Heavens forbid you'd be spoiled in sich a 
 manner for the double iv id, over again." « 
 
 " But what, in the name o' wondher, will you do wid it, at all, 
 Admiral ?" 
 
 " Why d'ye see me, that's just what I'm a jawin' to myself 
 about, my hearty. But a-hoy, my jolly lad ! we'll work it in com- 
 pany— ^oceans o' grog for say-store, and every sail up while it lasts ! 
 
 D 
 
34 THE BIT WPJTIN. 
 
 eh, shipmate ? — a cruise together — an ould ship scuddin', do mat- 
 th'er what point the wind blows from, eh ?" 
 
 " Och, no, Admiral. That 'ud be a crjin' sin for the both of us." 
 " Twould be a flying in the face cf the giver, in return for the 
 gift," assented Chevaun. 
 
 " A sin ? — avast there, avast ; can't cram that down the wizen 
 of an ould sayman. No, no ; mutinee a-boord is a sin ; sleepin', or 
 gettin' dhrunk on a watch, is a sin ; not stannin' up be your gun, 
 in action, is a sin — an' sich like. The ould jolly boy knows well 
 what they call a sin — ay, as well as e'er a hand a boord. Bud the 
 chaplain himself never said that shippiu' grog, on pay-cut days, 
 whin you're let to sheer off ashore, is a sin — Shiver his hulk ! he 
 couldn't say it, the loober!" 
 
 " Why, Admiral, for the mere matther o' that, I would not pelt 
 a stone at a full bottle myself," resumed Murty ; " for I like a dhrop 
 well enough, betimes, maybe. Only wid this differ, that I'd give 
 ray vote for the oneen widout christenin' it.* That grog o' yours 
 is a wakely sort o' dhrinkin' to my mind, Admiral. Bud all 1 want 
 to say is, that it would be a robbin' shame an' a schandle to waste 
 so mooch money as this on the table upon dhrink of any kind." 
 
 *' Then stow it into your own locker for me, my hearty. If it 
 stops 'boord ould ship 'tis gone, of a sartinty, d'ye see me?" and he 
 pushed the gold towards Murty. 
 
 *' Och ! no, no ; that won't do, either, my poor ould Admiral." 
 " Stow it up for yourself then, I say, shipmate ; and for the mis- 
 thress-mate, there, an' for the brig Peggy, out on her cruise o' 
 sarvice, an' for loblolly Paudeen, d'ye see me — one or all. — Ye may 
 want it, or know what to do wid it, which I don't, d'ye mind me, bar- 
 rin' I sarve it out for the grog — my hulk to ould Davy if I do." 
 
 *' No, no, over again, Admiral. We're as heartily thankful, all 
 as one, as if we made our own of it. But no other man's money 
 will ever burthen my conscience ; no, or rear up my childher, more- 
 betoken. Sure, it's for somethin' o' the like reason I have the 
 weenochs on the same place wid me, at all at all ; for whin a very 
 wise body axed me why I was goin to be married, an' I only a 
 lump of a soft boy, at the same time. Admiral— a kind o' one of 
 your loblolly boys, vou know, only a taste bigger, an' handier at 
 the spade maybe — 'Why, sir,' says I, ' the reason is this, sir, savin' 
 your presence, sir,'* says I, ' I'm able to work a start, sir, an' I don't 
 like to be workin' for any man's childher but my own, sir,' says I.'* 
 
 * That is, he would vote for pure whiskey, without watering it. 
 
THE BIT WRITLN. 35 
 
 " Well, well, that's all as it may be. J3ud what am I to do wid 
 the yellow -boys, if you sing out no to the grog, shipmate ?" 
 
 '' Sure, as I said afore, on the head o' the bit o' writin', that all 
 
 this goold cum by '* (Terence had been too generous to pain 
 
 Murty with intelligence of the failure of his document, or of the io- 
 tervention of Garret Byrne thereupon,) " sure, as I said afore, there's 
 your brother. Admiral." 
 
 " Avast, avast, man ! as / tould you afore, shiver and scuttle my 
 hulk to ould Davy, if he ever touches a stiver of it ! That same 
 
 brother is no brother to me, but a d d land-shark — shuvvin' 
 
 me out to say agin, when I thought to moor my ould hulk here, in 
 the ould soundin's — 'case why ? he said I couldn't work ship wid 
 him — the greedy unnathral loober ! Ay, ay, adhrift he turned me, 
 mainmast, riggin', and rhudder gone, an' not a day's provision 
 aboord ! So jaw no more about him, ^jq see me ?" 
 
 '' 'Twas bad usage enough ; we won't gainsay you, my poor ould 
 Admiral. But his poor slob of a boy, the son — lie done no thin' to 
 you." 
 
 " Done nothin' to me ! isn't he one of the crew ? saiiin' undher 
 his father's colours and ordhers ? an' wouldn't he do by me Avhat- 
 ever he's commanded to do, by coorse, or else go to the yard- 
 arum ? — what else could he do ?" 
 
 " Well, Admiral, my poor fellow, I'll tell you what kind of a 
 thought comes to me, then." 
 
 " Out wid it, my hearty." 
 
 "You're reasonable ould — we can't gainsay that either, youknow." 
 
 "Ay, ay, shipmate; an ould sheer hulk on the wather, goin' to 
 pieces every say ; but English — I mane Irish — heart of oak, every 
 plank o' me, howsomever." 
 
 '' All bud what you call the ruddher, Admiral, an' a quare name 
 it is to give a nose." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sink an' d it ! I forgot that, shipmate. But let 
 
 it go to ould Davy, an' say your say out." 
 
 " Well, aroon ; what I'm thinkin' of i^ soon said. I'm thinkin' 
 . now, that wid the help of all this goold, an' since you're goin' to 
 pieces, as you say yoursef, it wouldn't be a bad notion if you had 
 one to look afther you, an' keep you together." 
 
 " Hollo ! where are you bound for now, my jolly lad ?" 
 
 " Faix, an' all I mane is, supposin' you was to take on wid a 
 wife. Admiral?" 
 
 " A wife !" shouted Terence O'Brien, in utter amazement ; " a 
 wife alongside ? Ko, no, shipmate ; no one will never see ma joia 
 
36 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 company with that kind o' craft. No, no ; grapple to the locker is 
 the word aboord with all sich — grapple to the locker ; an' when no 
 more say-store is left, then shove off, d'ye see me ? No ; never a 
 painted schooner of 'em shall take the ould hulk in tow." 
 
 Terence was calling to mind some kind of Wapping adventure. 
 
 " An' sorry we'd be, ould Admiral, to see the best among them 
 use her toe to you, or her five fingers either. But little's the dan- 
 ger o' that here, in Muckalee. Them sort you spake of lives by the 
 say- shore ; but our honest counthry girrels isn't given to any sich 
 kind o' doins." ■ 
 
 " Avast, lad, avast ; all she-pirates and sharks, one wid another. 
 When first I steered home here to Muckalee, 'case I didn't carry 
 bags o' goold for ballast, didn't your whole squadron of that craft 
 cock up their noses at me, as your land-sayin' goes ?" 
 
 " Bud, sure, you ped 'em back in their own coin, and widout any 
 throuble," smiled Murty, again venturing the sore allusion. 
 
 "Ay, ay; but sink that, I say. Didn't one of 'em call me as 
 ugly an ould fish as ever swum ? and another say I was a farh 
 hrecghocli^ an' ax me to let her stick me in her father's whate-field ? 
 An' that young fire-ship, Nance Dulhanty, didn't she — the craft 
 wid the red lanthron at her poop, I mane — didn't she set my pig- 
 tail a- blaze, at her ould granny's wake ? An' Kitty Doyle ! I was 
 a cruizin' on the top o' the hill, d'ye see me, an' she an' a fleet o' 
 doxies wid her, at the bottom; an' she hails me to join company, 
 an' I tacks to bear down on 'em ; an' she an' they ties the long 
 land-grass right across the channel, an' I strikes on id, and comes 
 on my bame-inds — ay, over an' over, till the ould hulk righted 
 again — an' the whole crew o' them singing an' pipin' out to me, all 
 the time, in make-game like ? Avast, I tell you, shipmate, they're 
 all the same, by say-shore, or by land-shore — all the same." 
 
 " Why, thin, we're much behouldin' to your good word, misther 
 Admiral," remarked Mrs. Meehan. 
 
 " Didn't mane you, jolly misthress ; didn't never mane you. 
 You're not one of the sort. I mane the young light-deckers, 
 as scuds on every tack, in all weathers, flyin' in every breeze." 
 
 " Sure, then, we'll get one for you as old as the hills, if you 
 like," said Murty. 
 
 '' And that won't go down neither, my hearty ; luif, luff ; two 
 
 sheer hulks, bobbin' shivered planks together, every swell — never 
 
 do ; singin' out, too, ' avast, avast,' in every cap-full o' wind — ay, or 
 
 if there was ever gun left aboord, exchangin' shots, I warrant you." 
 
 * Scarecrow. 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 37 
 
 " Faith, an' you're a'most in the right, now, we b'lieve, though 
 you did live so long on the wather, Admiral," grinned Murty. 
 
 "Musha, an' I'm afeard he is, Lord purtect us," added Mrs. 
 Meehan, more seriously. 
 
 "But," resumed her honest man, " sure you don't see mooch o' 
 the robbin' or vastin', or toein', or scuddin', or singin' or shootin', 
 betwixt Chevaun, here, an' my own sef. Admiral ?" 
 
 " No, no, all fair sailin', in company there, an' breeze right 
 a-head." 
 
 *' Well, an' wouldn't you like Chevaun's likes for a voyage, as 
 you call it ?" 
 
 '' Hallo, shipmate ! goin' to change tack ? only say the word, an» 
 I'm for the cruise, in your stead, d'ye see me — ay, wid all my 
 heart and lights, my hearty !" He took the flattered Chevaun by 
 the hand, and shook it upward and downward, in approval of what 
 lie understood to be Murty Meehan's proposal for a transfer of his 
 wife ; and Terence spoke — we stake our veracious character on the 
 fact — in perfect, simple seriousness. 
 
 " Ho, ho, ho ! we couldn't manage that matter so asily — none of 
 us. Admiral." 
 
 " What jaw, then— what jaw ?" 
 
 "Why, God forgive you, man, sure isn't poor Chevaun an' 
 mysef to be in company, as yoursef has it, till death does us part ?" 
 
 " Foundher to ould Davy, then, an' lave the misthress-mate an' 
 I say-room." 
 
 " We don't want to have a call to that fellow, I tould you afore, 
 Admiral." 
 
 " Go aloft, then, you loober." 
 
 " An' I can't pleasure you that way, neither — at laste till we 
 have the little pee-aties out o' the ground, asthore." 
 
 '•' Well — an' what port are you steerin' for, then ?" 
 
 " No port at all ; I'll stay in the port where I am ; an' Chevaun 
 an' I will be pleasant company wid one another, these hundred 
 years to come, plaise God. Bud, Admiral; there's one little Moya 
 Moore, an' she's the born sisther o' Chevaun — nearer to her she 
 couldn't be ; an' she's very like Chevaun, only a younger girrel, 
 an' she's a'most as purty as Chevaun — an' she's a'most as good as 
 Chevaun — an' that's a great word." 
 
 " Ay, ay — I spoke wid Moya Moore, shipmate, the night o' my 
 cruise to Nance Dulhanty's granny's wake — an' 'twas she put out 
 the fire, 'boord ould hulk, when Nance set the rishlight to my pig- 
 tail — ay, spoke wid her, then, an' often afore an' since. Ay, ay 
 
38 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 Now that I call to mind, that little craft, Mora, is the only one o' 
 yonr jade squadron that never says nothin' to jibe the ould say- 
 man — never does, an' never did ; ay, ay." 
 
 *' She'd make a nate, an' a clane, an' a laucky^* wife, for the ould 
 Admiral," observed her prudent sister. '' Yes, an' you spoke to her 
 later than you think. Admiral ; she was here the day o' the writin'." 
 
 "Whin you gave me sich a hail by my name, misthress, an' she 
 an' you a-joinin' together ? an' I never knew her from the new cut 
 of her canvass. But why wou'dn't she share a little say-store wid 
 me ? why sheer off in a rumpus, at only the sight o' the shiner ?" 
 
 ^* Shy she was, may be, Admiral, to take any help from a body 
 that wouldn't be a blood relation to her ; don't blame the poor 
 crature for that." 
 
 *' Help ! distress aboord, then, thousjh no signal hoisted ? But 
 why did you sing out, ^the Terry O'Brien, a-hoy !' misthress, if 
 I was to bear no hand, d'ye see me ?" 
 
 Chevaun and her husband interchanged a look similar to that 
 which had passed between them upon the very occasion alluded 
 to. Evidently they thought Terence in some misconception. 
 
 " Never mind about the hoy. Admiral, for the prascnt. Bnd, 
 yes, asthore — disthress, sure enough, is come on poor Moya ; the 
 ould mother has a nice bit o' land, to be sure, only there's an ould 
 arrear over it, ever since her husband died. An' she an' Moya 
 will be turned out on the world-wide, this May, barrin' somethin' 
 takes it off for 'em." 
 
 " Sent adhrift ? sink my bulk, but they sha'n't, though ! Show 
 me the loober that daare think of it, an' if I don't blow him clane 
 off the wather, at the first broadside, scuttle me for ould Davy." 
 
 " That wou'dn't be the way. Admiral," said Murty ; " the thing 
 to be done is, to blow the arrears off o' the land. And now listen 
 well to me ; your honest goold could do that, if you an' Moya 
 Moore was once man an' wife. Ay, an' more than that ; stock 
 the farum, too, afther clearin' it ; an' then all would go well to the 
 world's ind." 
 
 " Ay, ay ; but this little galley, the Moya, would she be puttin' 
 the ould hulk imdher any new ordhers — short allowance o' grog, 
 or sich like — d'ye see me, eh, shipmate ?" 
 
 "Niver fear that, Admiral; she wouldn't say one conthrary 
 word to you from year's end to year's end, an' I know her well." 
 
 "No squalls, at a hand's- turn, to getould ship on her baraes' inds?" 
 
 " The dickens a squall she'd give, the crature ! barrin' you gave 
 * Tidy and gracious. 
 
THE BIT O' WRITI^^^ 39 
 
 her ra?on, Admiral," asserted Murty ; "an' you're not the man 
 to do sich a dirty turn. No ; IVFoya is as quiet as the lamb. No : 
 but she'd mend for you, an' she'd make for you — an' she'd sing a 
 purty little song for you at her wheel — an' you'd have a house o' 
 your own. Admiral — an' no one to cross or ccnthrary you — an' 
 the stock an' the crops ud be thrivin' on the land — an', in a rason- 
 ablc time, there 'ud be little weeny Admirals runnin' about yonr 
 legs — an' they'd be tumblin' over head an' heels, on the flure, to 
 divart you — an' you'd be a 'sponsible man." 
 
 "Hurrah!" cheered Terence, as the picture glowed before his 
 ardent imagination. 
 
 " And then let me see the one that 'ud call you an ngly ould 
 fish, or tumble you down the hill, or put the fire to your pig's- 
 tail, or as much as snap an eye at you, my poor ould Admiral." 
 
 "Hurrah! hurrah ! hurrah!" again shouted the Admiral, three 
 times distinctly, as we have noted it down — now taking off his 
 hat, and waving it round his head, while the deafening pitch of 
 his voice startled the echoes in the little glen outside the house. 
 
 It was finally settled that Terence should indeed go a-wooing — 
 by proxy, however, in the first instance. He was loath to venture, 
 as he intimated, out of " say-room," such as he was used to, into 
 a strange, nnknown harbour, without taking soundings ; for there 
 might be rocks, or sands, or breakers, a-head, enough to make the 
 best ship afloat go to pieces, and to baffle the steering skill of the 
 ablest hand that ever grappled a helm or boxed a compass. In 
 fact, Murty Meehan was deputed, and gladly accepted the commis- 
 sion, to break the business to Moya and her mother, while Terence 
 O'Brien should await his return in the next public-house, adminis- 
 tering to the thirsty wants of some of his neighbours, in return for 
 their decent attention to his stories of wondrous adventure on the 
 ocean, containing many charms for them, doubtless, though defici- 
 ent in that of novelty, and deficient, we venture to say, in another 
 sense, veracity ; something in the same style as the substitution of 
 the nose, almost all of them. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Sitting down to this story, we made up our minds that it 
 should not, if possible, be solemn from the beginning to the end 
 
40 THE BIT O' WRITING 
 
 of it. Now, even when it is plain that, with close regard to truth, 
 it must take some such turn, in spite of us, we would fain avoid 
 the contingency, if, we repeat, circumstances permitted our choice ; 
 so anxious are we to have it to sa}'- that we possess the talent 
 of selecting, for once in our lives at least, as the subject of a tale, 
 occurrences and persons always of a sunshiny character. 
 
 But the course of human affairs is, we fear, against us. The clear 
 blue sky and the cloud of life, the sun and the shower, work alter- 
 nately with each other in whatever succession of true events our ex- 
 perience can bring before us. And it is to be even so with our little 
 history, henceforward. We promise, however, to stay out in the 
 sun as often and as long as we can, and not to chill you under the 
 cloud-shadow, or wet you with the shower, except when there is no 
 running in-doors from the approach of either. 
 
 Moya Moore deserved the character jointly given of her by her 
 sister Chevaun, and by her good brother-in-law, Murty Meehan. 
 She was, indeed, an excellent-hearted girl ; very pretty, too. with 
 as tender and loving a blue eye as ever lighted up a rosy cheek. 
 We have often paused, with others, to admire her modest beauty, 
 and her soft, retiring manner, as she stood by one of the pillars of 
 our market-house, with some half-dozen pairs of woollen-hose 
 hanging over her arm, all of her own knitting — nay, the materials 
 of all carded and spun by herself. And we have as often thought, 
 while engaged in our innocent studies of Moya, that the cooing, 
 pipy murmur of voice in which she used to recommend the quality 
 of her merchandise, must have convinced many bidders of their 
 excellence. 
 
 Bat Moya Moore had been more blooming some years befor our 
 approaching introduction to her, than she is at present. Care and 
 sorrow, and her efforts, from morning to night, to supply, with un- 
 tiring industry, to her old broken-spirited parent, the comforts her 
 age required, had lately made sad work among the roses on her cheeks. 
 After all, little could she effect to soothe her mother^s lot. The 
 profits of her little household manufacture were inadequate to pay 
 men to till the old farm, to stock it, and, above all, to clear it of 
 the heavy arrears of rent with which it was burdened. 
 
 Murty has already hinted to his friend, the old Admiral, some- 
 thing of the present position of Moya and her mother ; we must 
 be a little more particular. 
 
 Mrs. Moore had once been a bustling, consequential personage. 
 Perhaps she used to pride herself on the station she enjoyed in 
 the world. She had been an heiress — after the fashion following. 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 41 
 
 Her father held a small, compact tract of land, but, having no 
 male issue, no child but herself, in fact, — caused her husband, when 
 s-he married, to come and reside with his wife in the house in 
 which she was born^ and help him to cultivate and take care of 
 the land, and be in every respect a son unto him — which, indeed, 
 Daniel Moore was, until the old man died, leaving him, in right of 
 his spouse, the envied possessor of a comfortable independence. 
 
 And still everything went on prosperously. Mrs. Moore became 
 the mother of two sons, who in time proved industrious lads, and, 
 directed by their father, increased the profits of the farm ; and so, 
 year after year, the heiress, all along covered by her natal roof, 
 saw herself and her family gain much repute in the neighbourhood. 
 But a sorrowful reverse was doomed to her. A malignant fever 
 broke out in her district ; and, within a few weeks of each other, 
 hurried her husband and her. sons to the grave. And now, her 
 broken -heartedness and her consternation assisting the ultimate 
 result, the widow gradually became first embarrassed, and then in- 
 volved bejond hope of redemption. 
 
 At the time of her first misfortunes, — her daughter Chevaun, 
 had during some years been married to Murty Meehan, and her 
 second daughter, Moya, was a child of nine or ten. At present 
 that child is nineteen, so that for a long period poor Mrs. Moore 
 has been vainly struggling, almost alone, still to live, and if 
 possible die, under the roof which sheltered her father, herself, 
 since her birth, her husband, since he became such, to the day of 
 his death, and her fine young sons, to the day of their untimely 
 demise, also. And at last she has but one melancholy prospect 
 before her — that of seeing herself and her innocent Moya turned 
 out upon the world, poorer than beggars, because in debt — and 
 the one helpless from age, and the other on account of her youth 
 and tender character. 
 
 As Murty Meehan crossed the farm to Mrs. Moore's house, bent 
 upon his matrimonial diplomacy, bitterly did he lament over the 
 face of dilapidation, worn by everything around him. The fences 
 were all broken down ; the land overrun with stones, weeds, thistles, 
 and bramble. Over that part of it which had once afforded 
 pasture to a goodly herd of cattle and a fine flock of sheep, a single 
 half- fed cow — a present from himself by the way — now ranged, 
 untended and mournfully. 
 
 Nor did the once comfortable farm-house and its adjuncts 
 present a better appearance than the land. The disjointed gate 
 of the front yard lay in the mire. No sturdy swine grunted a.n;A 
 
42 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 lorded it over the back yard ; no grand chorns of cackling geese, 
 gobbling turkey-cocks, and quack-quack quacking ducks greeted 
 his ears from its recesses ; two or three old-maid hens alone, who, 
 by sharing Moya's scanty meal of potatoes, just contrived to live, 
 uttered some fretful sounds in one of the corners. One end of the 
 barn had fallen in. The house itself was fast bending to decay 
 and ruin. Here and there the thatch had slid off its roof, or been 
 blown away by the winds, and was all over that greenish hue 
 which indicates, in such material, a speedy approach to decom- 
 position, while rank grass, moss, and weeds flourished through it. 
 The once decent though small windows of the humble mansion were 
 shattered, and their framework shaken. Before the door, on both 
 sides, lay a broken plough, a broken harrow, and the wreck of a 
 farming cart ; all had gone to pieces, in the weather, as well as 
 from the want of an eye and a hand to keep them in repair. 
 
 We have said that Murty Meehan scanned with a feeling heart 
 all these symptoms of distress. One thought, however, brought 
 him comfort. The old Admiral's gold would put everything to 
 rights. In the scattered heap of it which he had just seen on his 
 supper-table, there was surely enough for the purpose. And de- 
 riving spirits from this reflection, Murty crossed the threshold of 
 the house. 
 
 Moya was seated to her knitting, inside the door, when he sud- 
 denly appeared before her with the usual " God save all here." 
 Murty never paid a visit to the widow's abode without bringing 
 some little present, or else volunteering and performing some little 
 piece of semce ; his placid, good-natured face was ever welcome. 
 His sister-in-law sprang up, threw her arms round his neck, and 
 kissed him cordially. 
 
 " A-chorra-ma-chree, Moya, how is every little inch o' you ?" 
 
 " Thank God ! Murty, I'm as well as my heart could desire ;" 
 such was now her habitual answer, while her cheek, her eye, her 
 very voice contradicted her. 
 
 " An' the poor ould mother, a-chorra, how does she hould 
 up?" 
 
 " Och, Murty, only poorly, poorly. She's making my heart to 
 bleed for her — in good thruth she is ;" and while Moya pressed 
 the tears from her eyes with one hand, she pointed towards the 
 widow with the other. 
 
 The old woman was seated in a far corner, brooding, as usual, 
 over her troubles. They presented to her mind the one monotonous 
 subject of bitter study and chagrin. She had been comfortable — 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 43 
 
 she was a pauper ; hnppj, and she was miserable ; the respected 
 mistress of a plentiful home, and she did not now know how soon 
 she must leave it, for ever, to die under a strange roof, or, perhaps, 
 on the road-side. A plentiful home ! — and now there was no 
 butter in her dairy, no sides of bacon in her chimney, no brown 
 loaf in her cupboard ; the small vessel full of inferior potatoes, which 
 simmered on a low fire, and a scanty allowance of milk from the 
 ill-nourished " sthripper," presented to her by Murty Meehan, were 
 her only food. 
 
 Seated on a very low stool, the tail of her tattered gown was 
 turned over her head, and pinned partially round her face, as if to 
 shut her np with her own melancholy ; her knees were crippled up 
 to her mouth — a favourite position — as we have noticed among 
 our humbler people — of hopeless poverty. As if such a cringing 
 and doubling of the person were meant to express the sense of 
 self-humiliation weighing upon the heart. Her fingers were dove- 
 tailed across her knees ; and with an exaggeration of the rocking 
 movement, before noticed in her daughter Moya, during her visit to 
 Mary Meehan, she swayed her body to and fro — the low wailing 
 which occasionally timed the motion, imparting to it a character at 
 once wild and despairing. 
 
 " How do you come on, my poor sowl ?" asked Murty Meehan, 
 bending his gigantic figure till his head came on a level with hers, 
 in her lowly position ; and his tones expressed deep and extreme 
 commiseration. 
 
 Startled from her wretched abstraction, she suddenly turned 
 round, and fixed her sombre eye on his. But it was some time be- 
 fore she could perfectly recognise and bring to mind the features 
 of her son-in-law. 
 
 " Murty Meehan, is that you ?" she at length said. " I didn't 
 know you at onct. The sighth o' my eyes is goin* from me — the 
 very blessed sighth o* my eyes ; yes, the way every thing else is 
 goin' from me. Husband and sons — they're gone — gone, this many 
 a year — paice an' comfort, house an' land — they're gone, too, or 
 else goin', fast, ay, fast, fast ; an' may be 'tis well that the ould 
 eyes will be fadin' too ; the good Christhins may be more open- 
 handed when they see that the widow that begs a could pee-aty 
 from them is blind as well as poor." 
 
 " She's frettin' herself into the grave from me, this away," said 
 Moya, still weeping. There's no nse in my tellin' her that God is 
 good, and that he never shuts one door on us, but he opens another. 
 Mother, I'm sthrong, an' young, an' able to do for you." 
 
44 THE BIT O' WHITIN . 
 
 " That child puts the vexation on me, Murty Meehan," resumed 
 the peevish and therefore selfish old woman. '' Just listen to the 
 words of her mouth ; she goes on talkin' o' doin' for me ! — does 
 she call givin' me half a mayle o' pee-aties doin' for me ? Is she 
 able to put her hand agin the rascal of a sheriff an' his bailiffs, an' 
 shuv 'em from the dour ? Will she stock the land, and till the 
 land ? Will she pay the black-hearted landlord his rent ? Will 
 she keep me in the house where I was born, as I used to be kept 
 in it ? I'm not to be undher this roof another week." 
 
 " Mother, mother ! don't be so cast down in yourself," com- 
 forted Murty, as Moya turned away, hopeless and pained, though 
 not feeling offended, and weeping more than ever. Betther times 
 is commin\" 
 
 " Betther times ! well, ay ; I know that. The day I'm sent 
 adhrift over that threshold, the heart will burst in my body ; an' 
 then there will he betther times — in the grave. Betther times, 
 becase I can't call to mind there the times that are gone. Ay, ay ; 
 I know it well ; an' I'm thankful to you for your comfort, Murty." 
 
 '' She's sore afflicted," whispered Maya, coming back, and wish- 
 ing by her remark to soften to Murty's ear her mother's bitter 
 and hurtful words. 
 
 " Mother, you'll want none o' the grave's comforts yet a start, 
 plaise God. You'll be livin' undher the roof that covers you, an' 
 that you was born undher, this many a day to come : an' you'll be 
 livin' undher it prosperous an' happy." 
 
 " Did you stalk over here on your long legs, Murty Meehan, 
 thinkin' you had a witless woman, as well as a broken-hearted 
 Avoman, to make your mock at ? You have a house to cover you ; 
 don't jibe them that'll soon be houseless, an' that onct had a home 
 o' plenty. Go to your own place, Murty Meehan, an' laive me to 
 myself. Go to your own place, an' take your gorsoon on your kaee, 
 an' promise him a coach an' four horses, if he stops cryiu'. But 
 don't bring sich stories to the ould widow in her misfortunes." 
 
 " Och, mother, mother !" gently remonstrated Moya, " Murty 
 'ud never come to your hearthstone to mock you." 
 
 " Mother, the colleen says the truth," cried Murty. " I was 
 never given to say or to do what 'ud give pain to the heart of a 
 sthranger, not to talk o' you. An' I tell you again, an' I know 
 what I'm sayin', that you'll live in the ould house to the ind o' your 
 davs, I say, an' comfortable an' happy, if you like." 
 
 Moya had begun to listen to Murty with a beating heart ; now 
 she looked at him in breathless interest. The widow relaxed her 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 45 
 
 clasped fingers from her knees, put back, with one hand, the 
 neglected grey hairs from her face, and rested the palm of the 
 other on her low stool, that so she might enable herself to turn 
 round, and gaze her full wonder into the speaker's face. Her fluent 
 words ceased. 
 
 " First an' foremost," Murty went on, "you don't owe a laffina 
 o' rint in the world wide, this blessed moment ! there's the land- 
 lord's resate in full, to the prasant day." He laid it on her knees. 
 '^ An,' will you b'lieve me now, mother dear ?" 
 
 Moya, uttering a low scream of joy, suddenly knelt, clasping her 
 hands, looking upward, and moving her lips in prayer. The aged 
 woman snatched up the paper, started on her feet, flung back the 
 gown which had been hooded round her head, tottered to the rush- 
 light in the middle of the floor, read the writing, and saw there was 
 no mockery. 
 
 " May the ould widow's blessin's," she began, also kneeling, 
 
 " fall in a plentiful shower on the head that — that " she could 
 
 not go on ; a passion of tears interrupted her speech. Mary fer- 
 vently finished for her the intended blessing, adding, " An' mine with 
 it, our Father in heaven ! mine — the blessin' o' the poor widow's 
 orphan child on whoever it is, that takes my mother out of her sore 
 throuble, this holy and blessed night I" 
 
 '' 'Tis more nor two years," resumed Mrs. Moore, wiping with 
 her apron the plentiful moisture from her eyes and her wrinkles, 
 " more nor two years since a tear fell from me. My heart was 
 crusted over wid bitterness, like the wather when the frost is upon 
 it. An' I'm cryin' now becase the thaw is come to me. Don't be 
 afeard, Moya ; don't let it throuble you ; nor you, Murty, asthore ; 
 it's the joy makes me cry, an' it will do me good." 
 
 For some time the certain tidings that she was not to be turned 
 out of her house — the home of her fathers, of her youth, of her 
 womanhood, and of her matronly consequence — were sufficient ti- 
 dings for the Widow Moore ; and as she professed to receive relief 
 from her tears, Murty allowed her to indulge them without inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 Moya also experienced a temporary abstraction of joy, though 
 not of a nature so selfish as that indulged in by her mother ; in fact, 
 her heart thrilled with pleasure, because her mother's had been 
 comforted. Both, however, awakened, at length, to the interest of 
 the new question— how had Murty obtained the money to pay 
 their rent? 
 . " Sit where you are, mother, quiet an' asy, an' I'll soon tell you 
 
46 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 the whole storj. The body that gave me the money to free you o' 
 the landlord won't stop his hand there. He'll stock the farum for 
 you ; an' he'll make the ould land and the ould place to look the 
 same it onct looked for you ; an' he'll come an' live undher the same 
 roof wid you ; an' he'll be a son in your ould days to you. An' I'll 
 let you call me a born gandher, if he doesn't turn out to be a good 
 son, into the bargain." 
 
 " Yes, Murty ; yes, avich," gasped Moya, changing colour, in an 
 ill-boding, and fidgeting with her fingers. 
 
 "An', to ind all, in one word, he'll just marry wid my little 
 Moya, here. An' if he doesn't make mooch of her, why I'm asthray 
 intirely." 
 
 . Moya slid down quietly in a sitting position, her face now very 
 pale, and her eyes staring at Murty. 
 
 '* Who is he, Murty dear ?" she asked in a whisper scarcely 
 audible. 
 
 *' Yes, Murty, aroon ; what name is on the gorsoou ?" echoed 
 her mother. 
 
 " Gorsoon ?" questioned Murty, with an innocent smile — that is, 
 with a smile meant to be received as quite innocent, though it really 
 did not, so much as his usual ones, partake of that honourable 
 character ; " Gorsoon ! why, then, barrin' he's a gorsoon bee raison 
 of his bein' a bachelor boy, I'm thinkin' it's time for him to be a 
 man at the prasant day ; sure, ye both know Terry O'Brien, the — 
 the " Murty hesitated. 
 
 Moya started into an expression which it would be difficult to de- 
 fine, as with the slightest possible approach to impatience, she re- 
 sumed, " Terry — Terry O'Brien, the the what ?" 
 
 " The — the — Admiral," answered Murty, at last, in a hurry. 
 He could not, on the present occasion, bring himself to honour Ter- 
 ence with his usual title in full. 
 
 Moya's figure suddenly sank lower as she sat, and with clasped 
 hands, and a face of utter misery, she looked towards her mother. 
 Neither that good woman nor Murty Meehan, however, noticed or 
 understood the present meaning of her manner and features. 
 
 '' Terry O'Brien, the ould Admiral ?" queried Mrs. Moore, veiy 
 slowly, supplying Murty 's delicate omission ; and it half seemed that 
 even her selfishness could not at once reconcile her to poor Terence 
 as a husband for her daughter. 
 
 Murty went on — '^ Call him bee whatever other names ye plaise, 
 Terry O'Brien is the man ; a power o' the goold cum to him, from 
 his ould ship, for prize money, bee manes iv a bit o' writin' that 
 
THE BIT O' WRITING 47 
 
 one poor Murty Meelian, a neighbour, dhrew up for him ; aa' we 
 all kuow he had a thrifle o' the guineas aforehand, along wid it ; 
 aii' every laffina of it all, that's left af ther payin' the landlord, he'll 
 pelt into little Moya's lap, to do what she likes wid it. There's no 
 denyin' that Moya might get a younger boy, an' maybe a one more 
 likely an' comely to look at ; bud would he bring her or you, mother, 
 out o' the throuble that's on ye ? — would he rise up all our heads 
 again, an' bring back the ould times ? — An' salvation to my sowl, 
 if there's a more laucky crature than my poor Terry walkin' Ire- 
 land's ground. He'll be like a little dog about the house ; he'll do 
 everything ye bid him do. Moya 'ill be his Queen o' the May. An' 
 if 'tis a thing that he's a taste ould, why, he's hearty ; an' not bad 
 to look at, whin you come used to him." 
 
 Moya still continued silent, her looks fixed on her mother, as a 
 culprit at the bar of justice, on trial for his life, watches the face of 
 the foreman of the jury, returning into court, with his brethren, 
 after having agreed upon a verdict. She soon knew her doom. 
 
 " Moya won't say the ' No,' " decided the old woman ; " Moya 
 always cared for her mother, an' she won't be the cause of her dyiu' 
 broken-hearted at last. Moya wouldn't put the mother's blessiu' 
 from her." 
 
 The young girl drew in her breath, making a slight hissing 
 sound. 
 
 '' I tell you again, Murty Meehan, if it came to pass that I was 
 thrust over that dour stone, I'd lay down my head on its threshold 
 an' die. And Moya wouldn't send her father's widow an' her own 
 mother out o' the world that way." 
 
 A visible shudder ran through Moya's frame, but again her agi- 
 tation was unnoticed. 
 
 The garrulous Mrs. Moore went on in great glee — " No, no, 
 Moya would not. An' so, all will be as it used to be agin, plaise 
 God ! The flitches will be in the chimbly agin ; the cows will come 
 to the baun, lowin' to be milked, agin ; we'll have the sheep-shearin' 
 agin ; an' the churn-dash will be goiu' by the fire. We'll have our 
 little parlour nate an' purty agin ; whin the lark is singin' above 
 our heads, in the mornin', we'll ramble through the green fields, to 
 look at the lambs sportin' and to hear the ewes blaitin' to 'em. 
 There will be nothin', widin an' widout, but pace, an' plenty, an* 
 happiness, an' heart's rest. — ! the praises be given above ! — och ! 
 'tis a blessin' that Moya is bringin' on herself an' me ! — She was 
 always good ; the widow's comfort in all her sore throubles an' mis- 
 lort'ns : an' now she'll be the manes o' lettin' me die undher the roof 
 
48 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 where I first saw the light ; och, the blessia's on my Moya ! 
 Come, an' give the odd mother one kiss, my Moya-bawn ! — come, 
 a-cuishla !" 
 
 Mechanically, and with some difficulty in her motions, Moya arose 
 from her crouching seat on the floor, and went to obey her mother's 
 commands. The lips she touched to those of the old woman were 
 white and cold. 
 
 *• The mother's blessia' be upon your head, my own chorra ma- 
 chtee," added the good dame, laying her hands on Moya's head, 
 after embracing her ; '' but is it shiverin' wid the cowld you are ?" 
 
 Murty Meehan also noticed, at last, the girl's wretched appear- 
 ance and manner : but accounted for them on the grounds of maid- 
 enly surprise and bashf ulness. He was not quite so much in Moya's 
 confidence as was bis worthy spouse. And after some further con- 
 versation between him and Mrs. Moore, honest Murty took his leave, 
 convincing himself — though in the teeth of a lurking little suspi- 
 cion to the contrary — that he had acted as a dutiful son-in-law and 
 an affectionate brother-in-law ought to have done. All along, 
 doubtless, he had admitted to himself — as, indeed, we have heard 
 him acknowledge to the girl's face — that Moya might very na- 
 turally prefer a younger and a sprucer bridegroom. Yet was it 
 Murty's serious conviction that, by the proposed match, he consulted 
 her personal happiness as well as her worldly advantage ; so very- 
 high was his opinion of the old Admiral. 
 
 As to the Widow Moore, her sudden change wrought by the 
 joyous prospect thus suddenly opened to her, from moping despair 
 to brisk good spirits, was truly surprising. She seemed to have 
 regained the vigour of her early days. So soon as Murty had de- 
 parted, she became wordy and bustling to excess, to the almost un- 
 conscious eyes and ears of her still silent child. She took Moya 
 with her through the house, and, late as it was, through the yards 
 and out-buildings, to point out the repairs and improvements which 
 were to be immediately undertaken, by means of the fortune so 
 providentially supplied to them. Seated within doors again, she ran 
 over the arrangements for the wedding-feast ; numbered the dishes 
 to be placed on the tables ; selected the guests ; and even prescribed 
 the fashion, colours, and quality of the bride's wedding garments. 
 Moya only felt that a word of dissent or discouragement, on her 
 part, to all this selfish and vain anticipation, would break her 
 mother's heart, and deprive her of her mother's dying blessing, and 
 she was still and still silent. 
 
 At length the widow retired to bed. Even after she had lain 
 
THE BIT WRITLN . 49 
 
 clown, Moya sat enduring her loquacious and — to the poor girl — 
 terrible visions of happiness and importance in the world. Sleep 
 fell on her ; Moya watched till she was sure her mother slum- 
 bered soundly, and then she stole on tiptoe to the door of the 
 house, raised its latch quietly, stept out, closed the door again, ran 
 down the slope of a hill, gained the edge of the little stream that 
 whimpered at its foot, and cast herself down there. Now, as she 
 wrung her hands in agony, the sobs and the tears which had been 
 so long kept in, swelled through the echoing nooks of the lonesome 
 spot around her, and pattered into the shallow water over which 
 she bent. 
 
 " Oh !" she cried, '* may the Lord of Heaven have pity on me 
 this black night! The heart's-rest my mother spoke of — the 
 heart's-rest ! Oh, I was only poor before — poor, and father- 
 less, and brotherless — but now! now! now!" — she wrung her 
 hands with increased energy and bitterness — ''the fortune! och, 
 yes ! the fortune to be sure ! But isn't there another would do the 
 same for my mother an' me, only he's poor, poor, poor like our- 
 selves ? Mother, it will cost me dear to keep your last blessin' on 
 my head, an' to laive you undher the roof-three of your father's 
 house ! Mother, mother, it would break your heart to be turned 
 out o' that house, an' it will break mine to keep you in it ! Oh ! 
 the Lord look down on me ! Oh ! I am the most miserable crature 
 on the face of the earth this moment ! Oh ! what, what is to be- 
 come of me ?" 
 
 Thus did Moya make her moan, but the running stream that re- 
 ceived and bore away her tears, failed to carry with it her young- 
 sorrows too. The grey morning began to break before she became 
 alive to a necessity for calming herself. Then, however, amid 
 continued sobs which almost rent her bosom, she tried to cool and 
 wash away the tears from her burning eyes. At length, she walked 
 np the hill to the house, slowly and heavily, that she might be in 
 time for her mother's wakening hour, and take her place to listen 
 to renewed descriptions of the happiness in store for her. 
 
50 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 After spending, as a matter of etiquette — indeed, almost of 
 necessity after prize money — two or three days and nights at the 
 alehouse, drinking King George's health, and confusion to all his 
 enemies, but particularly to his French ones, Terence O'Brien 
 steered up to the Widow Moore's abode, to promote in person his 
 matrimonial suit. 
 
 To this step he had been induced principally by Murty Meehan's 
 frequent representations of its being indispensable in the eyes of 
 all " dacent neighbours of people, livia' on firrum land ;" for 
 Terence's own part, he saw no use in jawing over the business, 
 '• it wasn't sayman-like." When '* 'boord ould ship," they always 
 cleared for action without any such palaver. So soon as Motner 
 Moore chose to give the word, he was ready to come to close 
 quarters, and what else could be required of him ? In boarding 
 an euemy, who ever thought of speaking her fair ? AVhat was a 
 broadside for but to bring her to her seuses, without wasting a word? 
 
 With his usual kind consideration, Murty Meehan laboured to 
 convince the Admiral that there was no parallel between the present 
 proposed encounter and that of an action at sea. That, in fact 
 and truth, Moya Moore was no enemy of his, nor he an enemy to 
 her ; but tiiat, on the contrary, they were both good friends 
 already, and that the object in view was to make them the best 
 and closest friends in the world. 
 
 " W^e cruize a-head together, then, my hearty — the Murty and 
 the Terry alongside — eh ?" 
 
 " By all manes, Admiral ;" and, accordingly, they proceeded to 
 Mrs.. Moore's together. 
 
 Upon this occasion the Admiral looked as well as his personal 
 accidents could permit. From top to toe, he wore a new suit, 
 pel-fectly in sailor trim. Blue jacket, blue trousers, scarlet waist- 
 coat, white stockings, and single-soled pumps. His grey hairs 
 were smoothed backward from either side of his forehead, his new 
 lurry hat hung towards one ear, his pig-tail was freshly bound 
 and ribboned, and around his throat he had coiled a flaming silk 
 handkerchief, which 
 
 " Waved like a meteor in the troubled air." 
 
 Before the inmates of the house could see him, his stormy 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 51 
 
 ' Ould ship a-hoy 1" sounded in their ears from the middle of the 
 ascent to their threshold. At the hail, Moya, who had been 
 moping about, sank on a seat in a dark corner. The widow, on 
 the contrary, bounded from her stool, adjusted her attire, hastened 
 to the open door- way, and there stood with a preparatory face and 
 air, expressive of much welcome and cordiality. And there did 
 the Admiral first address her. 
 
 " Aha, ould frigate ! all right and tight aboord — eh ?" 
 
 " He's axiu' you, mother," said Murty Meehan, in an " aside," 
 as Mrs. Moore's features began to wear a very puzzled expression, 
 " he's axin' you, in his say-gibberish, how is all in the house.'* 
 
 *' Why, then, we're brave an' hearty, thank God, an' to your- 
 self, sir, for the axin'," answered the dame, addressinc; Terence ; 
 " an' glad in the heart to see you undher our poor roof." 
 
 " Splice timbers, here, my ould frigate." 
 
 The Widow Moore was again at a loss to comprehend the Ad- 
 miral's phrase, but the action accompanying his words proved suf- 
 ficiently intelligible to her. '*Terence jerked forward his one hand : 
 she advanced one of her's to meet it ; and then he set to work at 
 her arm, along with that hand, as if he had been at the pump, 
 aboard, five feet of water in the hold. The old woman's joints 
 were nearly dislocated in their sockets ; and the struggle of her 
 heart to to restrain screams expressive of her torture, and of her 
 countenance, to keep up a show of good-humour, became pitiable. 
 Her son-in-law elect went on : 
 
 " I'll tell you a piece of my mind, now, misthress. I hate 
 jawin'. A sayman isn't never used to it. He laives it to your 
 land loobers an' the parley-wows. But never mind for all that ; 
 he'll do his duty without it as long as a plank of him sticks to- 
 gether. And now, agin, here's a bit o' log, d'ye see me. Murty 
 Meehan, my jolly shipmate here, he cruised a start round your port 
 t'other night to take soundin's : an' he spoke wid you, an' so you 
 know our present tack. See here — I'll put the rhino aboord — I'll 
 work ould ship for you, here, as well as one timber can do it, 
 hearty and saymanlike — I'll tug when you cry, * yee-ho !' — I'll 
 keep the tackle thrue, and the canvass fair to the breeze. Maybe 
 I'd thry my loock at the helm, off and on ; but I'm no great hand 
 at that part o' ship's work, and I tell you so, plump, afore we 
 weigh anchor. An' that's all I've got to palaver about. If it's a 
 bargain for the voyage, I'm aboord ; if not, only say the word, 
 an' I'm off on the ould course — eh, my ould frigate ?" 
 
 Again, Mrs. Moore wot not what to say, for again she wot not 
 
52 THE BIT O' WKITIN'. 
 
 what had been said to her. She believed, however, that not- 
 withstanding the pumping she had undergone, she was still called 
 on to manifest great content and satisfaction. So, as the best 
 thing to be thought of, she bobbed many curtsies. But, again, 
 Murty Meehan considerately acted as interpreter between her and 
 what he was pleased to call, in his own pride of knowledge of the 
 English language, the " say-gibberish" of his friend. 
 
 '* It's what he's demandin' of you now, mother, is— would you 
 be plaised wid him, goold an' all, for a husband for the colleen ?'' 
 
 " An' troth, an' why not ? An' sure we'll do our endayvour to 
 make the place an' the house agreeable an' comfortable to him, an' 
 to any friend of his," she replied; "paice and plenty widin an' 
 widout, laucky times, an' happiness galore.^'' 
 
 '• But mind, misthress — mind one thing. Sayman's allowance 
 of grog, an' no stintin'." 
 
 Murty promised there would be no stint : he was supported, 
 upon explanation, by Mrs. Moore ; and matters being so far under- 
 stood, Terence again " spliced timbers" with the ould frigate, and 
 a second time wrought so hard that, in order to conceal her real 
 feelings, she forced herself into an affected burst of laughter, while 
 the sourness of her aspect plainly denoted that a hearty fit of cry- 
 ing would have more honestly expressed her sensations, and the 
 state of her temper. 
 
 "Sink my hulk to ould Davy!" then bellowed the Admiral, 
 " Where's the little craft I'm to join company with ? Ahoy, 
 there !" as he discovered Moya in her dark corner ; " alongside 
 here! alongside, my little schooner!" and he seized her hand, 
 and tug'ged her into the middle of the apartment. " What cheer, 
 now, what cheer ? eh ? scuttle me but her canvass shivers in the 
 breeze. But cheer up, cheer up ; 'twill right soon — eh ? Shiver 
 my timbers, but you are a thrim little vessel — prize for an Ad- 
 miral. And if the ould jolly boy doesn't fight, broadside to 
 broadside, for you, against any seventy-four that ever swum, may 
 he be sent undher hatches for a skulker ! A buss, my little hearty, 
 an' all's settled." And before the terrified Moya could recede 
 from his advance, he snatched the favour he had proposed. " My 
 hulk to splinters, shipmate !" addressing Murty Meehan, " but 
 she's a well-built little vessel^ — ain't she ? Lookee ; painted, pin- 
 nace-like, d'ye see me, and right well rigged from stem so stern. 
 Don't you shiver so, my hearty ; cheer up, I say. I never knew 
 a land-jack that war'n't afeard o' salt wather, at the settin' out ; 
 but you'll not be long before the wind till you bear a hand bravely ; 
 
r 
 
 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 53 
 
 I know it — so cheer up." The old Admiral again saluted his 
 bride ! and Moja, then pulling herself somewhat free of his gripe, 
 retreated to her corner. 
 
 Her mother next boarded the seaman, engaging him in a dis- 
 cussion of all her plans of improvement and management in the 
 house and on the farm. For a short time he listened to her with 
 some little seeming attention; but, fatigued with her "jaw," sud- 
 denly bounced off his seat, told her that he left the whole business 
 of the outfit to his shipmate and herself, snatched a parting hon- 
 louche from his little pinnace, and scudded away, full before the 
 wind. 
 
 Terence felt perfectly satisfied with the state of affairs. All was 
 now settled, and so no more talk about it. Mrs. Moore could not 
 be smoother nor kinder. Moya seemed shy, to be sure ; but, as he 
 had intimated to her, so were, according to his recollections and 
 experience, all fresh- water jacks at the first sight of the sea. She 
 had not repulsed him — she had not said "" No." And, seeing that 
 she was gifted with a tongue in her head, such must have been the 
 case did she really dislike the proposed "cruise in company." On 
 board the old Saint Vincent, all his life long, his shipmates and he 
 had always spoken their minds honestly to each other, and he had no 
 other rule of judging of people's opinions, and he would have none. 
 No meant no, and yes meant yes ; or, what was even better, for it 
 saved jaw, if you asked a " shipmit" will you ? and he said neither 
 yes nor no, but just held his tongue, and at the same time did not 
 knock you down, or give any similar indication of dissent, why you 
 had an answer much plainer than all the languages in the world 
 could convey it, to the effect of — " To be sure I will." So that 
 our honest Admiral left the Widow Moore's " ould ship," experienc- 
 ing pretty nearly the same sensations he used to feel, when about 
 to make a fresh cruise, after riding some time at anchor — careless 
 and hearty, and his spirits up, from an undefined hope of something 
 novel about to happen to him. 
 
 How often, with the best intentions in the world, do the best 
 people in the world go near to break the hearts of the unhappy, in 
 an endeavour to do them good ! 
 
 And why? 
 
 Because they don't, or won't, or can't understand. 
 
 And ah ! that little word " won't," contains matter for chapters 
 upon the curious and contemptible compound of our nature, take it, 
 upon the average, at its best- 
 
 k 
 
 But — " to the Deuce with your sentiment." 
 
 With all our heart. Don't be afraid, " gentle reader." 
 
54 THE BIT WRITIN . 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The news of the intended nuptials soon spread abroad, and, 
 among the guests selected by Mrs. Moore on the occasion, great pre- 
 parations ensued to grace tlie widow's roof upon the appointed day. 
 Under that roof itself a still greater bustle went on, to do honour 
 to her invitations. Before the arrival of the priest there is some- 
 thing to be noticed. 
 
 The high-road leading to the principal country town, ran at the 
 distance of about a mile at right- angles with the front of the Widow 
 Moore's dwelling. From it a horlieen, or narrow way, diverged, and 
 took a circuitous route towards the humble abode, and, by a branch- 
 track, communicated directly w^ith its threshold. Along this route 
 horses and carts, or — as the primitive machines which then substi- 
 tuted carts were called — cars, could journey to and from market. 
 But pedestrians chose a shorter cut to the main road, as well from 
 her house as from other solitary dwellings near her. 
 
 Upon the night when she first became informed of Terence 
 O'Brien's proposal of marriage, Moya Moore, as we are aware, ran 
 down from her mother's door to the side of a little stream, there to 
 vent her feeling in solitude. This stream, having its source among 
 high hills in the recesses of the country, had, before Moya arrived 
 at its banks on that spot, passed close by Murty Meehan's cabin, 
 about half a mile up from her, and continued to flow on from her 
 feet to the high-road already spoken of, which it crossed ; thence 
 pursuing its course to the river, with which it soon became con- 
 founded. While sketching, at the opening of our story, Murty 
 Meehan's residence, and its surrounding features, we believe we 
 hinted that the tiny rivulet ran a very zigzag race near to his thresh- 
 old. We have now to say that it did the same tiling all the way it had 
 to run, its abberrations being caused by the nature of the ground 
 through which, like a dog on a scent, it seemed to nose its way. 
 At every twisty it was almost shut up among puzzling inequalities, 
 in one little solitude or another, from all sight of whence it had 
 come, or whither it was to go. Now the little active stream found 
 itself safely rippling over smooth sand or pebbles, then among sink- 
 ings or swellings of cultivated fields ; now stealing amid rushes, 
 dock-leaves, and sedge — through lumpish land, neglected or na- 
 turally barren ; and anon it chafed, and beaded, and sometimes 
 grew important enough to foam through a jumbled group of rocks 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 55 
 
 and stones, great and small, doing its best to escape from the fast- 
 ness. Yet, crooked as was the line along its erJges to the high-road, 
 foot-passengers, thither bound from Mrs. Moore's abode, or from 
 the residences of her neighbours, chose it in preference to the cart- 
 way already described, for no other reason, that we could ever dis- 
 cover, except that they deemed it the pleasanter. 
 
 At the point where a dislocated row of stepping-stones afforded 
 a crossing from the foot-path at one side of the brook to the opposite 
 one, Moya Moore sat down on the night we have mentioned ; and on 
 the next night, and the next ; her hot tears still making bubbles, 
 like blisters, upon the surface of the clouded water. Girls of all 
 degrees are, we are told, timid ; and those of Moya's class in life 
 saperstitiously so. It is, therefore, remarkable that in so often fre- 
 quenting this lonely place, at such late hours, she did not feel un- 
 easy under the influence of its character, nor yet on account of a 
 tirae-out-of-mind story, of which it was the scene. 
 
 A story ! — yes — ^an old and a terrible story ! We cannot help 
 it, but had better recount it in as few words as possible. 
 
 The rising ground to Moya's back, as she sat, was called "Lacken- 
 na-Monh," or " the Woman's Hill." Opposite to her, at the 
 other side of the stream, just where the pedestrian from the high- 
 road should begin to cross it on his near approach to her mother's 
 house, arose a huge rock of granite, streaked in a kind of deep dim 
 colour, with a figure something like a cross. From a murdered 
 maiden had the hill been named : at the foot of the rock she had 
 been found dead and stiff; and the cross had been made four gene- 
 rations ago (though no weather could since erase it) with her blood. 
 The unhappy girl had loved, in secret, a stranger. He prevailed 
 on her to leave her father's home with him — she engaged to rifle, 
 beforehand, for his advantage, her father's coffers ; she kept both 
 her promises but too well. He watched for her at night, by appoint- 
 ment. On her progress to him, after her elopement from her hitherto 
 innocent dwelling, he saw her steal down the Lacken-na-Monh to 
 the stepping-stones ; he received her with extended arms : after 
 crossing the stones he led her under the ominous shadow of the 
 pile of granite, ascertained that she came freighted with the 
 expected booty, struck her down, followed up the blows till he had 
 killed her, and then escaped with his prize. For all along the vil- 
 lain had not in the slightest degree responded to her guilty love. 
 At her father's gold alone he had aimed ; now, that gold in his 
 clutch, he did not want her to encumber him, or to help him to 
 spend it. 
 
56 THE BIT WRITIN . 
 
 Such was the well-accredited story connected with Moya Moore's 
 chosen nook of solitary sorrow. Yet, as we have noticed, it had 
 not the effect of keeping her away, under her mother's roof, or even 
 of sending her to spend her hours elsewhere out of doors. Though 
 respectable authorities added to the horrors of the tale we have 
 glanced at, by asserting that very often, under the clouds of the 
 night, the spirit of the murdered girl might be heard shrieking ter- 
 rifically over and around the place, and sometimes seen, too, exag- 
 gerated to an unearthly size, and draped in white, upon the top, 
 or at the base of the desecrated rock. Still, all this seemed to 
 make no disagreeable impression on Moya. Or if, during her repeated 
 visits to the haunted and unholy ground, natural fear did come 
 over her recollections, either she was too much engrossed with her 
 own grief to care about anything further that might happen to her, 
 or she had some particular reason for braving the terrors of the 
 spot. We believe both feelings combined to shape her conduct. 
 
 At all events, upon the third night preceding that appointed for 
 her marriage with the old Admiral, Moya Moore was again sitting 
 at her own edge of the stream, opposite to the " stone of the bloody 
 cross." A smart breeze whisiled along the brook, and eddied, at 
 her back, against the " Lacken-na-Monh" The stars were now 
 hidden by stormy clouds, and now shone free of the obstruction. 
 But, on this occasion, Moya need not have given way, as much as 
 upon former nights, to supernatural terrors, for she did not sit 
 alone at the stepping-stones. 
 
 Her companion was a very young man, athletic and comely : but 
 whatever might be the character of his brow, as stamped naturally 
 by his disposition, it was now dark and wrinkled. When he spoke, 
 his accents were sometimes vehement ; sometimes they sank into 
 a cadence of despairing entreaty. Moya's voice, in reply to him, 
 was invariably heart-broken and wailing, and often interrupted by 
 fcobs. In his right hand he grasped her right hand, his left arm 
 encircled her waist tightly. Often, in moments of excessive grief, 
 the girl allowed her head to fall on his shoulder. 
 
 " No, no, I cannot pass the sthrame with you," she said, " nor 
 stay out from my mother, even where we are, any longer. 'Twas 
 a wrong thing for me to come to meet you, at all ; for 'lis sorer to 
 part than I thought it would be." 
 
 «• Don't forsake me, Moya," groaned the young man. " Don't, 
 for the Saviour's sake." 
 
 '^ Never lay the blame to me, gorsoon — Oh ! would T, would I 
 forsake you, if I could help it ?" 
 
THE BIT WRITIN . 57 
 
 *Moya, if you loved me 1 am ill, Moya, some way, I don't 
 
 know how, an' I can spake but a few words to you at a time 
 
 if you loved me — if ever you loved me, you would surely help it, 
 Moya." 
 
 '• An' never say that to me, my poor gorsoon, of all words out of 
 your mouth. Love you ! — och, you have no rason to say it. God, 
 who hears my prayers and sees the heart, knows you have not. 
 Feel Moya's heart, this moment, ma houchaleen* — 'tis heavy — 
 heavy ; heavy like a lump o' lead ; broke, I believe — broke, I 
 hope — I hope ! An' the sleep never falls on my eyes the night 
 long : whenever I am in the bed, I sit up in it, cryin'." 
 
 "- Moya, ma-cuishla, we w^on't part — we won't go from one an- 
 other " 
 
 '• Och, the sorrow is on my heart to know that the time for partiu' 
 has come !" 
 
 " No, no, Moya ! no — it would be a desthruction to both of us.' 
 
 " I know it will be the desthruction of one of us, at any rate. 
 Listen to me well, my own bouchal ; I'm thryin' to get ready 
 to laive the world. There's somethin' tells me that I won't live 
 out the night that takes me from you ;- — that the next mornin's 
 breakiu' will look down on the corpse o' Moya Moore !" 
 
 " An' you tell me to quit your side, Moya, in the same breath 
 that tells me that ! you love me as well as that, an' you bid me 
 laive you ! Cuishla, i'd give up house an' home, kith an" kin, 
 land an' goold, if land an' goold were mine, for you,''^ 
 
 " An' I'd do the same for you, my poor gorsoon, if so doin' only 
 concerned myself in this world, an' laid up no evil for me in the 
 next. But I wouldn't break the ould mother's heart, and airn her 
 dyin' curse." 
 
 " Och, my own colleen ! what is to become of us, then ? Moya, 
 Moya, the love is on my heart for you ever since we were little 
 childer, goin' to the school together ! an' now 1 see that you're in 
 want o' the pity as mooch as mysef !" 
 
 " I remember the time you spake of, well. There was a day 
 that I climbed up an' spilt the masther's ink, an' you took the 
 blame on yoursef, widout my knowin' it, an' you never cried when 
 they punished you; but suffered like a stout little man for my sake. 
 An' I call to mind when we used to come home together of an 
 evening, an' when the rain would be fallin', you'd take off your 
 coat to cover me, an' walk In the peltin' shower widout a tack to 
 
 * Little boy. 
 
58 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 shelter jon from it. An' I remember the slngla' birds you'd bring me, 
 and the nosegays you'd pull for me. Avoch ! I remember every- 
 thing — up to the very May-mornin' when you tould me I was your 
 own cuishla-gal-machree. An' if I was the misthress of a coach- 
 an'-six to-night, not the weeuiest word or deed that ever passed 
 between us, could Moya forget, my poor bouchal bawn." 
 
 " An,' afther all, Moya, you talk of goin' from me ?" One only 
 idea was at present in the lad's mind, that one expressed, with but 
 little variation of words, every time he spoke. 
 
 ** I'm goin' from you into the grave — but then I'll die free of 
 my mother's death, an' of my mother's curse, an' maybe God will 
 give me a comfort in the life to come. What grieves me most of 
 all at present, is the knowledge that I must laive you broken- 
 hearted too, for your poor Moya." 
 
 " Moya," he said, trembling, while she wept and sobbed in his 
 arms, " if things are to turn out that way, God's heavy curse on 
 my heart, if it does not break !" His tears now flowed fast with 
 hers. She started, sat erect, and looked across the stepping-stones. 
 
 " What is it ?" he asked 
 
 " Did you see nothing over the sthrame ?" He answered " No." 
 ** Not hear any noise? But there's no one to be seen novr, an' 
 nothin' to be heard but the whistlin' wind an' the runnin' wather — 
 
 an' sure I was only puttin' foolish things into my own mind '' 
 
 Again her head rested on his shoulder, as, amid tears and sobs, 
 scarcely lessened or interrupted by her momentary fright, she 
 Ettered, in a very low voice, the young man's name : and when he 
 replied, she went on. 
 
 " You know the berrin'-place of my unfortunate people, my poor 
 gorsoon ? Yes, you do — only you'll know it betther when you 
 follow another coffin there. I remember well you walked afther 
 my father's, and afther my two brothers' coffins, to it. So you'll 
 come there of a Sunday ; an' you'll kneel down, bareheaded, on a 
 new-made grave, an' " 
 
 ** Caishla ! cuishla! stop them words — I won't listen to them! An' 
 I won't part you, neither ! I can't part you ! never will I part you ! 
 My father is poor, and has nothing to give me ; but I'm an able 
 boy ; I can ^o through a day's work with any other that ever held 
 a plough. I'll take a bit o' ground ; I'll dig on it ; we'll build a 
 little cabin on it. I'll labour in our little garden afther the day's 
 work for the farmers, and afore the day's work — afore the sun rises, 
 an' long afther the sun goes down. An' I'll work so well for others, 
 as well as for you, that the rich farmers will come to seek me out, 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 59 
 
 and to hire me. Til keep up your mother an' yourself. An' if 
 there's a fort'n to be made on Ireland's ground, or a penny, I'll 
 earn it for my colleen. We'll be happy together ; happy, though 
 not very rich. But to part from you ! Sittin' here wid you .to- 
 night, an' my arms about you — to talk of partin' from you ! Moya, 
 I say again, we'll never part." 
 
 '' Avoch ! many's the time my own thoughts an' my own heart 
 brought before me the bit o' land, an' the little cabin, an' the little 
 garden, an' everything you spake of — ay, an' more, I seen my own 
 self helpin' you in the garden, or makin' or mendin' for you at the 
 cabin dour ; or busy about the floor, inside, to be ready for your 
 comin' home in the evening. But it was all a dhrame ! an empty 
 dhrame, though a very happy one ! As empty as the wind that 
 whistles on the hill behind us, an' as unthrue as that the stars are 
 dancin' in that wather, though that seems thrue enough too. No, 
 bouchaleen. The mother's curse, an' the mother's grave rises be- 
 tween us, an' opens between us ! We are parted for ever in this 
 world — an' may God help us both !" 
 
 " I say no, still, Moya ! no no ! do you listen to me now. We 
 are promised to one another in the holy Name, an' nobody on earth 
 has the right to stand between us !" • 
 
 " Is it the anger is comin' upon you, bouchal-bawu ?'' she asked. 
 
 His looks and accents, as well as his words, told that a change 
 began to work within him. 
 
 '' An' why shouldn't the anger come on me, if it did come ? — 
 Why should your mother desthroy us both for the sake of a waste- 
 ful dinner or a new gownd, or a curtshy an' a ' God save you, 
 ma'am ?' — Us — two young people in the mornin' of our days — 
 long life an' many hopes before us! — Cover my Moya undher the 
 sod o' the grave, and send me — if I didn't soon lie by her side — 
 send me, a mad creature, over the face o' the earth, killin', I believe, 
 any live thing that would stand up afore me. By the night that's 
 above our heads, I'll not go from you, Moya ! There's no one, I 
 say, has the right over you but myself, an' I hould you close — an' 
 I will hould you close !" 
 
 " Och, bouchal ma-chree ! don't say them cross words to me, 
 an' don't press me so hard — Would you hurt me, as well as frighten 
 me, now ? — Take away your hands, an' let me be goin' home to 
 my mother, in the name o' God." 
 
 " Home you'll not go, Moya — never !" 
 
 Still holding her in his arms, he suddenly started up with the 
 terrified girl, bore her rapidly across the stepping-stone«, laid her 
 at the base of the granite rock, and cast himself by her side. 
 
60 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 " What did you bring me here for, ma bouchal ?" she whispered, 
 standing up, as well as she was able, after a shrinking glance 
 around, which informed her where she was. He did not answer ; 
 but she saw him turn upon his breast, and cover his face with his 
 hands, while his limbs shook, and sounds of great passion escaped 
 him. Ay, the master-fit was upon him. " Now, my poor boy, 
 you frighten me more and more — the good night to you, for I 
 must " 
 
 He again interrupted her, starting up to her side, and clasping 
 her wildly — "No, Moya, no ; — not the good night ! — no, no !" — 
 And amid showering tears and choking sobs, he impressed upon her 
 lips and cheeks kiss after kiss, in rapid succession. Moya was un- 
 able to struggle against his strength and blind impetuosity. 
 
 " Free me," she could only say, in a low voice, " free me ; an' 
 tell me, I ask you again, why have you brought me to this evil spot?' 
 
 His paroxysm grew less : now, in his turn, his head fell on her 
 shoulder ; and, though he still held her, his grasp relaxed, as he at 
 length answered—"! don't know why, Moya: I can't tell you 
 why ; it has gone out of my mind, I believe, if ever it was in it. 
 Or I brought you here only to bring you somewhere — no matter 
 where — with me, may be — ^yes, that's the truth." 
 
 " Let us quit it, then. 'Twas here Nora Grace lost her life. An' 
 they say that when two thrue lovers stand together near this stone, 
 in the night time, bad fortune is in thq, path of one o' tbjem, or 
 both o' them — come." 
 
 " Yes, so they say. An' we are two thrue lovers — ^an' we are 
 stannin' near the stone — an' the sayin' will turn out to be a right 
 sayin', if you don't hindher it, Moya." 
 
 *' Silence ensued, while, in the imperfect light, she endeavoured 
 to read the meaning of the young man's features. " Moya," he 
 resumed, in a broken hoarse tone. 
 
 " What is it ?" she asked, ill at ease, and speaking with difficulty. 
 
 " Will you come your ways with me, and be my own Moya ?" 
 
 " Where with you, bouchaleen ? where could we go together ?" 
 
 ** Anywhere that gives our heads a shelter — there can be love 
 anywhere." 
 
 " bouchal, bouchal ! you will let me home to the poor ould 
 mother, an' heaven will have a blessin' in store for you." 
 
 " I give you the warnin', Moya. Don't say the no to me, this 
 night." 
 
 " An' well you know I wouldn't, cuishla, if the mother's death 
 an' the mother's curse were not in our road afore us !" 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 61 
 
 " Moya, you must, or ' 
 
 " Or what ? — why do you stop ? Is it hurt or harm you'd put 
 on your own poor Moya ?" 
 
 " No !" he roared out, stamping on the sward. " No ! — there! — 
 I free you ! — I take my arms from around you ! Go your ways, 
 now, to your mother, if you like ! — only listen to me first. Listen 
 
 well to me. By the cross o' blood on this stone " He was 
 
 stepping closer to the rock, his hand raised. 
 
 Moya interrupted his words, crying loudly, "Don't lay your 
 hand on it, to swear by it ! — don't touch it !" 
 
 " By the cross o' blood on this stone," he repeated, slapping his 
 palm against it so smartly that the little solitude rang to the sound 
 he produced by the action. 
 
 Moya flew after him, tore away his hand, flung herself on his 
 neck, and, after glancing round her, much terrified, and in great 
 apprehension, whispered, " An oath was swore, afore now, on that 
 cross, an' the man that swore it was forced to keep it ! It became 
 his fate to keep it, though he grew sorry for takin' it, and wanted 
 not to do what it bound him to do ! So don't do it, bouchal-bawn, 
 don't swear the oath, but come out of this unlucky place, at this un- 
 lucky hour. Come, we'll talk more goin' back the way towards 
 the house — come, a-grawgal machree ! 
 
 She saluted his cheek entreatingly. But her moody lover was 
 not to be shaken, in his present purpose at least. He swore the oath. 
 A certain terror-moving ballad had been, if we remember aright, 
 written about the time of which we speak, but was certainly un- 
 known to the rustic lad ; and yet his oath contained a threat very 
 similar to that used by " a warrior so bold" to " a virgin so bright." 
 " By that cross," said he, " I swear that if you marry any man but 
 me, Moya Moore, I will take my own life on the sod where we 
 stand ; and if ever a departed soul came back to this world, I swear 
 that my ghost will be seen at your wedding-supper. That's my 
 oath ; and half of it I'll keep, as sure as the stars are twinklin' 
 above us, and the other half too, if I can." 
 
 " The Lord preserve us !" said Moya. " bouchal, yon know 
 that a bad spirit has power in this place, an' now hears your oath." 
 
 " Then let the bad spirit be a witness for me." 
 
 The young man yelled aloud this raving speech, and as fearful 
 a yell as his own replied to him ; while, to one side of the granite 
 rock appeared, elevated from the ground, a whitish form vaguely 
 resembling the human shape, but, toMoya's terrified glance, waver- 
 
/ THE BIT O' WKITIN'. 
 
 /g, as if it were disjointed — nay, as she afterwards averred, head- 
 less, and 
 
 *' Was so thin and transparent to view, 
 
 You might have seen the moon shine through." 
 
 Moja instantly disengaged herself from her lover, and with a 
 shriek, which produced a second yell all around her and above her, 
 darted across the stepping-stones of the stream, ran up the Lacken- 
 na-monh, gained her mother's door, burst it open, and, one step 
 beyond its threshold, fainted, and sank down, '^ a weary weight." 
 It was not of her lover she was then afraid — nay, in her wild race, 
 she did not even think of him. And he, daring as had hitherto 
 been his words towards the '' bad spirit," and all-engrossed as he 
 had seemed with the idea of losing his mistress, became, even 
 sooner than Moya, a victim to his unspeakable fears, falling the in- 
 stant she left his side, senseless and motionless at the base of the 
 " Rock of the Bloody Cross." 
 
 And now we have placed ourselves in a dilemma which produces 
 some fear, though not of the ghost, for ourselves. Be lenient to us, 
 gentlest of readers ! while, in the next chapter, we afford our- 
 selves breathing time, to deprecate thy offended dignity. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Dearest reader, there was But how can we bring ourselves 
 
 to say the words? to shape them so as that the avowal they must 
 contain shall meet thy severe eye in the form best calculated to 
 win thy forgiveness ? 
 
 Hast thou ever, when a school-boy, been called in from the play- 
 ground to account, before thy master's face, for some abominable 
 act of riotousness, observed by him while haply taking his break- 
 fast at a — by thee — forgotten window ? In similar feelings to 
 those thou mayest have experienced on such an occasion, do we 
 
 now hang down our head before thee . And yet, dearest reader, 
 
 why should we hang down our head ? Thou mayest complain, 
 doubtless, when the murder is out — as out it must surely come- 
 that we have been guilty of an unwarrantable imposition upon thy 
 good sense, or have descended into clap-trap to produce, for an 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'- 63 
 
 instant, " a thrilling interest," or brought so closely together the 
 extremes of the pathos and the bathos, or of the picturesque and 
 the burlesque, or of the plausible and the ridiculous, that the con- 
 tact is insufferable — is — in one damning word, is " in bad tasie." 
 Some of this, or all of this, thou mayest say ; but could we have 
 avoided the plain truth, for the mere purpose of writing on, accord- 
 ing to the best approved rules of poetical propriety ? That is our 
 first point of defence. Our next is a solemn declaration that we 
 never intended to impose on your sense, good, bad, or indifferent, 
 as it may be, but merely to give you a faithful account, just as we 
 got it ourselves, of how poor little Moya Moore and her athletic 
 lover were imposed upon, in a state of feeling which left them^ at 
 least, few claims, for the time, to sense or rationality of any kind. 
 Thirdly, we plead an inherent, hearty, healthy, abhorrence of clap- 
 trap. Fourthly, we beg to ask thee, do not such extremes as thou 
 wouldst object to, sometimes, nay often, meet, in the quick succes- 
 sion and incongruous linking together of the most real events of this 
 strange life. Hast thou never known pathos whine itself down inio 
 a provocation to its own laughter ? or the absurd, in some curious, 
 whimsical, arabesque way, dovetail itself, in any instance, with the 
 awful ? 
 
 For our own parts, we know of an elopement which, had it taken 
 place, must have left to the world's pity — that is, scorn — a father 
 and his six legal sons and daughters — hindred, and for ever hushed 
 up, by a noise heard by the lady in her dressing-room, as she Avas 
 putting on her bonnet, in the dark, to steal down the back stairs, 
 because she believed it to be a supernatural noise — a warning, sent 
 to waken her conscience, (or else her husband :) and it proved, 
 after all, to be caused only by a mouse gnawing at her rouge-box. 
 We know of another proposed elopement — a less improper one — 
 one, in fact, between two devoted lovers, also frustrated by the 
 sudden appearance in their path of a very harmless poor fellow, 
 Billy Taylor by name, who could never have dreamed of intercept- 
 ing them or pursuing them ; but who was so generally voted a 
 pest in conversation, that appear wherever or whenever he did, 
 merely in the hope of addressing a word to his fellow creatures, 
 the established usage was lor all who saw him approach to turn 
 their backs, and crying out, '' But here's Billy Taylor !" run away 
 from him. And so it happened in the case of the lovers we speak 
 of; they, too, fled from Billy, retracing a good portion of the road 
 they had come from the house of the lady's father to their carriage, 
 until they ran plump against that very latter named gentleman, so 
 
Pt THE BIT WRITIN . 
 
 that the lady was taken home again, and locked up. Nay — we 
 have heard of a downright murderer frightened away from his vic- 
 tim's throat by the entrance on the midnight scene of a witness in 
 the shape only of a little black terrier. But why, dearest reader, 
 overpower thee with pleas of extenuation of the admission we are 
 about to make ? To the following instance of a running-in upon 
 one another, and blurring together of the very distinct lines of 
 solemn and absurd, we were witnesses. 
 
 Late upon a winter's evening, a maiden lady was alluding, in her 
 niece's presence, as well as ours, to an early attachment, gloomed 
 for ever by the death of her lover. After his death, his spirit ap- 
 peared to her, and she went on, bringing before us, with much 
 effect, the appalling circumstance, when suddenly her nervous 
 niece, strangely — aud for ourselves laughably, though for herself, 
 painfully excited — suddenly sprang from her chair, just at the 
 spirit's appearance, and with a sharp, and, we thought, spiteful 
 tap of her extended palm, broke the spectacles on her aunt's re- 
 spected nose into shivers. 
 
 And so, dearest reader, hoping to have now prepared thee, some- 
 how or other — though we are not sure exactly how — mercifully to 
 hear us, we at length venture to say out in full 
 
 There was no apparition of a murdered maiden at the granite 
 rock. 
 
 True, we have asserted that the impertinent thing 
 
 * * Was so thin and transparent to view, 
 
 You might have seen the moon shine through.,' 
 
 And so you might — (that is, had the moon been in the sky,) — and 
 no wonder, when, after Moya had fled, and her cowardly compa- 
 nion had dropped senseless at the sight, old Terence O'Brien moved 
 two or three paces from the rock's side, and stood over the latter, 
 still yelling, and waving on the top of his stick a new white muslin 
 dress, which he had gone to the market-town to purchase for Moya, 
 and which he meant her to wear on her marriage-day. And — 
 " Ahoy !" still bellowed Terence, stirring with his foot his pros- 
 trate rival — '^ Ahoy, you loober ! take a white saymew in the 
 offing, for a seventy-four ? but you're only fit to be a parley- woo, 
 an' not a heart-o'-oak British sayman ! An', shiver my hulk, but 
 'tis to ould Davy he's gone, sure enough, I believe !" 
 
 He again stirred the lad, and soon saw him jump up, however ; 
 and then ensued some stormy discourse between them. 
 
 i 
 
THE BIT O' WKITIN'. 65 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The wedding evening came, with all its guests, and all its bustle 
 of preparation to receive them. There were flesh-pots boiling, and 
 spits turning, and servants and helpers, hired and volunteers, toil- 
 ing before the great fires, at the pots and at the spits. Everything 
 and everybody under the superintendence of the Widow Moore, now 
 fully reinstated in her former responsibility and importance of 
 character. In the little parlour, alone, two pipers blew away in 
 rivalry, until the perspiration teemed from their foreheads ; while, 
 at some distance, in the barn or banquet-hall, three other professors 
 of the same musical instrument surpassed them, if possible, in zeal 
 nnd melody. And parlour and barn were crowded with youthful 
 f isitors, footing it heartily to their strains, while the elderly and 
 the old looked on. It seemed as if the national sport, pursued to 
 its utmost, were to give a keener appetite for the viands in prepara- 
 tion for supper. 
 
 It is etiquette at bridals such as the present one in Ireland, that 
 if the bridegroom does not happen to be, by nature; a very shame- 
 faced, modest person, he should do all in his power to enact that 
 character — to 
 
 " Assume a virtue if he have it not." 
 
 In fact, he ought not, and in all proper respectable cases he does 
 not, make his appearance before the overwhelming crowd of com- 
 pany, until the wedding-feast is dispatched, the bride-cake cut 
 up, and the very ceremony, which cannot well dispense with him, 
 waiting his presence. 
 
 All this had Murty Meehan earnestly and often represented to his 
 friend, Terence O'Brien, but w^ith little effect. The ould Admiral, 
 y\ ith one of his usual oaths, swore that he was " commodore aboard," 
 and his deck he would walk, fore and aft, to see that all was trim 
 and tight, and ready for action, upon the eve of so momentous an 
 engagement. So here and there and everywhere he pushed and 
 strided among his guests, or, as he called them "his crew," com- 
 manding and ordering — few of his orders understood, by the way — 
 as if he had indeed received an admiralty-commission to bandy 
 them about. And Terence w^as met upon all hands with large and 
 good-natured allowances for his departure from the more "christhen- 
 like" usage of bridegrooms, his ocean-life and habits being generally 
 
 F 
 
66 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 taken into consideration ; while among every group, and in every 
 corner, his outlandish phraseology occasioned infinite mirth. He, 
 in turn, took the laughter of his crew in good parr, excusing its 
 want of discipline, and of respect to a commander, because of 
 the " jovialthry" of the occasion ; and it was only with a pleasant 
 bluffness that he threatened to " mast-head," or to put them all into 
 bilboes. 
 
 Terence was, above every thing, delighted with the great ranges 
 of tables in the barn, when they became properly freighted with 
 the great, the enormous heaps of food, which they were just 
 able, and no more, to support. When all was ready, the ould Ad- 
 miral placed one of his pipers on a barrel, at the head of the feast, 
 dubbed him boatswain, and commanded him to pipe all hand^j 
 on deck, instructing him to use no variety of notes on the occasion, 
 but keep up one unbroken monotonous scream, until the guests had 
 taken their places. 
 
 If, as we have noticed is customary, the bridegroom at an Irish 
 country wedding is expected to demean himself modestly, much 
 more, with the exception of absence from the banquet, is anticipated 
 of the bride. Retiring, silent, passive, abstracted, and, in consi- 
 deration of her approaching separation from her parent?, or other 
 friends, somewhat sorrowful she must be. And, at these nuptials, 
 retiring, silent, passive, abstracted, and sorrowful, was Moya Moore; 
 and sometimes more besides. Her abstraction seemed a wandering 
 of her mind in mazes of terror ; her sorrow a stupified despair. 
 From the continued expostulations of her bridesmaids, and even of 
 her mother, she vaguely conceived that it was expected she should 
 now and then smile ; but when she made an effort to do so, iier 
 smile was dreary and chilling, and inspired no answering one 
 on the countenances of those who beheld it. Unquestioned, Moya 
 scarce spoke at all ; and her replies to repeated interrogatories were 
 abrupt, unmeaning, and from the point. 
 
 It became necessary that she should take her place beside the 
 priest at the festive board ; her bridesmaid was obliged to lead her 
 out of a corner where she seemed to have become torpid. And 
 though she sat, without resistance, at the clergyman's right hand, 
 it might be seen that she sat without consciousness also. 
 
 The supper went on. Moya looked around her, and, for the 
 first time since she had entered the barn, became fully aware 
 that it was a wedding-feast she saw, and that the guests were come. 
 She turned suddenly to her left, fixed her eyes on the clergyman, 
 and gazed at him for some time wildly, and in terror. But a slight 
 
THE BIT WKITIN'. 67 
 
 relief seemed to steal over her when she was able properly to call 
 to mind the person whom she regarded. Then, in renewed appre- 
 hensions, she turned to the individual at her right; and again re- 
 cognising in that of her bridesmaid a face different from the one 
 she feared to behold, partial composure calmed her brow. 
 
 Still, however, as if in the almost unallayed appehension of dis- 
 covering a dreadful object, her glance roved from one to another of 
 the guests ranged at the different tables, while her breath came 
 short and loud, her bosom panted, and her features worked. To 
 «verj question now addressed to her she answered, hastily, ** Yes — 
 yes." And when, imputing to her maidenly feelings alone all this 
 absence of manner, the loud laugh arose at her expense, she would 
 sometimes echo it in a manner so hysterical that the mirthful be- 
 came chided and silent. 
 
 Her plate remained untouched before her : she was pressed to eat: 
 whispering " Thankee, thankee," she snatched up a knife and fork, 
 ind put a morsel to her mouth — bat it fell untasted from her lips, 
 as she agaia scrutinized the features of those around her and near her. 
 
 Her allotted husband, while seemingly fill engrossed in his atten- 
 tions to his crew, had kept his eye on Moya, Now he came be- 
 hind her unperceived, and laid his hand heavily on her shoulder. 
 Without turning to regard him, Moya suddenly put her palms over 
 her eyes, and shrieked so piercingly, that the-roof-tree of the barn 
 sung to the sound; then she hid her face in her bridesmaid's bosom, 
 and clung to ker in a paroxysm of terror. The guests, after vainly 
 glancing here and there to discover some cause for agitation, ex- 
 changed looks and whispers with one another; and, for a moment, 
 it was th« opinion that Moya Moore was about to become a wife 
 against the wish of her heart,. 
 
 " Shiver my hulk to splinthers !" cried the Admiral, in explana- 
 tion ; " the little pinnace is afraid o' the sarvice. But no matther 
 for that; once launched, d'je see me, the'il scud, sthramers mast- 
 high." 
 
 And the former general surmise now seemed banished by the 
 seaman's words, or else was soon forgotten in the resumed gratifica- 
 tion of palate and stomach. 
 
 The wedding-feast was over — the grace was said — the bride- 
 cake was cut up by the priest ; he then put on his stole, opened 
 his book, and stood up; all arising with him to yield grave atten- 
 tion to the marriage ceremony. 
 
 Her bridesmaid led the pallid, shivering bride closer to the clergy- 
 man. The poor girl went pausing at every step, and feeling the. 
 
m THE BIT O' WRITINV 
 
 grouDil with her feet, as if bhe were blind. Yet her eyes were dis- 
 tended beyond their usual compass. In fact, just as she suffered 
 herself to be conducted from the table, her former unexplained 
 terrors seemed to have become tenfold confirmed upon her, and now 
 possessed her to extremity. At every unconscious move towards 
 the clergyman, she glared — her head turned over her shoulder — 
 towards the remote and half-lighted end of the barn ; and although 
 her young companion held her arm, one of Moya's fingers pointed 
 in the direction of her look. The priest spoke to her. Without 
 turning her eyes to him, she waved her arm as if she would silence the 
 sound of his voice, or direct his attention to whatever it was which 
 so strangely absorbed her own. 
 
 " The name, sir ? the name ?" she said, when the priest demanded 
 her own name, *' Terence — Terence O'Brien 1" in a voiee of exces- 
 sive fright and alarm. 
 
 " Not yet, my good young friend," half-smiled the good-humoured 
 priest — " not yet, for a little while." There was a general titter 
 at poor Moya, on account of— as was supposed — only her fidgetty 
 mistake. She unbent her set glare^ for a moment, as if to ascer- 
 tain ihe cause of this mirth, which she felt to jar unnaturally on 
 her present feelings ; and when her eyes resumed their former benty 
 it became evident, from their expression, that the object which had 
 so long fascinated them, was not now to be seen where they had 
 observed it. Then they wandered, as had before been the case a,t 
 the supper-table, from face to face, all around her." 
 
 " What is 7/ou)* name?" asked the clergyman of bis oldpenitent^ 
 the Admiral. 
 
 '' Terry O'Brien, chaplain — an able-bodied sayman o^ the crew, 
 i' th' ould Saint Vincent, 74." 
 
 "Take oflf your hat, Terence O'Brien — it is necessary you should 
 be uncovered for this ceremony," 
 
 " My hulk to ould Davy, chaplain ! I command the ship this 
 cruize, and no capt'n never hauls down his sky-rattlin' for no 
 loober of a chaplain — barrin' whin there's prayers on deck." 
 
 '' Well, sir," again smiled the clergyman, " and we are going to 
 have prayers on deck." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir ; that changes tack, d'ye see me ; ay, ay, sir f and 
 the Admiral stood uncovered. 
 
 The marriage service commenced. The icy hand of the bride was 
 pla ced in that of the old Admiral, Moya not sensible of the circum- 
 stance ; for again, through an opening in the crowded circle of 
 guests near her, she seemed to have re- discovered, at a distance, the 
 
THE BIT WPvITIN. 69 
 
 cause of her previous consternaticn, and again a finger of her dis- 
 engaged hand pointed vaguely. The clergyman co^ntinued. 
 
 " Terence O'Brien, will you take Moya for your wedded wif^, 
 to " 
 
 " Will he ! to be sure he will ; scuttle and sink me if he don't !'' 
 iulerrupted Trrence. 
 
 The priest sternly commanded the Admiral to abstain from all 
 profane language, and further commanded him to answer the ques- 
 tion properly, in the first person singular. 
 
 " That is, chaplain, I'm to make answer to your hail, yes or no, 
 if I will take Moya Moore to be my wedd<^.d wife ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, or why are you here ? why are we all here ? Listen, 
 man, I shall repeat the question." 
 
 '' No use, chaplain, no use ; jaw an' jabber for nothing, d'ye se^*. 
 me; I got your hail plain enough, and here's my answer — No ! I 
 will not;" shouted in a tremendous voice, at which all started: 
 while the guests stared, as well as the priest, at the disfigured, 
 bluff, and gruff countenance of the tar, not knowing whether to 
 join in the grave surprise of the one, or laugh outright at what 
 they deemed to be the sea-eccentricity of the other. 
 
 " What do you say, man ?" inquired the clergyman. 
 
 " An' you didn't hear me, chaplain ? Here's at you again, 
 then. Chaplain : may ould Davy send a rattlin' broadside into my 
 hulk, if the little craft ever sails under my colours !" And before 
 any one could recover from the grand amazement he occasioned, 
 the ould Admiral, now bellowing through his fist, went on : 
 "Ahoy there! namesake, ahoy! scud up, my hearty! scud up, 
 here ! aft here, the Terry O'Brien ! afc here, you loober ! where 
 are you, you skulker?" And from the quarter in which Moya bad 
 been glaring his young nephew made his way through the crowd, 
 she shrinking down, almost double, from his near approach. 
 
 '' Think 'tis the ghost of him, my little pinnace, an' that he will 
 bite, a-boordin' o' you, like the — parley- woos in action ? Never 
 fear, howsomever ; 'tis no ghost; though he promised to turn him- 
 self into one, among the crew here to-night, for your divarshin. 
 
 I say, chaplain, splice this young couple, an' be to you ! 
 
 Here, my little galley ; I resign command to the land -jack ; for 
 he^s the capfn you'd rather make the voyage with, if I hard right, 
 alongside the ould hulk-rock, t'other night. Come, chaplain, 
 splice 'em — splice 'em." 
 
 A word aside, and indeed something else, on the part of young 
 Terence O'Brien, went a good way, conjointly with the Admiral's 
 
70 THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 
 
 assurance, in beguiling Moya of her apprehensions that she had to 
 jio only with a dist-m bodied spirit in the present instance; and a 
 few additional sentences made her understand the noble, the mag- 
 nanimous part which the poor old sailor had adopted towards her 
 and her lover, as soon as, from their sad conversation at the step- 
 ping-stones, and at the granite rock, mostly overheard by him, as 
 well as trom his sub.-cquent cross-raking of his nephew, after 
 Moya's flight from the muslin ghost, the Admiral got a clear notion 
 of how matters really stood. 
 
 In the first reflux of the tide of happiness round her despairing 
 heart, Moya drew back a step from the uncle and the nephew, 
 ghtnced quickly, twice or thrice, from the one to the other, in a 
 hesitating vaiy; but soon taking her resolution, extended her 
 arms, and threw herself on the tare's neck, crying and sobbing, 
 aid kissing his unsightlv cheeks, forehead — nay, lips, and hugging 
 him tight to her relieved bosom. Her lover, instead of looking 
 jt^alous, smiled, and even shed some grateful, us well as happy 
 tears, along with her ; and the true state of the case soon becom- 
 ing known through the barn, many an eye, among the generous- 
 hearted male portion of the guests, to say nothing of all the eyes 
 of all the woinau-kinil present, followed young Terence*s example. 
 
 " Avast ! avast there, you little she-pirate !" whimpered the 
 Admiral himself, tears (" as big as beans," Murty Meehan said,) 
 rolling through the ugly channel across his face, and making it 
 beauiiful, as doth the fresh mountain-stream the rocky cleft 
 ia the mountain's side; ^'' avast there, I say ! off wid your grap- 
 plin^ irons, or, sink my hulk to ould Davy, but Til change the 
 sailin' ordhers, and take you in tow fw the cruise myself, afther 
 all that*s jawed about, d'^e see me! The young Terry, a-hoy ! 
 chaplain, a-hoy ! Here, you loobers, free me of this craft — I've 
 got enough of her.'* 
 
 Striding to the head of the supper-table^ Terence the elder 
 counteil down one hundred guineas, as his nephew's fortune, and 
 then, scarcely allowing any one, including the priest, time enough 
 to recover from their many surprises, or to know what they were 
 doing, had him married to Moya Moore. And when all resumed 
 their places at the nuptial board, it was not upon his own generous 
 feelings and conduct that the old Admiral grew egotistical, but 
 upon what he thought a great deal more of, namely, his own un- 
 surpassable cleverness in hoaxing the youn^]: pair with an appear- 
 ance of the ghost, which he had overheard them " jawin' about;** 
 and afterwards in keeping Moya in the daik — a punishment for 
 
THE BIT O' WRITIN'. 71 
 
 her having hung out false colours when he " spoke her," her 
 mother in company, on the head of their proposed cruise — as to 
 the real Terry O'Brien she was eventually to sail under. " An' 
 so," quoth our old Admiral, " seein' as how I never was much 
 a-gog mysel — not half so much as my shipmate, Murty Meehan — 
 for a new voyage, off o' all the ould tacks, an' that all I wanted, 
 an' all I want, is safe moorage for ould hulk, till it foundhers (and 
 
 be d d to it) — an' seein' how, furthermore, the young Terry 
 
 alonside never done me no spite, though his commandher, the born 
 brother o' me, did — why, afther all this, d'ye see me, it's no 
 great shakes if I gives up full command, for the rest o' the voy- 
 age, an'' — with fair sayman's allowance o' grog, Misthress Moore, 
 d'ye mind me — take on wid first lieutenant's berth aboord the ship." 
 
 " Here's your health, an' long life, an' may your ould hulk nivor 
 foundher at all, my poor ould Admiral, darlin' !" cried Murty 
 Meehan, his eyes still running over with admiration and love of 
 his 'protege. " An' here's another toast to go along wid that one — 
 here's what brought the showers o' goold an' good loock to the 
 whole of us— here's ' The Bit o' Writin'." 
 
 It would be doing injustice to the Widow Moore not to say that, 
 to the hour when, notwithstanding Murty Meehan's bacchanalian 
 prayer, his old hulk did founder at last, she never infringed on the 
 old Admiral's " sayman's allowance," nor, indeed, in any Avay upon 
 his comforts under the family roof. Of Mo} a's attentions, or of 
 her husband's, to their eccentric benefactor, nothing need be said. 
 So that our excellent friend and hero lived happily many a long 
 year; long enough, indeed, to instruct a very, very little Terry 
 O'Brien in all his sea terms — thus ensuring them fame in his third 
 generation — md to build and launch for him, on a pond, formed 
 by damming in, a corner of the brook, at the celebrated stepping- 
 stones, two seventy-four gun ships. It is recorded, however, that 
 upon afterwards bringing those vessels into action, as separately 
 Elnglish and French, himself commanding the one, his grand-nephew 
 the other — " the lubberly Friuch flag" adorning the hitter, the gay 
 and gallant union jack flying over the decks of the former^ — it is 
 recorded, we say, that the old Admiral, forgetting in the heat of 
 the engagement its mimic character, and giving way, for an instant, 
 to all his habitual hatred and contempt of the Gallic enemies of 
 Great Britain, made real war on the Lilliputian ship-of-the-line, 
 and, with one kick and one dread oath, consigned and sent it " to 
 ould Davy." 
 
 END O' THE BIT o' WRITIN'. 
 
THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 HIS DOUBLE. 
 
THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 AND HIS DOUBLE. 
 
 It is really quite true that some time ago, and not long ago 
 either, there was a London gentleman who took a strange fit of 
 ambition into his head. His partial friends, or himself alone of his 
 own accord, or he in concert with them, believed that he bore, in 
 face, air, and even in the upper part of his figure, a striking resem- 
 blance to a certain nobleman,, who had become highly distinguished 
 by brilliant qualities of various kinds. In truth, there was a like- 
 ness, but a general one only, between him and the celebrated Duke, 
 (or Marquis — at present we -cannot declare which ought to be the 
 proper title,) and, highly flattered by this personal compliment of 
 nature, he did all in his power to seem " the very image.'' He 
 studied his original as closely as the nobleman's appearance in pub- 
 lic, in the streets, in the parks, or in " the house," gave him oppor- 
 tunities for doing ; and, in consequence of his observations, he 
 changed his elongated hat for one of a round fashion, and his light 
 hair for a sandy-coloured, or haply, (for we hate being as demon- 
 strative as he himself was) a raven- black wig ; he instructed his 
 tailor how to cut his coat ; he spent hours before his glass, prac- 
 tising the vory tie of his neckcloth — to say nothing of the hours 
 occupied, by its aid, in trying to imitate a bow, a smile, a turn of 
 the lip, or a droop or a toss of the head. But, although much was 
 gained by all these adaptations and labours, something yet remained 
 10 be done, in order to procure a public and general misconception 
 of who he was. For the Double's great longing consisted of a wish 
 to have people gaze after him in the streets, in proof of how well 
 he enacted his mute lie ; and here (as regarded self-exhibition In 
 the streets) lay his difficulty. At home, indeed, or in the houses 
 of his particular friends, while he ^a? quietly at tabk^, he succeeded 
 amazingly well, because, in fact, in a sitting posture, you could nofe 
 
76 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 so easily detect that his figure was considerably shorter than the 
 noble one of his supposed counterpart. Bat one cannot well sit 
 down, out of doors, in a thronged metropolis; unless, indeed, one 
 sits in a saddle. And even if one could do the former-mentioned 
 feat, it were of no avail in this particular case, inasmuch as the man 
 to be cheated out of the admiration due exclusively to his own per- 
 son, never did it ; and as to sitting in a saddle, our gentleman had 
 no saddle, not to talk of a horse's back to put it on. Truth must 
 out. Although '• a real gentleman," the higli prices at which 
 human existence, with a reasonable share of enjoyment superadded, 
 must be purchased in London, had deterred his hitherto economical 
 mind from attempting the keep of a steed worthy of being seen iu 
 and about the great city. 
 
 But what will not high ambition endeavour on the road to its 
 object ? The Double, after pondering the matter some time, started 
 off, after breakfast, one morning, to scrutinize the studs of sundry 
 livery stables, of respectable character though reasonable charges ; 
 and, with a vivid recollection in his mind of the often-contem- 
 plated horse most usually ridden about town by his own original, 
 he selected, before dinner, an excellent likeness of the animal, and 
 hired it, for two days in each week, at a not very extravagant 
 price. And now, if ever a man were on his hobby-horse, surely he 
 was on his. Twice every week, for months afterwards, we have 
 seen him, at fashionable hours, walking or trotting, nay, even gal- 
 loping, his new acquisition, up and down Piccadilly, and by Hyde 
 Park Corner into^ Grosvenor-place, and about the Parks, and where 
 not ; and veritable attention did they both draw from individuals 
 of the passing crowds, who, having never seen the true man 
 and horse anywhere but in the open air, were promptly imposed 
 upon. Nor was that all. Once or twice, in the Ring in Hyde 
 Park, we, and others along with us — -(for at the time we speak of, 
 he was beginning to be blown among us knowing ones, as Master 
 Shallow might say) — have seen him bowed, or smiled, or kissed 
 finger-tips to, out of carriages which he rapidly passed in the di- 
 rection opposite to their motion ; and oh, intoxicating spirit of fame! 
 what a happy glow did not those palpable hits impart to the coun- 
 tenance of the successful aspirant ! 
 
 Indeed, it cannot be guessed by what process of reasoning (to 
 say little of feeling) he thus deemed himself honoured in his own 
 mind, on account of only being mistaken for a celebrated person. 
 What, then, were the grounds upon which the poor Double so 
 anxiously would have disowaed his identity ,? (so anxiously, indeed 
 
AND HIS DOUBLE. 77 
 
 that we do believe he was ready and willhig to sell himself to 
 the Devil, as Doctor Faustus did, could the bargain have ensured 
 to him as perfect a change into the likeness he thirsted after, as 
 was the change from age to youth ensured to the Doctor by his 
 bargain.) But 'tis useless niultiplying questions or conjectures on 
 the subject. We only know that, in a vein of perfect consistency, 
 he was nearly as proud of the deception practised by his hired horse, 
 as of that toiled after by himself ; that he often wished the poor 
 brute were conscious of the laurels he had gained. And that — 
 (wiping his brows with a handkerchief in a way he had once seen 
 his better self do), he has been heard to say, after returning from a 
 day's exhibition, about town — "I do own myself grateful and 
 proud for having been cast in the same mould with that great man !" 
 
 So, for months, as has been said, he passed a very happy life : 
 when suddenly there arose a prospect of great interruption to the 
 gathering of the triumphs of his deceptive existence. It is clear 
 that if the nobleman were known to have left London, he could 
 scarce hope to make people go on believing that he was still in 
 London, unless, indeed, he wished to frighten passengers in the 
 streets out of their senses, by being taken for the wraith oy fetch of 
 the absent public character. In fact, to continue in the glory of 
 the occasional doubt that he was somebody else, the Double was 
 necessitously chained to the place, though not to the spot of the 
 place, inhabited by that somebody. Considerable, therefore, were 
 his anxieties, and regrets, and sense of humihation, when he read 
 
 in the papers that the noble and gallant of was to go 
 
 over immediately to Ireland as its Viceroy, or Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 True, the high appointment flattered his vanity, in a kind of 
 personal way. He felt it as an additional homage very nearly paid 
 to himself ; and strongly was he tempted to spend the summer, at 
 least, in the Irish metropolis, in the hope of coming in for his just 
 share of the usual public, that is street, worship, to be paid to the 
 representative of the representative of royalty. But then, first of 
 all, he feared, if he did not dislike, the Irish ; and they were, at 
 that time, more to be feared than ever, many of the counties of 
 their country being in open insurrection, famine, and typhus-fever. 
 Next, what was he to do for his well-esteemed horse, in Dublin? 
 he could not think of purchasing him — the price was too much even 
 for ambition to pay, taking purse into account ; yet by no other 
 arrangement could he prevail on the owner of the livery-stables to 
 allow the distinguished animal to float within view of Ireland's 
 Eye — (the little island so called in the bay of Dublin.) In a word, 
 
78 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 (and alas !) the newlj-appointed Vice-King sailed for his Irish 
 capital, while his disconsolate Double remained, still torn by inde- 
 cision, in Loudon. 
 
 Scarce a month had elapsed, however, after the Lord Liente- 
 nant's arrival in the land of (some times) potatoes, when the good 
 folks of Dublin began to be puzzled, as their brethren of London 
 had been, by the vision of his copyist, riding about the main streets, 
 or along the beautiful quays, or in the Phoenix Park ; the horse, 
 too, whether the London one or not, being a very good similitude. 
 One fortunate circumstance was in favour of our adventurer. 
 The Lord Lieutenant (though he stuck no great bunch of sham- 
 rock in his hat or on his breast, and pointed at, or pressed 
 his hand upon it, as some people had done before him) was he- 
 ginning to be very popular, in consequence of a mode of conduct, 
 as manly, and as suitable to his nature, as it was fj:ood in policy. 
 In truth, from almost the day of his arrival, he had thrown himself 
 upon the confidence of the people, asking the higher classes of them 
 to share his hospitality, or goodhumouredly sharing theirs ; and 
 showing himself in public, with the least ostentation possible, to 
 the other classes. To come to our point : he began soon to ride 
 through the streets, very often quite alone ; and here, it will be 
 perceived, was the circumstance in favour of his untired and un- 
 tiring mimic of which we have already spoken. Plere was the 
 Vice-Sovereign in a situation susceptible of perfect imitation by 
 one man and horse. And it is quite true that the lonely impostor 
 some times succeeded to his heart's content in consequence; hats and 
 caps were taken off to him by men and boys at either side of the 
 streets, as he rode along, bowing and smiling with a degree of 
 similarity only conferable by long practice. And having heard 
 that the object of his mixed adoration and self-esteem, had alighted 
 one day at the door of a pastry-cook's shop, and chatted amiably with 
 the pretty girl behind the counter, he also did dismount at the door 
 of another shop of the same kind, and did also overwhelm with a 
 sense of being inexpressibly honoured and lifted out of herself, the 
 not as pretty handmaiden of the rival establishment. After all 
 which he would steal away, horse and self, to deposit the former 
 in his livery-stable, and then win, by circuitous and unfrequented 
 ways, his own humble lodgings, and sit down, a delighted man, 
 to his chop or his steak, not playing the Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
 land to his orderly landlady or her smoke-dried daughter — though 
 indeed it added to his notions of self-consequence in the house, 
 
AND niS DOUBLE. 79 
 
 to hear them begin to say — even while he strove to disrobe himself 
 of the character — " how very like he was." • 
 
 But his happiness was again doomed to be sadly interrupted. 
 It was announced that the Lord Lieutenant would speedily set out 
 upon a tour through some of the counties in Ireland, and some of 
 ttie disturbed ones too ! For all the reasons— and more with 
 them — given for his troubles when he heard of the intended voyage 
 from London to Dublin, he felt agitated anew. Doubtless, the 
 Irish he had met with in Dublin itself, were not so much to be 
 dreaded as he had laid the thing down in his own mind. But the 
 barbarians of the insurrectionary and remote quarters of the countiy e 
 The savages, whooping among their hills and bogs, with scythe! 
 and pil^es in their hands ! His soul, although nothing of its darlins 
 thirst for renown had abated, shrank from such a prospect of perig 
 Besides, would there be much glory, worthy of the name, to bl. 
 gained by the mistakes of his person committed by the populacee 
 of small towns or villages, or by peasants on the roadside, even 
 supposing he should escape danger ? Yes, and a new and brilliant 
 ray of future fame flashed on his soul. Yes ! by some happy com- 
 bination of circumstances, in his character of Lord Lieutenant, he, 
 also — and he, really — mioht allay an Irish rebellion, or staunch 
 the wounds of civil discord. But fears, deadly fears, came on him 
 again. His horse too, as in a former case ! — in truth, we must a 
 second time part from him undecided, and a prey to conflicting 
 wishes and doubts, longings and terrors ; and in the mean time, 
 after some other things, let us occupy ourselves a little with his 
 reality. 
 
 This was not a year of rank insurrection, in any of the usually 
 disturbed (^that is, starving) districts of Ireland. Great outrages 
 were not committed by the neglected, imeducated, and despairing 
 peasantry. The chief feature of their refractory spirit, for the 
 season, was evinced in combinations and determinations not to cut 
 down the corn of any of their landowners, no matter of what creed, 
 who, during the speechifying of a recent election, we believe, 
 had thought proper to give them rather hard words. 
 
 " An' so we're not as much as to lay a finger on the poor 
 Capt'n's whate, aither. Con?" asked one of a body of legislators 
 among them, who were assembled, by stealth, at a late hour of the 
 night, in an old barn, for the purpose of organizing the rebellious 
 proceedings of the next day — it will be understood that the querist 
 spoke in a tone of mock compassion for " the poor Capt'u," while 
 Jbis features expressed a bitter sneer. 
 
80 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 *' The divvle a grain of it 'ill ever lie in shafe, widhelp from our 
 holy Roman reaping-hooks, Mickey, ma-houchal" answered Con, 
 who might be termed chairman of their committee of public safety, 
 though, indeed, he was only squatted on a thin layer of straw, ac- 
 cidentally found in the empty barn. 
 
 " Och, an' it's like, if we don't cut it for him, that he'll be 
 forced to send a little way to the north for the nate Orange hands," 
 remarked a third. "Becase, ye see, boys, we're all only a set o' 
 baste-brutes o' Romans that's to be found about him in these parts, 
 and that he said, out afore all the gintlemen, th' other day, we 
 wara't fit to be touched wid a pair o' toDgs, so we warn't, the Lord 
 look down on us ! — " 
 
 '' Amin," assented Mick — '< an' since he can stop his nose at us 
 afore the whate is ripe, he can do widout us, when it's ready to 
 shell idself about the fields." 
 
 " That's a thruth," said another. " An', sure, when the people 
 that God plaised to put in a country, aren't fit to cut the harvest 
 that God put in it too, why, thin, the Capt'n must only thry for the 
 Orangemen, the few hundred miles away, as my gossip here tould ye 
 afore me, or else see me how many rale, honest boys, like 'em, he'll 
 be able to get in the barony." 
 
 " An' they're asily counted," resumed Con, the chairman — '' four 
 of 'em, all in a lump. Ould Spear, wid the head shakin' on his 
 shouldhers, like the last lafe on the top of a poplar — he that cries 
 ' amin' to his reverence, the ministher, in the church, every Sun- 
 day — -ould Spear, I say, is one ; then there's the two Hucks, bro- 
 thers, the wavers ; the only bodies that hears ould Spear in the 
 church, or does be there to hear him, barrin' the ministher's oun 
 wife and chidher, and the Capt'n himself, long life to him — an' to 
 his whate, too — the Hucks is — stop — ould Spear is one — yes — 
 the two Hucks is three — craturs so worn away with the shuttle, 
 an' goin' in winther to a could church, that — but, look up there, 
 boys 1" — cried the speaker, suddenly interrupting himself, as he 
 stared towards the roof of the barn. The eyes of all the other 
 rebels followed his, and fixed upon the face of a man which was 
 visible through a rent in the thatch, and which earnestly regarded 
 them. 
 
 " It's Connors, the informer !" shouted Micky — " out wid us, 
 boys, an' let us give him what some of us owes him, at last !" 
 
 " I'm no Connors, and I'm no informer," said the man overhead ; 
 " stop where ye are, boys, and look at my fatures again." 
 
 "By the mortial man !" cried one of the ccnspiralors, a young- 
 
AND Ills DOUBLE. 81 
 
 taciturn, sad-browed fellow, who previously had not uttered a word, 
 though he now spoke with remarkable liveliness of voice and man- 
 ner, as he sprang from his primitive seat on his heels by the rough 
 wall of the building — " By the mortial man, an' he says thrue ! — 
 it's poor Ned Cahill is in it, if he's a livin' man this night !" 
 
 " You're not far off from the mark, Peery O'Dea," replied the 
 intruder — " and, now that you're sure o' me, won't you and the 
 other boys let me drop down among ye, to discoorsc one word ?" 
 He prepared to descend through the aperture as he spoke ; his 
 face disappeared from it ; his legs, his body, took the place of the 
 former ; then he swung an instant, by the hands, from the rude 
 joists of the roof, and saying — " 'Tisn't the same way some people 
 'ud like to see me hangin', boys," he alighted firmly on his out- 
 spread feet, in the middle of the earthen floor of the barn. There 
 were ease, agility, and boldness in all his motions while accom- 
 plishing this not unperilous descent ; and now the rushlight which 
 illumined the council of the disaffected Irish, showed the person of 
 a shght-limbed man of thirty, or thereabouts, with broad chest 
 and shoulders, and a well-favoured face, of which the only disa- 
 greeable expression was the suspicious curl of the brow, and the 
 sidelong, quick glance of the eye. 
 
 " Musha, my poor fellow ! my poor Ned !" resumed Peery 
 O'Dea, hastening to him, and there were tears in Peery's eyes, 
 and a tremor in his limbs, while they interchanged the usual 
 salute — kissing each other's cheeks as they held each other's 
 hands. The other peasants looked on, with various expressions 
 of countenance. Some showed sympathy ; some anxiety, perhaps 
 for themselves ; and one or two regarded the new-comer as if 
 forming a selfish resolution towards him. 
 
 " And how is Nelly, ma-houchal ?" 
 
 " The only sister o' you is brave an' hearty !" answered Peery 
 O'Dea — " if it wasn't for thinkin' a great dail about you, Ned, 
 an' crying, morning, noon, and night, on the head of it all." 
 
 •' An' her weenochT^ continued Cahili. 
 
 " As fine a lump of a boy as ever you " began the vaiu 
 
 father. His brother-in-law interrupted him. 
 
 " Oh, well — sure I know, Peery ; Nelly's gorsoon 'ill want no 
 praises you can give him ; but that's not the business now. 
 I come here, a good stretch o' road, to spake o' something 
 else to you and the boys forenent me ; only I'm hungry, not to 
 say drouthy, an' 'ud ax a bit an' a sup afore I make my narration. 
 So, you'll just step out, a-vich, and beg a mouthful for me from 
 
 G 
 
82 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 Nelly, and tell her I'll see her, majbe, the night, afore I take to 
 my thravels again." 
 
 "i'U run out," volunteered one of the two men whom we have 
 mentioned as glancing at Cahill in a questionable way — " I'll run- 
 out, Peery, an' you can be sfcoppin' wid your brother-in-law." 
 
 " No," said Cahill, fixing upon him an expressive look — " no, 
 neighbour (we're all neighbours afther a manner, tho' I wont take 
 it on me to say I ever saw much of you afore). But no ; neither 
 Peery nor you need go now. Con, my boy, turning hastily to the 
 ex-chief of the assembly, *'you and I are ould friends, an' you'll 
 think it no great throuble to run and ax a morsel to ate for a 
 hungry and a tired man." 
 
 "You're afther just sayin' it, Ned «-v?c/i," responded Con, and 
 he arose and strode towards the badly-secured and crazy door of 
 the barn. '' I'll let you out my own self," continued Cahill — 
 *' there," holding the door only a little way apart, while he again 
 glanced keenly around him. He shut the door, and secured it as 
 he had found it; " an' you and I, Peery, can just step, the closest 
 of any, to the dour ; for who knows who might be on the scent 
 of one of us abroad. There's great temptation, boys," turning to 
 the legislators, as he drew a pistol from his breast — " great temp- 
 tation, even among neighbours sometimes, in the reward offered 
 for the head of a poor outlaw." 
 
 Short answers, yet such as sympathized with Cahill's well- 
 known position, or seemed to do so, came from the greater number 
 of his hearers after he had spoken ; but Peery O'Dea was greatly 
 moved — his friends heard him groan as he turned away his face. 
 
 " It's a long time since you come this road afore, Ned," re- 
 marked the Micky before named, " tho' we hard tell of you showing 
 yourself, here and there, in other places." 
 
 "Ay, Micky, the life Pni forced to lead isn't the pleasantest. 
 Here an' there, as you say, good weather an' bad ; sleepin' little^ 
 and never two nights together on the same road, an' never undher 
 a Christian roof, but out on the fields at the snug side of a stack, 
 or in a wood, or in a plantation, or near the fox's hole, or down 
 by the river near the otter's bed ; and all for fear of what I said 
 a moment ago. The neighbours are very good to me — I'll never 
 deny it ; and, as yet, I've no rason to be in dread or doubt 
 of any one, but the reward in the proclamation is a heavy one : 
 thats all I have to say." 
 
 He started slightly, Peery sharing Ms emotion, as a woman's 
 voice came to the door at the outside, high in anxiety, if not 
 
AND HIS DOUBLE. 83 
 
 lamentation. Cahill, after listening a moment, hastily undid a 
 second time the fastenings of the door, using, however, some caution 
 still, and, after saying in a whisper to Peery, *' Look about you," 
 opened his arms to embrace his only sister, whom he had not for 
 a long time seen, and who was his nearest surviving relation. 
 
 Their meeting evinced deep and true affection on both sides. 
 The young woman had an interesting, if not handsome, face ; and 
 it and her person just began to indicate th« matronly change 
 which her duties of wife and mother were bringing about. She 
 wept abundantly, while her arms surrounded his neck, and her 
 face lay hidden on his bosom ; but for some minutes her attempts 
 to speak could not get beyond, '' 0, Ned ! 0, poor Ned !" Nor 
 was the rough man she clung to unmoved. 
 
 At length they began to talk a little more freely, and, calling 
 to mind the claim which her brother had forwarded l3y Con upon 
 her hospitality, Mary O'Dea caused the outlaw to sit down near 
 the door with his back to the wall, upon her ample cloak, folded 
 into a temporary cushion ; and, confronting him, sitting also " on 
 her hunkers," she gave him to eat of the plain fare she was able 
 to snatch up at home, and -to drink, too, out of a bottle of " pot- 
 heen," diluted with water. During her attentions, the provisions 
 rapidly disappeared. Mary looked every other instant at her 
 brother's features, or scanned his person, and perhaps the state of 
 his attire, while tears still flowed down her cheeks, and plaintive 
 mutterings escaped her. Poor Mary, poor as she was, deserves to 
 be called a good specimen of the only really beautiful existence 
 under Heaven's sun — a true-hearted and gentle-hearted woman ; 
 she possessed, too, as may appear, what (thank Providence !) often 
 mixes up with female excellence in the softest shape — a strong, 
 prompt mind, and a sacred sense of right and wrong. 
 
 '' An' won't you stop wid us the night, Ned, agrafe she asked, , 
 towards the conclusion of his hasty meal. 
 
 " You oughtn't to say to me, svori't you, Ned, but can you, 
 Mary, macliree^^^ he answered, turning his head to the door to 
 note if Peery continued to do duty at it, with the pistol he had 
 slipped into his hand. " That's what you ought to say to me, 
 Mary ; but little's the use in thinkin' of the thing the heart 'ud 
 like best to do when the body isn't able to do it." 
 
 " 7'11 do something to get you lave to do that, Ned, my dear, 
 afore I'm many days oulder," resumed Mary, glancing at her hus- 
 band, and, with a nod of her head, looking expressively at her 
 brother, while she spoke in a low, cautious voice. 
 
84 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 " ^lary ! Mary asthore /" he said, in the lowest whisper, al- 
 though its cadence betokened sudden and deep emotion, " what are 
 you for saying, girl ? Get up, and come this way wid me." 
 
 He took her by the arm, and led her into a corner of the barn, 
 where they were far removed from the peasants. 
 
 ''What's this, at all ?" he continued ; '^ tell me in one word, 
 Mary !^' 
 
 " I know all about it at last, Ned ; and I'll do my best to free 
 you from the outlawry," she replied. 
 
 " Duowir he cried, impatiently ; "the woman has taken lave 
 of her seven senses ! all about what ? And what would you 
 dhrame o' doing ? and who tould you, Mary, if you do know all ?" 
 
 '• Himself, Ned.'' 
 
 ''Peery, his ownself?" he demanded. 
 
 " No other cratur ; who could ? Poor fellow, he couldn't long 
 keep it from me ; the heart in his body is too sthraight, and it 
 loves and likes us both too well to let him lie down quietly, and 
 you " 
 
 " Whisht, Mary, for your life ! whisht !" he cast his habitually sus- 
 picious eyes all round him ; "micsha, but he's a born fool of his 
 mother to open his lips to you a word about it ! Tell me, Mary, what 
 are you goin' to do ? What can you thry that wouldn't be against 
 your own husband — the father of your weenochP^ he continued, 
 passionately ; "and daare you, Mary — daare you attempt anything 
 so unnaatural as that ? Mary, my curse be upon your head — and 
 I will pray to our father and our mother to curse you out of their 
 graves, if you let only the thought of it come into your mind !" 
 She several times strove to speak, he seemed resolved to afford her 
 no opportunity. " Give over thinking of it, I warn you !" he went 
 on, " and now good-by, and God bless you, if you deserve his 
 blessing ; good-by, Mary, I'll see you again as soon as I can !" 
 He hastily turned from her, and, standing with his back to the 
 door, continued speaking to the peasants, without an instant's pause. 
 " I'm goin' my road, boys, and as my time is short, I must say what 
 I have to say to ye, at a hop-and-a-jump ; so here it is. The Lord 
 Lieutenant will be down among ye the morrow morning. He's 
 to stop wid a good friend of yours, I hear, and that's like as if he 
 wasn't far off from being a good friend himself. I don't want to 
 advise ye to be good boys foment his eyes ; sure you'll thrate him 
 well of your own accord, because ye all know he manes well to us, 
 (the first of his kind that ever said so, at laste,) and morebetokeu 
 bticause he goes about the poor counthry like a man that has thrust 
 
AND HIS DOUBLE. 85 
 
 in the people ; ridin' his horse, sometimes, almost alone, along 
 by roads and borheens, as sinaple, ay, and a great dail simpler than 
 some o^ the little squireens nigh hand to as. Well, if it's a thing 
 that Captain Lighton axes the Lord Lieutenant to ax ye to cut his 
 harvest, it would only be a good turn, af ther all, not to refuse ; and 
 it may sarve yourselves ; and maybe it might sarve me, too, in 
 an endayvour Tm goin' to make to get lave to come home from 
 my rambles, and tak« to arning an honest mouthful again. And 
 so, there's what Fm come a begging to y« for ; and now, the good 
 night to ye, boys, or the top o' the morning ; for that matter the 
 day's breakin' already. God speed ye," 
 
 " Peery O'Dea," he added, whispering his brother-in-law, " help 
 me to open this ould door quick, quick ! and out wid you now like 
 a hurler afore me ! aad let us run over a field or two together . I 
 want to spake to you, and keep you free of harm. Come, man, 
 hurry !" He seized Peery's arm, and almost forced him through 
 the door-way ; and when Mary and some of the peasants went out 
 to look after them, the brothers-in-law were nowhere to be seen. 
 Mary pondered a moment, shook her head, and then bent her steps 
 homeward, little changed in the resolution she had taken to try 
 and restore her brother to society. 
 
 " What fool's talk has passed between you and Mary, Peery 
 O'Dea ?" asked Cahill, when they had gained their place of conceal- 
 ment, the ruins of an M castle which overhung the main road to 
 their village, 
 
 " Ned," answered Peery, " you know Fve tould her all ; don't 
 fly in a passion wid me ; I saw ye discoorsin' together in the barn, 
 and it was asy to guess what Mary was say in' to you," 
 
 " An' that's the way you keep your promise wid me ?" questioned 
 Ned. 
 
 " I couldn't help it, Ned Cahill, asthore. It was lyin' like a 
 heavy stone on my heart. Sure enough, we both thought it would 
 be for the best ; I to hould my tongue, an' thry to work for her 
 an' the weenoch, while you were only forced to hide yourself for a 
 start. But I'll tell you what it is, Ned ; the mornin' I hard o' 
 them takin' you, I set off for the jail dour, to give myself up to 
 them in your stead, as it well became me to do ; an' nothin' but 
 the news I larned on the road o' your breakin' gaol, and givin' them 
 leg bail, the thing that put the outlawry on you, afther all, poor 
 boy, nothin' but that sent me home agin. Ay, an' I have more 
 to say to you, Ned Cahill ; the first moment I hear o' your falling 
 into their clutches a second time, Til be on the road to the gaol 
 
86 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 dour, a second time too ; for I can't ate by day, nor sleep by night, 
 thinkin' o' you. An' afther all we can say about Mary and the child, 
 my heart tells me I'm not doin' a thing that a man ought to do." 
 
 " Bother an' botheration, Peery ! Do you mane to tell me, even 
 if it did happen that I was locked up agin, that it would be the 
 part of a man to start himself off, of his own accord, from wife 
 an' weenoch ; to say nothin' o' the poor ould father o' you, sifctin' 
 at home by the fire ; an' let them send you for life across the wide 
 seys, if they didn't take the life from you aforehand ? I tell yon, 
 man, you have your duties laid out for you on this earth. As for 
 me, no one is dependin' on me, and no one 'ud miss me, barrin' 
 yom'self and Mary ; an' even ye only for the sorrow, an' nothin' at 
 all for the loss. An' I'm not a boy given to marry in', I don't 
 think the notion of it '11 come into my head agin ; for, in throth, 
 Peery, from the day I helped to carry poor Cauth Farrel to the 
 berrin- ground, afther the long sickness that made her a light load 
 to carry anywhere, afore it ended her days" — Cahill's voice changed 
 and his eyes fell — '* from that day to this, Peery, though I was a 
 younger boy then, I never saw the colleen I'd care to be thinkin' 
 of; no, nor wanted to see her neither. But we're talkin' a power 
 o' raumaush here, in this ould place. Tell me, Peery, an' don't 
 tell me anything but the thruth, how much o' the raal business did 
 you blab out to Mary ?" 
 
 " I didn't hide a single bit o' the raal business, Ned. I tonld 
 her that it was me myself (an' you not wid us nor in the sacret) 
 that went up to Lighton's house that night, for the arms, along 
 wid the other boys. An' I tould her you only foUied us to get me 
 home out o' danger, when, by bad luck, you found out what I was 
 goin' to do. And that, when the Peelers purshued us, afther we 
 got the guns and pistols, and were hard and close on my thrack, 
 you ran up to me, Ned, an' forced my gun from me, an' made me 
 turn off home by a cross-cut. Och, Ned ! if it could come into my 
 mind that night, what you were goin' to do — " 
 
 ** Phu, Peery, I never meant they should ketch either of us, 
 when I took your gun, an' if you were bid by me to use your legs 
 sooner, they never would have to tell that they came up wid me : 
 'twas our argufying the thing that spoiled all. Well, no matther 
 now. Just listen to me over agin. What's Mary goin' to do, to 
 thry an' get me free o' the outlawry ? Can you tell me that, Peery ?" 
 Peery solemly protested he could not. He had never heard his 
 wife mention the subject. Cahill looked grave, and, after a pause 
 kindling into a rage, said, " By the sky over us I if rny sisther, my 
 
AND HIS DOUBLE, 87 
 
 father's and my mother's dauf^hter, ever attempts the like of it, I 
 could kill her with my own hand I" 
 
 Perry asked what he meant ; and it was obvious, from his per- 
 fectly unconscious manner, that he did not share with his brother- 
 in-law a single doubt of Mary. — Cahill evaded answering him. 
 
 " You must stop the day by my side, Peery — that's all ; or as 
 much of the day, at laste, as 'ill be wantin' to do what I mane to 
 do in. An', first of all, let us hide here till the Lord Lieutenant 
 passes by to Mr. Lowe's big house. I'd like to see him that I may 
 know him again ; an' he'll soon come now, for Mr. Lowe expects 
 him to the great break'ast." 
 
 Accordingly, both remained in the old ruin some hours, peering 
 out upon the road, through narrow window-slits in its walls. Aud 
 Ned Cahill seemed to have gained true information as to the move- 
 ments of Vice-Royalty. After some time distant shouts reached 
 them ; they watched the top line of the hilly road ;. the uproar came 
 nearer; clouds of dust arose in view ; and, dimly seen through it, down 
 streamed and trundled the crowds of peasantry, who were drawing 
 his Excellency, with silken ropes, in his open carriage, and the 
 huge crowds who, jumping and capering, were before them, beside 
 them, and behind them ; and Mr. Lowe, and other gentlemen of 
 the place, on horseback, in front ; *' an' not asoger nor a Peeler 
 to be seen !" — as the ecstatic mob declared, and truly declared ; — 
 the ecstatic mob, who, not two years before, had been enjoying 
 the Insurrection Act, and who have not remained quite ecstatic, 
 ever since that blessed morning. 
 
 " I'm tould I'll know him in the carriage by his takin' off his 
 hat and makin' all manner o' bows and fine manners to the people ;" 
 soliloquized Cahill, looking close, as the frantic rout whirled onward 
 the truly and meritedly popular Lord Lieutenant, often tumbling 
 over each other, in the zeal of each and all to " have one pull at the 
 ropes." 
 
 " Well, an' there I see him, sure enough," resumed Cahill, an' it 
 'ill be quare if I don't know him again, after he ates his break'asi — 
 much good may do him, every bit an' sup of id." 
 
 At Mr. Lowe's hall-door the people permitted his Excellency to 
 stop. Their parish priest there read him a little address, to which 
 he replied kindly, in impromptu. Again we have to notice the cor- 
 rectness of Ned Cahill's private sources of information. Captain 
 Lighton, who, with other gentlemen, had ridden out that morning 
 to meet that great man, handed a note into the carriage. The 
 Lord Lieutenant, interrupting a few words of conversation with the 
 
88 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 parish priest, immediately glanced once at it, and then, saying some- 
 thing in a low voice, gave it to his late reverend panegyrist, who, 
 having perused it in his turn, thus addressed the assembled 
 thousands. 
 
 " My good people — down to this morning ye have refused, even 
 against my request, to cut Captain Lighton's corn ; here is his Ex- 
 cellency, the Lord Lieutenant, and Governor of Ireland, and your 
 friend, if you will let him, by deserving his friendship — and through 
 my mouth his Excellency is pleased to ask ye, will you, or will you 
 not, save the blessed harvest that Divine Providence " 
 
 *' We will, plase his Majisty and your Reverence ;" interrupted a 
 voice very like that of "'• Con.'* " We wnll, out o' glory to him for 
 axin' us. — An* for another little rason, becase poor Ned Cahill, that 
 we're all sorry for, an* love an* like, is afther bidding us do the same 
 thing aforehand.'* 
 
 " Ned Cahill ! the poor outlaw !'* resumed the good priest, for- 
 getting a little chagrin he had felt, on the head of being cheated 
 out of a very pretty peroration, by Con's interruption. He and the 
 Lord Lieutenant began to discourse anew, in seeming earnestness. 
 
 Ned Cahill and Peery O'Dea soon had proof, from a changed 
 hiding-place, that the people respected Con's pledge as their spokes- 
 man ; shouting and capering, and brandishing their sickles, hun- 
 dreds of them rushed into the Captain's fields, and simultaneously 
 attacked all the ripe corn they could find. 
 
 And still the outlaw showed a knowledge of how more important 
 people were to act upon that — to him — memorable day. Having 
 again spirited P-eery along with him to a convenient place of am- 
 bush, he watched, earnestly, the expected approach of the Lord 
 Lieutenant, along, a by-road leading, zigzag, from Mr. Lowe's 
 house. Peery knew hi« purpose by this time, and awaited its issue 
 with his own mental reservations of what he would do, should evil 
 come of Ned*s bold thought. 
 
 " Whisht, Peery !" cried Cahill, catching his arm, as he glanced 
 over the hedge of the road, with a sparkling eye, and suddenly 
 flaring cheeks ! — ^' here he is, sooner than 1 or others had a notion 
 of ! — and ridin' quite, alone, too, by the Powers i — not an edge-a^ 
 gong, nor Misther Lowe, himself, wid him ! — well, an' that's quare I 
 bud I s'pose they're behind the turn o' the road ; or, at any rate, 
 it's all the betther for me — so here goes, in the name o' God and 
 good luck !" — and springing upon the road, and falling instantly 
 upon his knees, straight before the object of his soul's solicitude 
 and reverence, he continued, — *' Oh ! your Excellency ! oh, my Lord 
 
AND HIS DOUBLE. 89 
 
 Lieutenant ! — oh, plaise your Majisty, hear one word from a poor, 
 heart sore man !'* 
 
 " Wha — a — t, what, what, friend ?*' stuttered the person he ad- 
 dressed, endeavouring to rein in and quiet his horse, who had 
 been amazingly startled at the sudden vision of Cahill ; and, in- 
 deed, the horse's master did not speak or look like a man of perfect 
 presence of mind. 
 
 " My life, my life !" resumed Cahill ; " wait, your honour, my 
 Lord Lieutenant, an' I'll hould him for you ;" — and he jumped up 
 and grasped the horse's reins — " an' now " 
 
 " Let go, fellow ! let go !" — screamed the rider, in increased terror, 
 for, from Cahill's brogue and impassioned pronunciation, he had 
 mistaken the possessive pronoun which the supplicant had placed 
 before the word " life." 
 
 " Och, an' won't T, your Majesty, won 1 1, when you only hear me 
 spake one word ! — sure I'm no one else in the world, bud poor Cahill 
 the outlaw, that your Majisty — " 
 
 " Outlaw 1" repeated the other — " savage villain ! do you mean 
 to murder me ?" 
 
 '' Murder you, my Lord Lieutenant ?^' repeated poor Cahill, in 
 his turn, letting go the reins, and starting back, aghast, with clasped 
 hands — " By the blessed stars in the sky ! I love an' like you so 
 well, that I wouldn't harm a hair o' your horse's mane, let alone 
 one o' your own head, for the round world stuffed full of goold?" 
 
 " And why do you carry that pistol, then ?" still stammered the 
 poor Double, now a little soothed, however, by the honied flattery 
 of Cahill, and the repetitions of the splendid titles addressed to him. 
 
 " This ? the bit of a pistol, my Lord ?" Cahill drew it from his 
 breast, where its butt had not been well hidden — '' och, an' is it 
 me you fear, on the head o' this ! — lookee here, plaise your Ma- 
 jisty " 
 
 He discharged the weapon in the air, close by the horse's ears, 
 however; the animal pranced and reared in a frenzy of terror, 
 and his rider, still sharing his feelings, could scarce keep his saddle. 
 
 " An' see here agin" — continued Cahill, hurling the pistol from 
 him — an action lost to the confounded and dancing eyes of the 
 Double — and now, at laste, your Majisty 'ill please to hear me !" — 
 he renewed his grasp on the horse's bridle, really only meaning 
 well — " You put the outlawry on an innocent poor man, my Lord 
 Lieutenant ! — one that never riz a hand, for bad, in the counthry ! 
 oh, take it off o' me, take it off o' me ! Let me go home from the 
 hills and woodSj agin, to sleep undher a Christhen roof, an' to meet 
 
90 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 my fellow- cratares widout bein' afeard o' them, an' to put my hand 
 to the spade or the plough, agin, that I may arn the honest bit, 
 and the honest sup, an' that I may go to the house o' God, an' 
 kneel down, there, and put up my prayers for you an' yours, to the 
 last day I draw the breath o' life ! — Ochown, take it off, o' me, 
 an' may you reign long in glory, an' die happy ! — It's an innocent 
 boy that axes you, my Lord the Lieutenant — it's an innocent poor 
 boy ! — Say the word out o' your mouth, say the word, an' do a good 
 action ! say the word an' " 
 
 " Well, well, well, man," — interrupted the Double, his fears now 
 only divided between the uncertainty whether he had to do with a 
 wild- Irish assassin, or a wild-Irish madman — " d — don't you pull 
 me about so, and we shall see — let go the bridle and I will say the 
 word — there — stand aside, now, and you may regard yourself as a 
 free man." 
 
 " Hurrah !" screamed Cahill, jumping up a good height from the 
 ground, as he smote his breast in utter joy — " Peery O'Dea, inside 
 the fence, there ? Peery O'Dea, do you hear that ?" 
 
 " Hurrah ! an' it's I that do !" answered Peery, with another 
 shout, discovering himself. 
 
 ^' It's off o' me ! it's off o' me!" continued Cahill, hugging his 
 brother-in-law — "isn't it your honour-in- glory — isn't it ?" 
 
 '' It is, it is — to be sure it is — have I not said so ? I revoke 
 every thing — only won't you and the other man move away from 
 my horse's head ? So — good day to you both — all's right — good 
 day—." Seeing the road at last clear before him, the speaker 
 gave spur and rein to his horse, and was out of sight in a moment, 
 ay, and out of Ireland in some hours after, from the nearest sea- 
 port, cured in a degree, of performing, his absurd and miserable im- 
 postures in it, 
 
 " There you go, an' may honour an' glory be in your road, afore 
 yon !" — Cahill continued to shout. 
 
 ** There you go, an' may you never know what it is to have a 
 heart as heavy as the hearts you're afther makin' happy this day !" 
 added Peery. 
 
 " Stand !" cried voices at their backs — " one of you is Cahill, 
 the outlaw." They turned, and saw half-a-dozen police, who, 
 with presented carbines, immediately surrounded them. 
 
 " Bother, boys, wid your ' stand !' " — answered Ned — " I'm 
 Cahill, sure enough, but no outlaw, this blessed day, thank God ! 
 an' his honour the Lord Lieutenant ! Hurrah !" — He jumped again. 
 
 ** Come, come — ^your arms," said the sergeant of the party. 
 
AND HIS DOUBLE. 91 
 
 " Arms ! sorrow a one I have, barrin' the two God gave me. 
 A little while ago, to tell thrath, I had a sort of an ould pistol wid 
 me — but I sint the bullet of it up into the air, an' itself after the 
 bullet, to the divvle, entirely — an' its my word I give you, mas- 
 ther Peelers, my poor fellows, that from this day out" 
 
 " Search him" — interrupted the sergeant. 
 
 " Here, then — sarch — sarch — sarch — oh, wid all my heart. I 
 tell you, boys, it's only givin' yourselves throuble for nothin" 
 
 " Fall in with the men, then, and march for gaol," resumed the 
 Serjeant, when the useless search was ended. 
 
 " Gaol ? me march for gaol ? ye're mad to speak of it. It's more 
 than your lives are worth to use the words. Take great care what 
 ye're for doin'." 
 
 *' Come, fall in : — where are the handcuffs ?" 
 
 '* Handcuffs !" as he heard them jingling — " have a care o' your 
 behaviour to me, I tell you once again !" ejaculated Cahill, while 
 he vainly resisted the strength used to manacle his hands — " his 
 own self took the ban o' me, masther Peelers — his own self, my 
 Lord the Lieutenant, only a minute agone, an' on this very blessed 
 spot ! ay, ye may laugh at me : but I say he did ! an' here's Peery 
 O'Dea that's ready to say the same thing, for he hard an' seen him ! 
 didn't you, Peery, didn't you ?" 
 
 Peery proved, indeed, a ready witness ; but still the police 
 sneered, until, after glancing down the road, in the direction of 
 Mr. Lowe's house, the serjeant said, " Well, Cahill, now's the 
 time to get grace from us, if your words are true," — the man's 
 tone was still deriding — "here comes his Excellency." 
 
 " Which way ?" demanded Cahill, glancing up and down the 
 road, in great astonishment — " Eh ? the gentleman ridin' up to us 
 wid Mr. Lowe an' the officers ? stop — wait — stop — eh ! by the 
 powers o' man, an' it is, sure enough, however the divvle — or by 
 the Lord's will — he got there !" for the Double had retreated in 
 the direction contrary to Mr. Lowers house — " Peery ! Peery, 
 avich r — 
 
 " Shove aside, and clear the road," said the serjeant. The police 
 and their prisoners accordingly stood at the fence, the men pre- 
 senting arms. The Lord Lieutenant stopt before them, and was 
 about to ask what was the matter, when Cahill broke forward, 
 and falling almost prostrate, prayed his Excellency to look on him, 
 and remember him well, and say whether or no he had not, a few 
 moments before, pardoned him his offences ; and at the same time 
 he again shouted out for Peery O'Dea to support his assertion. 
 
92 THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT 
 
 " The man must be mad," said the Lord Lieutenant to Mr. 
 Lowe — both of them must be so ; I have never seen either of them, 
 in my life before ; and jet how apparently sincere is their eamest- 
 nes» ; one of them weeps." 
 
 At the sound of his Excellency's voice Cahill started up, staring 
 in misgiving and dismay on the face of the speaker ; and again he 
 called, in a whisper, to Peery, " Peery, avich /" as if for counciL 
 
 " No, Ned, asthore" replied Peery, after making his own obser- 
 vations, *' 'tisn't himself is afore us — or — it is himself, I mane, or 
 else there's two o' them — or, it was the ould divvle that came the 
 road, first of all, to make you go through wid the fooHsh thought 
 o' your mind, and get you taken agin !" 
 
 While the Lord Lieutenant was speaking in an under tone with 
 Mr. Lowe, the serjeant of the police advanced to recapture Cahill. 
 Peery O'Dea now sprang forward and continued, in a loud, wailing 
 voice — " But since they have you the second turn, Ned, it's time 
 for me to do what I said ! — Plaise your Lordship, Ned Cahill, my 
 wife's brother, though he broke gaol, is as innocent as my own 
 weenoch o' what sent him there ! — I am the man — I, Peery O'Dea, 
 that headed the boys up to the house, for the arms that night — 
 an' Ned wasn't wid us at all, only met me on the road after we 
 got what we went for — an' forced my gun from me, an' stood to 
 be seized by the Peelers ! an' this is the holy thruth, an' I'll get 
 your honour plenty o' witnesses to say so« An' now, sure your 
 Majisty 'ill tell them to let him go, an' take me in his place, an' " — 
 
 " Don't put thrust in a word the fool of a boy is sayin', glory 
 to your Lordship," interrupted Cahill — " the head of him is cracked, 
 becase I'm poor Mary's brother, an' he's often not in his right 
 mind. 'Twas in my hands the gun was found — an' 'twas I that 
 broke gaol — amd, by coorse, it's I that ought to go to gaol, over agin. 
 An' so, misther serjeant — now, the Lord save us ! an' what's this ?" 
 
 Mary O'Dea held him in her arms, sobbing and weeping aloud. 
 " To gaol you'll never go, brother Ned, macliree .'" — she cried — 
 " never, never, praises to the good God, an' our good Lord Lieu- 
 tenant !" 
 
 '' Avich, you poor tcratur ; an' did that desaitful diwle come 
 across you, too, and make you all manner o' promises ?" asked 
 Cahill, returning her embraces. 
 
 " Your honour, my Lord !" continued Mary, " spake the word you 
 promised me!" 
 
 Addressing Mr. Lowe, his Excellency, touched and affected, 
 turned his horses head — " Pray, Sir, explain to the poor people." 
 
AND HIS DOUBLE. 93 
 
 " Cahill," said Mr. Lowe, " your sister has saved you ; at least 
 confirmed the Lord Lieutenant's merciful dispositions towards you, 
 previously formed by reason of other circumstances. She contrived to 
 meet his Excellency, before my house, this morning, and, on con- 
 dition that a considerable depot of concealed arms — discovered by 
 her, she has not said how," (Cahill glanced from Mary to Peery,) 
 " should be delivered up, obtained your pardon. The tranquillity of 
 the country for the last year, a word in your favour, from your 
 priest and others, and, indeed, from myself, and a wish to show the 
 deluded people that they will be treated mercifully, whenever they, 
 themselves, afford the opportunity — all this helped your sister's 
 prayers. Thank his Excellency. You are a free man." 
 
 That Cahill did as he was bid it would be idle to enforce. Nei- 
 ther is it necessary to describe the joy of the re-united family. 
 But, indeed, kind English readers — contradictory as the thing may 
 sound — men made of mortal materials similar to those which we 
 believe you like in the brothers-in-law, Ned and Peery, often plun- 
 der arms in some Lish counties, nay — (and alas for the admission !) 
 use them fearfully, too. Let us hope and pray, however, that such 
 an Irish Lord Lieutenant as we here have sketched for you, acting 
 under the wise instructions which shape his own excellent feelings 
 and inclinations, may soon gain possession of all the hidden depots 
 of destruction, accumulated by the wretched people. 
 
 As for his Double — 
 
 " Peery avicli^^ said Cahill, after they and Mary had been left 
 alone on the road — " let us run hard, straight-a-head, an' thry 
 an' lay hould o' that brute-baste of a pretendher !" 
 
 END OF THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT AND HIS DOUBLE. 
 
THE FAMILY OF THE COLD FEET. 
 
THE 
 
 FAMILY OF THE COLD FEET. 
 
 So were called a highly respectable Irish family ; and the appel- 
 lation is continued to their descendants of the present day, in con- 
 sequence of the concluding circumstances of the following true 
 narration. Incredulous some readers may be after having perused 
 it to the end, notwithstanding our intimation that it deals with facts. 
 Should such be the case we cannot help it; and shall only add, that 
 while the occurrence, for which we apprehend most question, has 
 authenticated parallels in many countries over the world, its truth, 
 in the particular instance before us, has been vouched to the writer 
 by a member of — The family of the Cold Feet. Ay, and cold 
 were his own feet while he told the chilling story ; so inveterately, 
 so inheritedly cold, that the blaze of the jovial fire at which we 
 sat, during his narrative, could not impart to them the least 
 warmth ; and cold, cold were his children's feet — all except one, 
 who obviously took after her mother, as well in constitution as iu 
 face and personal conformation ; and cold, cold had been his father's 
 feet — as cold, while he lived, as when he had been dead three days, 
 and decidedly cold all over ; and his grandfather's, and his grand- 
 father's mother's — which lady brought the inconvenience into the 
 family. And now we begin to tell in what manner. 
 
 Antony Skelton, at four-and- twenty, was a tall, well-limbed, 
 fair-haired, ruddy-cheeked, blue-eyed, and half-educated Irishman ; 
 a younger brother, too, though on that account scarce a whit less 
 dangerous to many a blooming girl around him. He lived with his 
 brother, the baronet, in the old cut-stone mansion, called Upper 
 Court, having nothing to do but hunt, fish, shoot, cock-fight, dog- 
 fight, badger-bait, ferret- chase the rabbits in the warren, and, 
 above all, dear women, admire you. Profession he would none of; 
 taking fees, either as attorney, barrister, surgeon, or physician, was 
 very much beneath his family consequence. lie might have put 
 
98 THE FAMILY OF 
 
 his fine broad shoulders into a red jacket, indeed, (or rather lon<; 
 and broad skirted red coat, as was then good military exquisitism,) 
 had there been spirited wars going on over Europe : but it was a 
 time of profound peace, and he candidly admitted that he did not 
 like the trouble of drilling, and parading, and mounting guard, 
 when very little could be expected to come of it. And he had 
 much rather stay at home, amusing himself as a country gentleman 
 on his brother's grounds. 
 
 This sounded in many ears as quite an independent resolution ; 
 but that it really was so may be questioned. There was little doubt 
 that, at an early age, he had, among the pleasures of the Irish me- 
 tropolis, with great facility, disposed of, the few thousands which fell 
 to his share, as a younger brother, according to his father's will. 
 So that when he spoke, with a toss of his head, of " staying at 
 home, amusing himself as a country gentleman on his brother's 
 grounds," he must have meant, though, perhaps, it never struck 
 him, at his brother's expense into the bargain. Sir Koger was 
 fond of him, however, and one of a class of men of that peculiar 
 good nature, besides, who can countenance the expenses of those 
 they are fond of, or as he would himself have said, " used to," at 
 the risk of their own personal independence. So, Tony did very 
 well ; nearly as well as if he had been elder son born, and wrote 
 himself Sir Tony. 
 
 Well, gallantry, it has been declared, was, above all others, his 
 amusement on his brother's grounds, and in the neighbourhood. 
 For it he would, in truth, give up fox, hare, the river's side, the 
 rabbit-warren, a cock-fight, a badger-bait — any other thing. Of 
 this he boasted, as he ought to have done, to more fair faces than 
 two or three, and was estimated accordingly — for a season at 
 least — by each of those to whom, in turn, he made the avowal in 
 strict confidence. Nor was " Master Tony" — or more expressively 
 with reference to his virtual reign at Upper Court, " the young 
 master," as the tenants called him — particularly select in the exer- 
 cise of his talent. His "grand passion," or universal passion, 
 asserted and proved itself in a very efficient kind of way, from the 
 *' cottier's" comely daughter up through the family of the small 
 farmer, of the " strong farmer," of the gentleman farmer, and of 
 the still more genteel farmer, till it had achieved ils utmost flight, 
 proportioned to his opportunities, at the fireside of the next 'squire, 
 locally "square," baronet, bishop, or hfipjy, real lord. For Tony 
 certainly had the blessed talent of making himself agreeable, and 
 therefore welcome, from the mud cabin to the family seat. We 
 
THE COLD FEET. 99 
 
 have called him half-educnted — that is, he pretended to Virgil, and 
 hinted at EiicHd; still he had been a member of T. C. D., and be 
 could smatter on, amusingly, among the very best society of his 
 county. While in rhyming, which he devoted exclusively to songs 
 in praise of angling, hunting, fishing, wine, and ladies, Tony was 
 considered a master. 
 
 Now, any sagacious reader will perceive that so much had not 
 been said about Mr. Tony's characteristics, unless that they must 
 have a good deal to do with the origin and perpetuation of " cold 
 feet'' in bis family. Such, indeed, is the fact, as we hasten to make 
 e vident. 
 
 The house of a neighbouring gentleman had long been untenanted, 
 save by the trusty servants in whose care he had left it. ' Mr. 
 Neville lost a well-beloved wife, in her first confinement, and im- 
 mediately after quitted his home and country to seek forgetfulness 
 of sorrow in foreign lands. The innocent cause of her mother's 
 death, his infant daughter, he deposited in safe and respectable 
 hands, to be nursed through the first years of childhood ; and when 
 Esther Neville gained her sixth year, he sent for her from England, to 
 which country he had just returned from the continent, and thence- 
 forward assumed his natural right as her protector. For some time 
 she was educated in England, afterwards in France and Italy, and 
 ultimately in England again ; and in her nineteenth year her father 
 came back with her to his native country, to instal her, as her 
 mother's successor, in his paternal mansion ; announcing his deter- 
 mination never to re -marry, and proclaiming her heiress to his con- 
 siderable estate, and funded property. 
 
 Antony Skelton, for some long weeks Ijefore her arrival within 
 ten minutes' ride of Upper Court, had been rather at a loss for a 
 new object of adoration. He soon got Sir Roger to accompany 
 him to Mr. Neville's on a welcoming visit ; fell in love with Esther, 
 ten seconds after he had seen her ; and having contrived to stay 
 for dinner, while his brother returned home, told her as much before 
 he left the house that evening. 
 
 Let no one be astonished at this dispatch. It was his way ; he 
 couldn't help it. No, no more than a connoisseur can help express- 
 ing raptures at the first sight of an old picture, although he may 
 have seen hundreds, quite as old, before it. In very truth, Tony 
 could not recollect the time since his sixteenth year, that he had 
 once been able to curb the avowal of his perfect love fnr any and 
 every w^oman or girl in the least interesting, by whose side he found 
 . himself the necessary number of hours. And we pray, in his be- 
 
100 THE FAMILY OF 
 
 half, that no ill-natured perj^on will suppose it was because Esther 
 Neville happened to be an heiress, and he a younger brother, that 
 he so soon declared himself, in the present instance. No such 
 thing. Heiresses were by no means new to him. He had been at 
 the knees of one or two before, and given them up in a few months, 
 Aveeks, or days, as it might be, for the untiring pleasure of once 
 more manifesting his mighty love for the sex in general, in the case, 
 perhaps, of a pennyless fifth or seventh daughter. Ko, indeed ; the 
 least mercenary lover on the earth was Tony. And in some degree 
 to account for this, considering his own pauper state, and a rapid 
 growth of nephews at Upper Court, perhaps it is as well to surmise 
 that, in thus offering fervid adorations, like a lusty sun, to every 
 flower in the female garden, he had not as yet ever thought of 
 becoming entitled, by marriage, to the goods and chattels of one 
 individual woman. But ivky he should not have done so we are 
 utterly unable to explain. 
 
 And how sped his, as yet, newest of all wooings ? How did 
 Esther Neville take his sufficiently abrupt attack ? Not as she 
 ought to have done had she much experience of the world, or of 
 the various sorts of fools in it. Out of select English boarding- 
 schools, or of continental convents, she bad lived but little ; and 
 romance substituted in her mind a wholesome and most necessary 
 knowledge of mankind and of womankind. Of such a man as we 
 have sketched Tony Skelton, at four-and- twenty, she had dreamed, 
 as well as of her own powers of striking to the death at first sijiiht ; 
 not forgetting his really fervid and seemingly unchangeable man- 
 ner in giving her so quick a proof of her good opinion of herself. 
 In truth, although, as the most romantic woman is bound to do, 
 Esther made no response to his first startling speech, Tony had 
 not repeated it, with pretty additions, more than four times, when 
 she did ; and vows of deathless fidelity were forthwith inter- 
 changed ; and, in the stolen walks they enjoyed among the wild 
 and solitary scenery adjacent to Mr. Neville's house, plans of future 
 happiness — of happiness that never could, would, should, or ought 
 to tire — towered up, like that same wild scenery, before and round 
 them, till it faded into rich and beautiful vagueness in the dis- 
 tance. And this was as true of Tony Skelton as of Esther Neville. 
 He felt as enthusiastic and as sincere as she did. Yes — not ^ 
 doubt of it. He felt, in fact, as he had often felt before, just like 
 a man in love for the very first time ; and he could have sworn to 
 the world, as well as to his (twn heart, that it was utterly imposa- 
 ble he should ever look with the slightest interest on another woman. 
 
THE COLD FEET. 101 
 
 In fact, the ardent, quick-tempered Esther was in her para- 
 dise — Fool's Paradise. Once or twice only she thought it odd 
 that, in all their schemes for perennial blisses, her lover never 
 happened to allude to the married state. But, on reflection, this 
 could mean nothing at all ; or, if anything, it illustrated his deli- 
 cacy, and so helped to raise him in her estimation, if that were 
 possible. It struck her, however, that she might as well tempt 
 him a little on the point ; so, one evening, when, as usual, she 
 had stolen out to meet him by the river's side, Esther, after ex- 
 pressing her tremors at the idea of being missed, and asked after 
 by her father, added, " but our little uneasiness on that head, 
 dear Tony, will soon be removed — I mean when you propose for 
 me at home." 
 
 ''Propose for you at home, dearest Esther!" he repeated, 
 staring at her with great simplicity, and a disinterested observer 
 might have added, something like quandary, or stupidity. In 
 truth, it was the first time the idea had presented itself to his 
 mind. And here we again express ourselves unable to make out 
 the peculiar mental economy of our hero. Such as we have found 
 him, however, we give him to the world. 
 
 A quick flash from Esther's dark eyes met his strange stare ; 
 and she demanded, " Why do you repeat my words ? 
 
 " Repeat your words, Esther ? Oh, ay ; yes, to be sure — what 
 a blockhead I am — ! ha ! ha ! don't be angry with me, gra-ma- 
 
 chree " here he slightly interrupted his speech by a little act — 
 
 "but, as I over and over told you, my darling, looking straight 
 into your beautiful face, always makes me forget what I am say- 
 ing — ay, or doing either." 
 
 Esther constrainedly echoed his laugh ; and, though nothing 
 more distinct was said on the subject, all seemed well. On their 
 way homeward, however, she thought Tony a shade graver, or 
 more reflective than usual ; and she lay down that night with the 
 germ of something disagreeable in her mind. 
 
 The next evening Tony sent her a message, as usual, and they 
 wxre again alone, in a suitable lover-suiting place. Esther came out, 
 determined to watch him ; and having made this resolution, she, 
 doubtless, would have found in his words, looks, and manner, 
 something she suspected him of, had he been as innocent as a babe. 
 Truth must be told, however. Tony really was a changed, or at 
 least a changing man. Why ? He no more knew, at present, 
 than he had known, on similar occasions, many a time before. 
 Once only, during the evening, did he appear much interested ; 
 
102 THE FAMILY OF 
 
 but the occasion for his alteration of demeanour was no comfort 
 to Esther's heart. 
 
 "' When my cousin Mary comes to see me, dear Tony, we must, 
 at once, make her a confidant," said Esther. 
 
 '* Certainly, Esther. Does she come soon ?'* 
 
 " To-morrow — some time of the day." 
 
 '* Indeed ! and that is soon." His handsome eyes beamed 
 brightly; though, alas! for poor Esther, they turned away, with 
 a kind of a happy, speculative expression. I'm so glad — for your 
 sake, I mean. Your cousin will be such company to you !" 
 
 " Thank you, Tony." Esther was quite put out ; she could 
 make nothing of him, no more than ourselves. 
 
 " Is she older or younger than you, Esther ?" demanded Tony, 
 still in a calculating way. 
 
 '' About my own age." 
 
 " And like you ? Any family resemblance ?" 
 
 " Not the least. I am not ver?/ tall — she is tall ; I am a brown 
 girl — she is a fair one " 
 
 *' With blue eyes, light hair, and a good complexion ?" inter- 
 rupted Tony, vivaciously. 
 
 " Yes, as is usual with very fair women." 
 
 " Very fair, you say ?" again interrupted her waning, waning 
 lover, bewitched with the novelty of the contrast between his pre- 
 sent mistress and his future one. 
 
 " Yes, Tony Skelton, verT/ fair ; as fair as heart can wish," an- 
 swered Esther, now just beginning to apprehend. 
 
 "And only about nineteen, like yourself," cried Tony, not no- 
 ticing Esther's expressive manner, in the anticipating joy of his 
 simple heart ; " and a bounding, bouncing, charming girl, I'll 
 warrant ; all smiles and laughter, and pleasant conversation ! Yes, 
 I remember you hinted as much to me before, didn't you, Esther ?" 
 
 There is no use in continuing the scene between the lovers on 
 this occasion. Tony arrived at home, to rave as much about 
 Esther's cousin as he had done about Esther's self before her 
 arrival at Upper Court. Esther locked herself up in her chamber 
 to hate the merry-hearted Mary, whom she had loved, during 
 their first acquaintance in Dublin, on her way from England lo 
 her father's house, and ever since, till this evening ; jind, even 
 towards her beau-ideal of a lover, and of a constant lover, Tony Skel- 
 ton, her heart began to change, and change badly. Uuamiable 
 ingredients had naturally mixed themselves up with the whole of 
 Esther's character ; and the course of her education and expe- 
 

 THE COLO FEET. 103 
 
 rience bad not since worked them out of it. As a child, she was 
 self-willed, almost daring in the attainment of whatever she had 
 set her heart on, and resentful if thwarted in gaining her object. 
 Nay, worse^ she could brood over her disappointment, and unre- 
 lentingly nurse a spirit of retaliation towards its author. Judicious 
 direction of her mind and feelings might, doubtless, have done 
 much towards subduing, if not eradicating, these infirmities during 
 her growth from child into girl ; or the really good portions of her 
 mind and heart, their generosity, and even romance, might have 
 been cultivated and enlarged, so as to weigh down their dangerous 
 tendencies. Such, we repeat, had not, however, been the case ; 
 and now, at nineteen, she was, therefore, a passive victim to the 
 unamiable temptations of her nature ; at the impulse, too, of the 
 greatest disappointment any woman can feel, and which Esther 
 Neville felt to an intensity of which few women are capable. In 
 fact, before the summer morning's sun danced dazzlingly througli 
 the window on her sleepless eyes, Esther had vowed a vengeance 
 upon the unconscious Tony Skelton, for his buoyant spirits the 
 previous evening ; nay, she had planned it, and only waited to 
 receive full proof of his delinquency, with a fit opportunity, in 
 order to carry it into execution. 
 
 And Tony did not keep her long waiting. He was in Mr. 
 Neville's house when Mary O'Neil entered it, and scarce stirred 
 from her side the whole evening. Esther had to suflfer the scene 
 of a laughing, witty, hilarious flirtation between her cousin and 
 her quondam lover, while she sat neglected, looking out througli 
 the old bow-window of the sombre drawing-room. She did suffer 
 it, however, silently, and, to all appearance, contentedly ; and, at 
 length, she left them alone — to reconnoitre, however, from an adja- 
 cent room ; at the door of which she had not stood a long while till 
 her ears heard the words of perfidy from Tony's importunate lips, 
 and then something else from them, with the aid of those of the 
 laughing, almost scofl[ing, Mary O'Neil, which sounded to Esther 
 like a poisonous reptile's hiss. 
 
 And now she took her measures, her first ones, at least. She 
 wrote to Mary's brother, a brave and cool, though fierce, old cam- 
 paigner, quartered with his regiment in a town near at hand. She 
 sought her father, in his library, and conversed with him some time. 
 Then she had to adapt her manner and looks to her purposes, before 
 re-entering the drawing-room, where the new lovers still sat in the 
 twilight. " Does she laugh at him still ?" thought Esther, again 
 eaves-dropping at the door. '' No — now her voice is gentle enough, 
 
104 THE FAMILY OF 
 
 and if she does continue to reject his quickly conceived, and as 
 quickly told love, it is in maiden murmurs only. Good ! very 
 good ! — Mary O'Neil, he shall be mine yet — mine, though it were 
 but to show him how I loathe him, when he is so !" And, so me- 
 ditating, Esther tripped into the room, in seemingly high spirits, 
 rallying the happy pair, and congratulating herself on having been 
 the means of making them known to each other. Mary laughed, 
 and protested, and remonstrated, and asked, " Hoav could such 
 nonsense enter into her dear Esther's head ?" And Master Tony, 
 wliat did he say or do ? Was there no appearance of disconcer- 
 tion in his manner ? no consciousness of being, at the least, a very 
 gay deceiver? no awkwardness in the presence of the woman to 
 whom, a f^vf^ hours before, he had been swearing, in good round 
 oaths, (as became his rank and bearing in those good old times,) 
 adoration and fidelity ? Not a trace of anything like all this : and 
 for a very sufficient reason — namely, because he did not feel it. 
 His heart accused him of nothing at all. He stood quite self-ac- 
 quitted to his own conscience, or rather he had never been at its 
 bar for an instant. He was but following his nature, his vocation. 
 Ill a word, the matter did not, could not, trouble his mind, had 
 never done so, and was very unlikely ever to do so. And hence, 
 upon Esther's re-appearance, he only joined in Mary O'NeiFs laugh, 
 and chuckled, and rubbed the palms of his hands together, and 
 jeally and truly thought it all exceedingly pleasant and natural, and 
 just as it ought to be. 
 
 About three evenings after, Tony and Mary O'Neil were seated 
 in a very nice little place, out of doors. It was a miniature, a 
 fairy valley, abruptly entered, at one point, very near to that where 
 they had chosen to repose themselves after their walk, by a zigzag 
 path down one of its sides — the side, too, opposite to where they 
 sat. A little wailing brook — so little that it fretted itself in wail- 
 ing against the mere pebbles which obstructed the would-be per- 
 fectly even course of its insignificant existence — was at their feet ; 
 their couch was one of the inland sweeps of its mossy, and 
 daisied, and butter-cupped bank ; and the sky-lark was bravuring 
 his last evening song for his wife, over their heads. Could there 
 be a better boudoir for two lovers ? They thought not. 
 
 " But can I believe you ?" murmured Mary, as Tony's doomed 
 head rested on her shoulder, " this time, your first time ?" 
 
 *• I vow and swear it, dearest, dearest darling, by the round 
 world, and the blue sky over it ! — by your two eyes ! — and by 
 this — and this — ." 
 
THE COLD FEET. 105 
 
 "Stop, stop!" whispered Mary, "there's someone looking at yon.'* 
 
 Tony followed her glance with his own. On the top line of the 
 sweeping ground opposite to them stood three figures. Esther 
 Neville, leaning her right arm on her father's, and her left on that 
 of a dragoon officer of about forty. " My brother Peter !" half 
 shrieked Mary, starting up. 
 
 The new comers stood a moment observantly, during which 
 Esther, turning her face alternately from one to another of her 
 supporters, pointed expressively towards the lovers. " AVhat do 
 they want here ?" asked Tony, rising. Esther, her father, and 
 Captain O'Neil, descended the zigzag path to the brook, crossed 
 the tiny stream by stepping-stones, and were soon with their friends. 
 
 " Hope you're well, Miss Mary O'Neil, since I saw you last," 
 said the militaire, Mary could only run to him, and embrace him. 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. Tony Skelton," began Esther. 
 
 " A kind good evening, Esther," answered Tony, " thongb I 
 thought we wished each other that before." 
 
 " I want to make you acquainted with Miss O'Neil's brother, 
 Captain O'Neil," continued Esther. 
 
 " Thank you kindly !" responded Tony. 
 
 " My service to you, Sir," said the Captain, bowing low, while 
 the broad skirts of his braided coat stuck out at either side. 
 
 " And mine to you, Captain," answered Tony, quite cheerfully. 
 
 " I may as well make you a little better known to one another, 
 gentlemen," resumed Esther, haughtily taking her father's aim, 
 while her bridled passion made her brown cheeks pallid, and her 
 slight lips ashy-coloured. "This, Mr. Antony Skelton, is a brave 
 and distinguished officer, who, as yet, cannot count a stain on the 
 honour of one member of his family, male or female, and who is 
 determined he never shall. And this. Captain O'Neil, is the young 
 gentleman who has been trifling with the affections of two of your 
 relations in the short space of a few weeks ; the presumptuous 
 beggar, who began by swearing himself my admirer, and who pre- 
 vailed on me to conceal the dishonour from you, dearest father ; 
 and who, the very hour Mary O'Neil came to see me, repeated the 
 same oaths to her. (Mary shrieked out at these words)... and re- 
 peated them, again and again, until at last she allowed him the degree 
 of intimacy we have witnessed from the top of that height yonder." 
 
 " A peculiar kind of business, Mr. Antony Skelton," remarked 
 the grave and gruff Captain. 
 
 " I protest — I declare, Captain, I don't know, I can't see what 
 all this means," said Tony. 
 
106 THE FAMILY OF 
 
 *' Then we must only try and clear your eyesight, Sir. Yon wish 
 to have nothing to say further in the matter, cousin Esther ?" 
 
 " Me !" repeated Esther, scoffingly, " I scorn the poor adventurer 
 as I do the dust of the road I have come to find him for you." 
 
 " Very well," rejoined the Captain, " you need be in no passion, 
 my dear ; I only asked you to declare your mind to his face — just 
 to give him a hint that, although my own sister is second in the 
 case, I should have seen you righted before her, if such was your 
 will, taking into account that you were first in the case. Very 
 well. And so, Mr. Antony, 'tis with Miss O'Neil's help you are 
 carrying on the war at present ?** 
 
 '^ Sir ? what do you say, Captain ?'* asked Tony. 
 " That is, in plain words, you are very much devoted to my sister." 
 " Devoted ! I adore her on the knees of my heart ! and have 
 told her as much a thousand times !" assented Tony, joyously. 
 " Very well. Sir. You do my sister and me a great honour." 
 " Delighted to hear you say so !" cried Tony, pouncing on his 
 hand, and shaking it. 
 
 *' Very well, Mr. Antony. All very well, so far ; and of course, 
 you agree that, particularly after your meeting here this evening, 
 which any one might have witnessed before your friends came up, 
 the sooner such matters are brought to an end, the better for all 
 parties concerned.'' 
 
 *' I — I must really say," stammered Tony, " that I should be 
 very, very sorry to bring things to an end so soon between me and 
 
 my darling Mary ." His heart nearly failed him at the thought 
 
 of giving her up so exceedingly soon ; '' but if you afi^ord me a 
 little more time, and let me look about me a little, perhaps I may 
 soon be able to oblige you." 
 
 " I can spare very little time. Sir," replied the Captain, miscon- 
 ceiving him, yet, even on his own understanding, looking danger- 
 ous. "My leave of absence extends but to three days." 
 
 " Well, Captain, well, even in three days a good many things 
 may happen." 
 
 *' But the business ought be completed, Sir, before I go back to 
 my regiment.'' 
 
 '' Well, and perhaps it may — who knows ?" assented Tony, 
 cheerfully, and with self-reliance. 
 
 " Come, come. Sir — I don't understand you at all, nor your 
 foolish manner either. In one word, Mr. Antony Skelton, are you 
 prepared to marry Miss O'Xeil this evening, under Mr. Neville's 
 roof r 
 
THE COLD FEET. 107 
 
 ^* Marry !" ejaculated Tony, ia mortal surprise. But he 
 
 ? was soon made more familiar with the new-formed idea, on having 
 tbe Captain's alternative suggested to him. Not, indeed, that he 
 was as much a coward as he was a half-witted country gentleman. 
 Had he disliked Mary^ it is probable he would have stood and 
 fired his four or five shots for a chance of escaping her ; but, on 
 the contrary, his passion for her still remained as strong as any he 
 had ever felt for any other woman, chiefly, perhaps, because as yet 
 she had not quite fully avowed her adoration of himself, and he 
 wanted that habitual gratification, at any risk. In short, with the 
 nature or extent of his new engagement only very vaguely esta- 
 blished in his mind, and while poor Mary, notwithstanding a grow- 
 ing preference, objected on the score of Tony's perfidy to her cousin, 
 as well as on account of the rapidity of the proceeding, married 
 they were that evening, in Mr. Neville's house — her brother em- 
 phatically bullying her into compliance by threats of a foreign 
 convent. It should before now have been said that Mary O'Neil 
 was an orphan, her father and mother both dead, and therefore 
 that she stood greatly in awe of a brother so much her elder. 
 
 " I wish you joy^ Mary Skelton," whispered Esther^ directly 
 the marriage ceremony had been performed. Mary half started 
 at the emphasis with which her cousin spoke ; it seemed to hide 
 a dangerous meaning. Then she began to wonder at Esther's zeal 
 in so precipitately providing her with a husband, in the person of 
 the very man whom, but a few days before, she had permitted to 
 pay attentions to herself. And the reader's surprise may also be 
 aroused on this point, recollecting Esther's mental resolve, while 
 meanly eaves-dropping at the drawing-room door. Marrying Tony 
 to another woman seemed, indeed, a strange step towards making 
 him her own property. But we shall hear her explain the crooked 
 and unique workings of her imperfected mind and unrefined heart. 
 
 How Tony was to support a wife, now that he had got one, to- 
 gether with some other little human beings who might follow the 
 event, to say nothing of himself, dogs, horses, cocks, ferrets, and 
 two or three servants, at least, to look after his whole menage ; 
 this was a question which occupied his brother-in-law the Captain, 
 his host, Mr. Neville, and, (in a very slight degree) himself, to a 
 late hour the night of his marriage. 
 
 '' As for me," said Tony, laughing gaily, " every body knows 
 that, since my last Dublin trip, I have been living on Divine Pro- 
 vidence, like my friends the archbishops." 
 
 " Your brother may assist you," observed Mr. Neville. 
 
108 THE FAMILY OF 
 
 " Roger has not a sod that isn't mortgaged twice over," an- 
 swered Tony, " and I believe I helped him, the first time, my own 
 self," he added, again laughing — not a false, forced laugh, but a 
 sincere hearty one. 
 
 " I live on my pay alone," said Captain O'Neil, " having been 
 a little improvident, like yourself, brother Tony, in my younger 
 days, with the wreck of the paternal property which my dear fa- 
 ther's tastes, as a country gentleman, properly supporting the 
 family consequence, left me to take care of. Your wife's little 
 fortune remains untouched, however ; and, with it, suppose we 
 purchase and stock a snug farm for you ? Care and prudence 
 might soon make you and Mary rich, and cut out something for 
 the little ones ; and 'tis no disgrace to a gentleman to farm his 
 own lands." 
 
 '• Done !" cried Tony, striking the table with his knuckles. 
 " Disgrace ! not a bit ; *tis a most honourable occupation — and 
 that's the worst can be said of it. And as to care and prudence 
 between my. darling Mary and me, now that we are to be turned 
 out on our own accounts ; never fear, Captain ; never fear, Mr. 
 Neville. So good night — and here's our own noble healths. Good 
 night — hurra !" And, bounding like a stag over the backs of 
 chairs which stood in his way, Tony sallied forth. 
 
 Two days after, the new married couple, accompanied by the 
 Captain, left Mr. Neville's house to take possession of their own. 
 Esther Neville did not appear to wish them good-by — her father 
 said she was indisposed. Nor had she appeared to them since the 
 moment after their marriage, when she wished Mary joy in rather 
 a remarkable manner. And her father all along gave the same 
 account of her absence ; but it was not the true one. Esther did not 
 stay in the house ten minutes after leaving the drawing-room that 
 evening. Ordering her carriage, she departed in it for the abode 
 of a lady, a relation, in the neighbourhood ; and home she did not 
 return till Tony Skelton and his wife had quitted her father's house. 
 
 Let us skip over about a year-and-a-half, and visit farmer Tony 
 in his own house, just to see what " care and prudence" had done 
 for him in the mean time. He and Mary are sitting to a good turf 
 fire, facing each other ; and that's one feature of comfort, certainly. 
 Tony has a huge jug of strong beer before him — and that's another. 
 But he is ill-dressed, and so is poor Mary ; and he looks five years 
 older than when we last saw him, and not so handsome, to say 
 nothing of respectable ; and she looks delicate, and worn, and 
 drooping; in fact, she is but recovering from her confinement. 
 
THE COLD FEET. 109 
 
 Glance round the room. Fowling-pieces, fishing-rods, nets, and 
 other weapons and implements of field sport, irregularly placed over 
 the chimney, hint that Tony is yet able, or recently has been, to 
 follow some of his old pastimes ; nay, a fox-hound rolled up before 
 the fire, and a fresh brush stuck into the muzzle of a fowling- 
 piece, proclaim that, if his hunter is not yet in the stable, he very 
 lately might have been found there. But what shall we say of the 
 torn, and worn, and crumpled carpet on the floor ? and of the 
 ricketty, almost shivered deal table before him ; and of the one 
 mean, thin, gauky tallow-candle which flickers on it ? and of the 
 broken chairs, and the damp white mould which in many places 
 covers the paper on the walls of Tony's parlour ? 
 
 A few words of the conversation between him and his wife may 
 assist us to answer: — "Never mind, Mary, duck; keep never 
 minding, and all will go right in the long run. If you would just 
 stop talking to me, in that way, about this woman and that woman, 
 and this girl and that girl, you would leave me more heart to look 
 about me, and keep things together." 
 
 " Very well, dear Tony, very well ; only Vm told you had a tray 
 time of it while I was up stairs, the last three weeks. But no mat- 
 ter. What we are now to do for common food, or even to keep 
 the old leaky house over our heads — that's the question." 
 
 "Well, and so it is, darling," assented Tony. 
 
 " You take it very quietly, Tony, dear." 
 
 "And to be sure I do, Mary, pet." 
 
 " But what do you mean to do ? There is not a shilling left of 
 the thirteen hundred spared out of my little fortune, after purchas- 
 ing the farm, to help us on — is there ?" 
 
 " Not a stiver, my love." 
 
 " And our stock is driven, almost to the last cow, for debts in- 
 curred in the meantime ?" 
 
 " You speak the blessed truth, duck." 
 
 " And we owe more than what they have sold for." 
 
 " Indeed and we do, sure enough." 
 
 " And no one will give us a loaf on credit any longer." 
 K^ " So they say, darling." 
 ^^ " Then, w^here are we to get the loaf ?" 
 
 Hk, " Buy it — out of that, my dear :" and, to Mary's astonishment, 
 ^^Buny emptied a goodly-sized leathern bag of guineas on the table. 
 ^B " In the name of goodness, Tony, how have you come by that ?" 
 ^B " Esther Neville's attorney gave it to me." 
 
 " Esther Neville's attorney," repeated Mary, in const-ernation. 
 
110 THE FAMILY OF 
 
 " Yes, love. Yon know, since the old man's death, she has all 
 his great riches at her own disposal." 
 
 " Yes. Well, she lends it to you ?" 
 
 " No such thing ; but, as I was talking of mortgaging our little 
 purchase, she heard of it, and so sent the attorney to me, and the 
 l3usiness was soon settled." 
 
 '' Soon, indeed," replied Alarj. Then she added to herself : 
 " Well might you wish me joy, Esther ;" and dismal, though vague, 
 forebodings pressed on Mary's mind. 
 
 " How soon must you repay Esther Neville, Tony ?" she resumed, 
 after a pause, during which her tranquil husband was whistling a 
 hunting air, and playing with the heap of gold on the table. 
 
 " Esther offered me my own time, darling ; so, to make sure, I 
 named this day twelvemonths ; and that's what the little attorney 
 called a special deed of agreement between us, that the land and 
 house are Esther's, if we are not quite punctual. But little fear of 
 that : ' care and prudence' will enable us to meet the debt in six 
 months, not to talk of twelve." 
 
 A comely serving-wench here bustled into the parlour, much 
 agitated. *'Misther Antony," she cried, "there's Kitty Larissy, 
 the smith's daughter, from the other side o' the river, is afther 
 sendin' in a little brat of a gorsoon^ to ax you to step out to spake 
 to her. I wondher what makes her ashamed or afeard to come up 
 to our dour her ownself, instid o' snakin' about the house in that 
 way." 
 
 " Divvle's in the little fool, what can she want of me ?" de- 
 manded Tony, bundling out of the room with a very bad grace. 
 
 " You're the best judge o' that, yourself, Sir," answered the 
 serving- wench, stumping after him in evident dudgeon — and dud- 
 geon of that peculiar kind which might have had its source in out- 
 raged though tender feelings. 
 
 "Twelvemonths are soon passed over." Again we approach 
 Tony's house upon the day appointed for the repayment of Esther's 
 loan to him. 
 
 Something unusual has occurred within. The road, as we come 
 near, is covered with country-people ; groups of them also recline on 
 shelving ground over it ; all are grave, and converse in whispers. 
 Looking to the house, we see its window-shutters closed. Enter- 
 ing its little court-yard, Sir Roger Skelton's old lumbering carriage 
 appears at the door ; behind it, those of some of the neighbouriug 
 
THE COLD FEET. Ill 
 
 gentry : Sir Roger's servants wear long white hatbands and scarfs. 
 At either side of the door stand two mutes in black cloaks, holding 
 long black poles in their hands, surmounted by folds of white linen. 
 Death is in the house. The country people have flocked in to at- 
 tend the funeral — a duty considered almost sacred among them — 
 and to vie with each other in bearing the cofiin on their shoulders 
 to the church-yard. Now they know they have not long to wait ; 
 for the two chairs have just been placed before the door to receive 
 the coffin for a few moments, while the clergyman prays over it 
 before it is lifted up and borne to its destination. 
 
 The pause, though short, is very solemn. The country-people 
 crowd up to the house, scarce uttering a breath. Hush ! that wild 
 low wailing of women within the house announces the closing of the 
 coffin-lid. The corpse is brought out. Two clergymen, an old and a 
 young man, issue through the door bareheaded, and murmuring 
 prayers ; white scarfs across their shoulders, and white flowing bands 
 on their hats. Then, carried upon men's arms comes the coffin — poor 
 Tony Skelton and his brother following it as chief mourners, their 
 eyes reddened and cast down, their lower features hidden in the 
 collars of their black cloaks. Other mourners, friends and neigh- 
 bours, also appear in black cloaks, and the procession is ended by 
 women in close white mantles, with hoods gathered round their faces, 
 whose wild lament now swells higher and higher on the ear, and is 
 answered, suddenly, by the ejaculations and cries of the hitherto 
 hushed crowd before the house. The coffin rests awhile upon the 
 chairs ; every head is uncovered, and every knee bent, while the 
 clergymen pray over it. Then four strong men place it on their 
 shoulders ; the clergymen still precede it ; the widower and his 
 brother still follow it ; Sir Roger's carriage and servants come after ; 
 then the friends and their carriages ; then the women in white, — 
 and all pass through the country-people, abroad, who form irregu- 
 larly in their train, to the amount of perhaps a thousand souls, men, 
 women, and children. And in this order the procession moves on, 
 by the bank of a shining placid river and through the windings and 
 inequalities of a road running between sweeping hills at either hand ; 
 the continued wail of the women echoing from height to height, and 
 along the surface of the water. 
 
 It was late on a December day when the funeral left the house. 
 But the church-yard could soon be gained ; ic was not a quarter of 
 a mile distant. Before arriving at it, however, the weather sud- 
 denly changed, as if to try the sincerity of the multitude of volun- 
 tary mourners. Hail, rain, sleet, and wind burst and blustered 
 
112 THE FAMILY OF 
 
 around them ; — no creature of the assemblj turned back. The 
 co^n was carried to Sh' Roger's family vault, the mouth of which, 
 in the middle of the uninclosed church-yard, was, save when a 
 fresh tenant approached it, always covered over by a little oblong 
 building; of brick and mortar, surmounted by a marble slab ; then 
 the slab was removed, and one side of the oblong broken, to afford 
 free passage for the descent of the corpse, down a few narrow stone 
 steps. These circumstances it is advisable to mention. The de- 
 luges of rain and sleet, and the roaring of the wind, increased rather 
 than diminished at the moment, when, in the somewhat premature 
 gloom of the hour, the coffin was being conveyed down the steps 
 into the tomb. There was bustle, confusion, anxiety, and uncer- 
 tainty. The steps were slippery from the sleet; the bearers of the 
 sad burden missed their footing ; they and it were precipitated into 
 the depths of the vault, and the results of the accident soon ap- 
 peared to be some dislocation of their own limbs, and giving away 
 of the screws of the coffin-lid. For the men, help was at hand , 
 for the other mishap, persons were to be sought after ; the evening 
 grew darker and blacker : the storm augmented its rage. By the 
 advice of all friends present, Tony Skelton decided to return home, 
 and wait till morning to have the coffin screwed down again, and 
 the mouth of the vault re-built. 
 
 We now rapidly approach the close of our history. Sir Roger and 
 the elder of the clergymen accompanied Tony to his house, to re- 
 main for the night, and console him in his bereft situation. They 
 found the doors closed ; and this the servants, who had all gone with 
 the funeral, pronounced strange, inasmuch as they had been left 
 open, and, indeed, the house left empty, after the departure of the 
 body for the church-yard. Tony knocked ; the door was opened by 
 Esther Neville's attorney. The widower started and stared. The 
 attorney drew him aside. — " Miss Neville, herself. Sir," he said, 
 '* is in the parlour, and wishes to speak to you alone — quite alone. 
 I am not sure if — ; what she exactly means to do I cannot guess. 
 But she insists on seeing you without a witness." 
 
 Tony looked still more confounded for a moment ; but a happy 
 thought seemed to relieve him a little. He whispered to his brother 
 and the clergyman what was going on, and stepped into the parlour. 
 
 Esther Neville was seated at the fire in the riding dress of the. 
 day. A solitary candle scarce gave light to the apartment. Tol 
 Tony's great comfort she smiled when he appeared, and held out| 
 her hand to him — saying — I am glad to sec you inmyJiouse^ Tony 
 Skelton." 
 
THE COLD FEET. 113 
 
 *' In ijour house, Esther ?" 
 
 " Don't you remember what day of the month this is ?" 
 
 *' Yes," muttered Tony ; " and now I guess what you mean, 
 Esther Neville." 
 
 " Perhaps you do not. Can you redeem your land and house ?" 
 
 " No, not if one gold guinea could redeem them for me.'* 
 
 " Then they are mine, you know ; and, as the weather is bad, 
 I intend sleeping here to-night, with some servants, and my attor- 
 ney. They will contrive a bed for you at Upper Court, I suppose ; 
 or perhaps your friend the clergyman may oblige you." 
 
 " Thank you, Esther. I shall go and see." 
 
 " Stop a moment, dear Tony:" he started, and turned round; 
 she was again smiling at him : " sit down^ and let us have a little 
 chat, something like old times.'' He did as he was bid ; she drew 
 her chair closer to him. 
 
 " Ah, tliose old times, Tony ! when you vowed and swore you 
 loved me dearly !" 
 
 " And I did, Esther !" gasped Tony, his happy suspicion before 
 entering the parlour now almost growing into a reality. " I did! 
 as truly as ever man loved woman !'' 
 
 " 'Twas for a short time^ however. You soon gave me up for 
 another." 
 
 " Ah, dear Esther,, a foolish frolic. I did not mean giving you. 
 up ; and you were to blame, yourself, for separating us, really." 
 
 '• And perhaps I was, dear Tony. But that can't be helped 
 now, you know. Let us go on^ instead of looking back. What- 
 ever attracted you to me, a few years ago, is still in me. I am 
 still a very young woman, not yet two-and-twenty." 
 
 "To be sure you are, my dear Esther! and improved, if pos- 
 sible, every way. More worthy of true love than ever !" 
 
 Did Tony mean and fell what he said ? He did. Esther again 
 was a contrast to all other women he had adored since their angry 
 parting. With the tomb unclosed over Mary O'Neil — with her 
 coffin unscrewed- — he did mean and feel what he said. 
 
 They continued their conversation together for more than an 
 hour. Esther's revenge over the paltry mind and heart of Tony 
 Skelton lay within, her grasp. She sent him to call in his brother, 
 the clergyman, and the attorney. She invited them to be seated, 
 and spoke as follows — *'Mr. Attorney — whatever I say, do not 
 interrupt me. You have assured me there are no means of stay^ 
 ing your proceeding against Mr. Tony Skelton^ and that his house 
 and lands must pass out of his possession, and he once more be- 
 
 I 
 
114 THE TAMILY OF 
 
 come a pauper. But I have found means. I do not scruple to ; 
 saj, gentlemen all, that he and I were once sincerely attached to 
 each other, and that an old love is now renewed, as truly as ever. 
 That being the case, there can be nothing very extraordinary in 
 our becoming man and wife, and, for his sake, as soon as possible. 
 Should we delay a single day — a single evening and night, I 
 mean — I must become the possessor of his only earthly property ; 
 and, sudden — and, perhaps, something else — as the resolution may 
 appear, I have consented to marry him, this instant, to save him, 
 from the humiliation of offering himself to me as a mere beggar.'* 
 Tony winced at the tone of her address. It was a little unlike 
 (though he could not exactly say how or where) her honied wordsi 
 to him, a few moments before. And so was the expression of her 
 face, though he could not define that either. 
 
 Esther paused a moment, being interrupted by loud shouts and 
 cries, seemingly of deadly terror, which passed by the house. 
 They subsided, and she continued. 
 
 " Yes, Gentlemen, there he stands, Tony Skelton, my old lover ; 
 Tony Skelton, who, partly out of a return of pure, disinterested 
 affection for me, partly from a very natural desire of keeping a 
 
 roof over his head, presses me " (there, again, thought Tony, 
 
 why, twas she pressed me I) *' to marry him this instant — in this 
 house — the house of death — death's taint, and almost smell in 
 it — and while the late wife of his bosom is scarce yet cold in the 
 grave ! But these facts should only increase my love and grati- 
 tude, since they show how great is the ardour of his passion. 
 Here I stand, then, dear Tony. When I am your wife, you and 
 your friends shall hear a few more of my opinions about you.'' 
 
 They stood hand in hand before the clergyman ; every one but 
 Esther, even Tony, looking stunned and confused. She afterwards 
 declared her plan of revenge : to have married him, in order to 
 prove to the world the base folly, and littleness of his nature, 
 which, under the circumstances she had herself enumerated, could 
 permit him to accept any woman's hand, either for whim, or self- 
 interest, or both ; then she would have spurned him to her feet, 
 drawn his own picture to his face, and cast him off for ever. But 
 the sweet cup of revenge was snatched from her lips, even while, 
 they touched it 
 
 All were suddenly startled by a low hoarse moaning at one of 
 th« windows, of which the shutters fastened inside. They listened. ] 
 Feeble fingers seemed scratching at the glass ; then the weak, in- ^ 
 articulate voice passed round to the back of the house, accompanied 
 
i 
 
 THE COLD FEET. 115 
 
 by a trailing noise. A moment after, shrieks and howls of utter 
 terror arose in the kitchen, and Tim Ryan, Tony's man-of-all- 
 work, clasped round the waist by a stout serving-wench before 
 mentioned, broke into the parlour, as mad for the time as any two 
 poor creatures in Bedlam. " Thonomonduowl T began Tim, and 
 he only was able to speak, or rather stutter, '^ God forgive us for 
 cursin' ! — bud — ^here it's afther us, hot-fut !" 
 
 His master and friends rapidly questioned him ; he took little 
 notice. 
 
 " And the duowl's in me, for a born fool, to run and open the 
 back-door, to let it in ! only that you heard it, Winny, and was 
 
 af eared and made me go out to see Murther ! — don't ye all 
 
 hear it !" The trailing noise remarked outside the house, was now 
 more distinct, coming along the passage from the kitchen. " Mur- 
 ther ! and do you mane to stay here ! — Let me go, Winny ; and 
 kelp a hand to pull open this windee !" He began to unfasten the 
 shutters — " Oh, your reverence, won't you thry an' lay it, Sir ! — 
 Let me go, Winny, I tell you !" 
 
 But Winny did not let him go ; and they emerged together 
 through the now fully open window. 
 
 Almost at the same moment, Mary Skelton, clad in her grave- 
 clothes, rent and soiled, and with her hands and feet bleeding, 
 dragged herself on her knees to the threshold of the parlour door ; 
 and there, after half raising herself to give one corpse-like look at 
 the group within, fainted, and fell across it. 
 
 Our story is told. Esther Neville had only half her revenge ; 
 and in some time, when recovered from the terrors of that night, 
 she tried to make amends for having ever wished to wreak any. 
 She shared her fortune with Mary and Tony, who lived together, 
 a tolerably happy couple, during more than twenty years after — 
 thanks to a false step and bad screws — the father and mother of 
 sons and daughters — all as much alive all over their little bodies, 
 as if their mamma had never been waked and buried beforehand — 
 all over their little bodies, except in their lower extremities — a 
 deficiency transmitted to them by Mary Skelton, who, in that re- 
 spect, never was able wholly to rewarm herself out of the chill of 
 the tomb, and who thus became the founder of " The Family of 
 THE Cold Feet." 
 
 END OF THE FAMILY OF THE COLD FEET. 
 
HARE-HOUND AND THE WITCH. 
 
THE IIARE-IIOUND 
 
 AND 
 
 THE WITCIL 
 
 Your genuine witches, wlio 
 
 ' '* Seemed not creatures of the earth, 
 
 And still were on it ;'* 
 
 withered old women, who united in their persons the decrepitude 
 of age with the most marvellous powers of locomotion ; half spirits, 
 half mortals ; who seemed to live solely for the purpose of paying 
 back to the whole human race the hatred lavished by men, women, 
 and children on themselves : who could blight the farmer's hope 
 of plenty ; cheat his cows of their milk, and his wife of her but- 
 ter ; cause the clouds to gather, and the tempest to scourge the 
 earth ; and yet, creatures of contrarities ! Who, possessed of all 
 this awful power, could not, or would not, redeem themselves from 
 rags, hunger, and misery ; they, your genuine witches, as we have 
 already called them, exist not, alas ! at present, in our green island. 
 Extinct, though not forgotten, is their race, like that of our noble 
 moose-deer, our formidable wolf, and our as formidable wolf-dog. 
 Degenerate emulators of them, indeed, we still boast — individuals 
 who dip into futurity by the aid of card-cutting or cup-tossing, 
 or who find out stolen property, or vend charms against the 
 peevish malice of the little sprites of the moonbeam. But, com- 
 pared with their renowned predecessors, these timid assertors of 
 supernatural endowment may be said to disgrace their calling. 
 And even they are sinking in repute, as well as diminishing in 
 numbers. 
 
 But we would attempt to preserve, in the following pages, some, 
 fit idea of the importance of a true Irish witch of the good olden 
 time. We are aware that the chief event which must wind up 
 
120 THE HARE-HOUND 
 
 our story — the sudden appearance, namely, of a lost heir — (we 
 have the courage to speak it out so soon) — is a threadbare one.- 
 It cannot be helped, however : it, at least, is fact, to our own 
 knowledge ; although we are not quite as fully accountable for the 
 respectable traditions that surround it with such pleasing wonders 
 as we are about to relate, and which form the real interest of our 
 narration. 
 
 On the western coast of Ireland is a certain dangerous bay : 
 into it the broad Atlantic rolls his vast waters. Two leagues in- 
 land from its mouth high black cliffs frown over it, at both sides, 
 of which the bases are hollowed into caverns. And when the 
 winds blow angrily — and any wind can effectually visit the open 
 and exposed estuary — tremendous and terrific is the roar, the dash, 
 and the foam, which deafen the ears, and distract the eyes of a 
 spectator. That hapless vessel which, in a storm, cannot avoid 
 an entrance into this merciless turmoil of mad waters has sealed 
 its doom. 
 
 Formerly, a great number of ships, from different countries, used 
 to be dashed to splinters against the iron-bound coast. A few 
 people conjecture that the diminution of such terrible accidents, in 
 the present day, is partially owing to some improvement in sea- 
 manship, or else to the timely warning now given to distant ma- 
 riners by lights erected at the mouth of the bay. But other per- 
 sons, and by far the greater number, in the neighbourhood think 
 that the comparative paucity of wrecks may more naturally, and sa- 
 tisfactorily, be accounted for in another way. In fact, there does 
 not now reside, as formerly there did, in an almost unapproachable 
 cavern, high up on the face of one of the black cliffs, " a real 
 witch, of the right sort." 
 
 Not that her Witchship always dwelt in her cave ; no, her visits 
 to it were but occasional. Nor did it ever become necessary for 
 her to proclaim her presence on the coast by exhibiting her per- 
 son — the results of her close neighbourhood sufficiently '' prated 
 of her whereabouts." Farmers' wives toiled in vain at their 
 churns. When no butter would come, self-evident it was that the 
 witch was at that moment in her cavern, seated on her heels before 
 a vessel of water, from which, by drawing a dead man's hand through 
 it, she appropriated the produce of other people's honest labour. 
 Cows suddenly went back in their milk ; — then it was known that, 
 by passing a wheaten straw between her finger and thumb, the 
 witch amply filled her can, while the owner of the animal uselessly 
 wrought at its udder. Cattle swelled and died ; — once again every 
 
AND THE WITCH. 121 
 
 one knew who was in the cave under the cliff. And if none of 
 those events, or similar ones, proved her disagreeable proximity, 
 the direful storms and the frightful wrecks in the bay abundantly 
 warranted it. Often, amid the bellowing of the tempest she had 
 raised swelled her shrieking voice. And, while the despairing 
 creatures in the doomed vessel topped each short, high, foam- 
 maned billow, which nearer and nearer dashed them on to their 
 fate, the watchers on the cliff's brow have heard her devilish laugh, 
 until at last it broke into frenzied loudness, as the ship burst, like 
 a plass bubble, against the sharp rocks under her dwelling-hole. 
 
 No one could tell whence she came, or when, for a time no 
 longer visible on the coast, whither she went. Occasionally she was 
 observed in conference with certain notorious smugglers ; and the 
 men appeared, it was well known, to petition and bribe her for a 
 fair wind with which to enter the bay^ and for a foul one to keep 
 their pursuers out of it. As was fully proved by the fact, that in- 
 variably their light lugger got in, and was safely moored in some 
 little creek, against danger of coming storm ; while, the moment 
 the revenue-cutter appeared in the offing, out burst the wildest 
 winds from the witch's cavern, up swelled the sea and the bay, in 
 mountain billows ; and his Majesty's vessel was sure to be wrecked 
 during the night. 
 
 Like all of her sisterhood of that famous period, she could change 
 herself, at pleasure, into various shapes. We give a serious proof 
 of her talent in this respect. 
 
 A few miles from the coast which she so despotically ruled, re- 
 sided a considerable landed proprietor. A great hunter of hares 
 and foxes was he. His wife had just blessed him with an heir to his 
 estate, and the boy was their only child. Of this event, the good 
 Squire was not a little proud ; for, in case of his not leaving male 
 issue, his property was to pass away to a distant, obscure, and 
 neglected relation, whom its immediate possessor neither loved nor 
 liked. For the heir-presumptive was mean in his habits and asso- 
 ciations, uneducated and graceless ; and it would be a sad thing to 
 know that the fine old family acres were to go into such hands. 
 
 Shortly after his wife's confinement, and while she and her baby 
 were " doing well," the Squire, to dissipate the recent anxiety he had 
 suffered^ sallied forth for a hunting. His pack of harriers were his 
 attendants on this occasion, for the hare was the object of the 
 day's sport. 
 
 And, surely, never had such a hare been followed by dogs, or 
 
122 THE HARE-HOUND 
 
 ** sohoed" by mortal lips, as the hare he and his friends and pack 
 started, and hunted, upon that memorable day. From breakfast 
 to dinner time, a sweeping and erratic chase did she lead them all ; 
 the dogs at full stretch, and the horses at top speed. Various 
 accidents happened to the sportsmen; one maimed his steed; another 
 fractured his collar-bone ; some swampt in bogs ; and none, except 
 our good Squire and his huntsman, escaped without injury or dis- 
 aster. But, from starting to pulling up, they gallantly kept at the 
 dogs' tails. 
 
 After an " unprecedented run," the hare suddenly scudded towards 
 the cliffs of the bay, immediately over the witch's cavern. The 
 good harriers pursued : and the eager squire did not stay behind 
 them ; his huntsman closely following. The hare gained the verge 
 of the cliff. Sheela, the prime bitch of the pack, just had time to 
 close her, make a chop at her, and take a mouthful of flesh from 
 her haunch, before she leaped down the face of almost a precipice. 
 Dogs, and horsemen were at fault ; none dared follow her. 
 
 In some time, nearly all the other discomfited members of the 
 hunt came up, soiled, wounded, jaded. They heard of the termi- 
 nation of the chase ; and all wondered at the extraordinary freaks 
 of the little animal, which had so distressed and baffled the best 
 harriers and the best hunters in the county, taking men and horses 
 together. 
 
 ''By !" suddenly exclaimed the huntsman, a young fellow 
 
 of known hardihood of character, swearing a great oath, " I'll tell 
 yez how it is ! ye are afther huntin' the witch o' the cave sthraight 
 undher us ! It isn't the first time that creatures like her haye 
 made a laugh, in this way, of nearly as good men as we are." 
 
 Most of his auditors ridiculed the speaker ; one or two, however, 
 looked grave : perhaps in patronage to his assertions ; perhaps 
 because the pains and aches resulting from their many falls, during 
 the day, lengthened their faces, darkened their brows, and puckered 
 their lips. The huntsman offered, if any one would accompany 
 him on the dangerous enterprise, to scale down the cliff, penetrate 
 the witch's cavern, and prove his saying. One did volunteer to be 
 his companion : a humble friend of his own, one among the crowd 
 of gaping peasants assembled round the gentlemen hunters. 
 
 The adventurers succeeded in reaching and^ entering the awful 
 cave. Upon their return, over the edge of the cliff, they reported 
 that they had found the witch at home, stretched, panting, and 
 exhausted, upon some straw, in a dark corner of the cave ; that 
 
^ AND THE WITCH. 123 
 
 they had dragged her, much against her will (indeed her screams 
 certainly had reached the Squire and his friends above) to the 
 light, at its opening ; had, with main force, examined her person ; 
 and, sure enough, had found a deficiency of flesh in her haunch, 
 with plainly the marks of Sheela's teeth in and about the wound, 
 from which the blood freely streamed. To be sure, the better in- 
 formed hearers of this story, or at least a majority of them, still 
 laughed at it. But whatever they might think, those to whom 
 the talents and capabilities of witches were better known, firmly 
 believed that the Squire and his companions had hunted all that 
 day, a hare, which was no hare, after all : and that the courageous 
 little Sheela had tasted fl,esh of a forbidden kind. 
 
 Happy had it been for the Squire and his pet bitch had they 
 proved less eager after their sport. Poor Sheela died in great 
 agonies upon the very night of that day, and her master was 
 doomed to a speedy punishment for his own audacity. 
 
 Nothing daunted at the idea of whom he had been hunting, he 
 took the field again a few days after ; and now no question could 
 be raised as to the nature of the game he a second time started and 
 pursued. Puss did not, indeed, immediately make for the sea ; 
 but this was only a ruse to efiect her own malignant purposes. She 
 wanted to get her enemy alone at the edge of the cliff. For this 
 purpose, her speed and her manners quite outdid those of a former 
 day : so much so, that, in a few hours, even the dare-neck and 
 dare-devil huntsman was thrown out, and returned with a lamed 
 horse and a sprained ankle to the gentleman who had suffered be- 
 fore him, leaving the squire alone close upon the dogs. 
 
 For a considerable time he and his master's friends awaited the 
 re-appearance of the persevering Nimrod. Finally, they repaired 
 to the cliff, which the huntsman had left him speedily approaching. 
 There they found his horse without a rider ; himself they never 
 again beheld. The unbelievers in witchcraft immediately surmised 
 that his high-blooded hunter had borne him against his will to the 
 edge of the cliff; had there suddenly started back ; and that, by 
 the quick and violent action, the unhappy gentleman had been 
 thrown forward out of his saddle, and precipitated from rock to 
 rock hundreds of feet downward. A few who were able for the 
 effort, cautiously descended towards the sea. On their way they 
 discovered their friend's hunting-cap on the sharp pinnacle of a rock ; 
 its iron headpiece was stove in ; and it became evident that, after 
 having been loosed from its wearer, by the force of the concussion 
 which had fractured it, the Squire's body had tumbled still farther 
 
124 THE HARE-HOUND 
 
 downward. They reached the sea's level. His remains were not 
 visible ; thej must have fallen into the sea, and been floated away 
 by its tide. The witch of the cavern disappeared with her victim, — 
 her victims, we should say : for her vengeance on the Squire was 
 not limited to his own destruction. At the story of his shocking 
 death, hastily and injudiciously communicated, his wife, yet en- 
 feebled by her recent confinement, sickened, and in a few days 
 died. Nay, nearly within the hour of her departure from this world, 
 her only child, the heir to her husband's estate, disappeared ; no 
 one could tell whither or by what means. Strange enough to say, 
 however, part of the baby's dress was found on the identical pin- 
 nacle of rock where his father's hunting-cap had been met with; 
 and, in the minds of the educated and wealthy of the neighbour- 
 hood, this circumstance started doubts of fair-dealing towards 
 father and child. Suspicion, however, could fasten itself upon no 
 object ; inquiry and investigation did not lead to any solution of 
 the mystery. It need not be added, that by far the greater number 
 of the population of the district smiled at the useless efforts to 
 establish a case of human, that is, ordinarily human agency : or that 
 they went on tranquilly believing that the Squire and his family, 
 not forgetting his harrier, had been punished for the mouthful 
 snatched by poor Sheela from the haunch of a certain person. 
 
 Twenty years after the time of the tragedy we have detailed, 
 our story is resumed. The once indigent and despised relation, of 
 whom mention has before been made, sits at his breakfast-table in 
 the old family house. He is in his forty-fifth year. Like other 
 gentlemen of his day, he carries in his hair the contents of a large 
 pomatum-pot ; four tiers of curls rise over his ears ; on the top of 
 his head is a huge toupee and a great queue lolls, like an ox's tongue, 
 between his broad shoulders. On his loose, wide-sleeved, long- 
 skirted, frock-like coat, is a profusion of gold embroidery : a lace 
 cravat coils round his throat ; ruffles flaunt over his knuckles ; his 
 gaudy waistcoat reaches only to his knees ; satin are his breeches, 
 silken his hose, and ponderous square silver buckles are in his shoes. 
 So much for the outside of the jocular Squire Hogan. As to his 
 interior pretensions, and, indeed, some of his external ones, too, the 
 least said the soonest mended. He had never been able to raise 
 himself above the homeliness of his youth ; but though we cannot 
 present to the reader, in his person, the model of the true Irish 
 
i 
 
 AND THE WITCH. 125 
 
 gentleman of his day, we do introduce him in the character of — 
 (to repeat what every one said of him) — "' as worthy a soul as ever 
 broke the world's bread." 
 
 Squire Hogan, upon the morning when we meet him, paid earnest 
 attention to his breakfast. Cold roast beef often filled his plate, 
 and as often rapidly disappeared. Something seemed to gratify 
 his mental palate as well as his corporeal one. A gleeish, self- 
 contented smile played over his round, ruddy face ; his small blue, 
 eyes glittered, and, to the accompaniment of a short liquorish laugh, 
 his lips occasionally were drawn up at the corners, as he glanced 
 at his daughter ; — a good-natured, good-tempered, sensible, and 
 beautiful girl of nineteen ; — who sat opposite to him, sipping her 
 coffee and picking her muffins. And, whenever their eyes met 
 well did Catherine know that the chuckling of her father had re- 
 ference to some little triumph which, as he believed, he had cleverly 
 and cunningly achieved over herself. At length the good Squire 
 relaxed in his meal ; emptied the silver tankard of October which 
 lay at his hand ; leaned back in his chair, and laughingly said^ '' By 
 Jove, Kate, my girl, I nicked you there T' 
 
 " Indeed, papa, you played me a roguish turn," assented Kate, 
 convinced, from experience, that it was pleasant to her parent to 
 have the talent of his practical jokes fully admitted. 
 
 " Where did I tell you we were driving to, out of Dublin town, 
 eh?" 
 
 " You told me_, sir, with as serious a face as you could make, 
 that we were only going to visit a friend, a few miles out of Dubhn." 
 
 " Ho, ho ! Good, by Cork ! Choice ! a capital hoax, a^ Tm a 
 living sinner ! and I told you this confounded lie, with such a seri- 
 ous face, you say ?" 
 
 " With such a mock-serious face, I meant to say, papa." 
 
 " Eight, Kate ! you are right beyond yea and nay : a moc^-seri- 
 ous face. Yes, and there lay the best of it. If 1 had not been 
 able to keep myself from laughing, you might have suspected some- 
 thing. But I was able, as you yourself saw, and as you now don't 
 deny. Though , by Jove, Kate, it was enough to make a dead man 
 shout out, seeing you sitting opposite to me, and believing every 
 word I told you !" 
 
 " You kept up the farce cleverly, I must, and do admit it, sir." 
 
 ^' Didn't I Kate, didn't I ? And here we are, this morning, 
 eighty miles from Dublin, in our own house, and taxing no man's 
 hospitality. But, devil's in it ! there's no fun in playing a good 
 trick on you, Kate." 
 
126 THE HARE-HOUND 
 
 "Why so, dear papa? am I not as easily blinded as your heart 
 could wish ?" 
 
 " To be sure you are ! What else could you be ? I never met 
 man, woman, nor child, that I could not puzzle. That's not the 
 thing at all. No ; but succeed as T may with you, 'tis impossible 
 to make you a little cross. Why, if I had a lass of spirit to deal 
 with, there would be no end to her tears, and her pouts, and her 
 petitions, the moment she found that I was whisking her away from 
 her balls, and her drums, and her beaux, and all the other dear de- 
 lights of Dublin." 
 
 " I hope that my merry papa does not really wish to have me 
 peevish and short-tempered, even for a greater provocation ?" 
 
 " Kiss me, Kate ; I believe not. And yet I don't know, either, 
 by Cork ! There would be fun in tormenting you a bit, in a harm- 
 less way. But, Kate, can you give a guess why I ran away with 
 you in such a devil of a hurry ?" 
 
 " Let me see, papa. I remember you telling me of some original 
 matches you had on hands, here, before you set out for Dublin. 
 Perhaps you have engaged the two cripples to run a race on their 
 crutches ?" 
 
 " No ; that's put off— ho, ho !" 
 
 ^' Or the two old women to hop against time, carrying weight 
 for age ?" 
 
 " Ho, ho ! wrong again !" 
 
 " Probably you have succeeded in making the two schoolmasters 
 promise to fight out their battle of the squares and angles with 
 their respective birches ; their scholars standing by to see fair play ?" 
 
 " Ho, ho, ho ! No ; though that's a matter not to be let slip out 
 of reach neither." 
 
 " Then all my guesses are out, papa." 
 
 " ni help you, then. Tell me, you little baggage, what is it on 
 earth you most wish for ?" 
 
 " Indeed, my dear papa, I have no particular wish to gratify, at 
 the present moment." 
 
 " Get out ! get out, for a young hypocrite ! Kate, wouldn't some- 
 thing like a husband be agreeable to you ?" 
 
 The girl blushed the colour of a certain young gentleman's coat, 
 and drooped her head. Of that certain young gentleman, however, 
 her worthy father knew nothing ; at least, in connexion with the 
 present topic. 
 
 ** Oh, ho ! I thought I saw how the land lay." 
 
 " Indeed, my dear papa 
 
 " Say nothing more about it. Leave it all to me, lass. I'll get 
 
AND THE WITCH. 127 
 
 him for you. None of your half-dead-and-alive fellows, that you 
 could knock down with a tap of your fan. No, he shall be an able, 
 rattling, rollicking chap, able to take your part by land or sea. 
 Did your mother ever tell you how I came by her, my girl ?" 
 Kate answered in the negative. 
 
 " ril tell you, then, as truly as if she were alive to hear me. 
 Though as poor as a church mouse at that time, I was a hearty 
 young shaver ; * ay, as hearty, though not so matured, as I am this 
 day, now that I am squire of the town -land, and justice of the 
 peace, to boot. By the way, I wish they'd make the parish clerk 
 a justice of the peace in my stead — I hate to be trying to look as 
 grave as a mustard-pot, and as solemn as a wig-block ! Well, I 
 was at a Christmas raffle, Kate, and your mother's father was there 
 too ; as comical an old boy as you'd wish to know ! I had a great 
 regard for him, by Cork ! and so, a^vay he and I raffled, and he lost 
 to me every throw, until at last I didn't leave him a stiver. ' All 
 I've won from you, and my watch to boot, against your daughter 
 Nelly !' cries I, of a sudden. ' Done !' cries he ; and we threw 
 again ; and he lost, and I won again. And that's the way I got 
 your mother, Kate. Now, do you guess anything else I'm going 
 to say about yourself, Kate ?" 
 
 " 0, papa, I hope " 
 
 " I know you do hope. Yes, Kate, I am going to provide for 
 
 you in something like the same way " 
 
 " Now, good heavens, papa ! " 
 
 " Don't speak a word more till you hear me out. At the last 
 club dinner in Dublin, Ned O'Brien calls me aside with a face as 
 loDg as my own when I'm on the bench ; and after a long-winded 
 beginnin<r, he prays my interest with you, Kate. ' To be sure, man,' 
 says I, ' you must have it it.' Then, up sneaks George Dempsey, 
 and his business was the same. ' By Cork^ I'll court her in style 
 for you, my boy,' was my word to George. Then, Mick Driscoll 
 takes a turn at me, and begs of me, for the Lord's sake, to listen to 
 him ; and I was obliged to listen to him all about his title-deeds 
 and his pedigree ; and he, too, craved my countenance, with the 
 prettiest girl, and (what he didn^t call you) the richest heiress in 
 the province. * By Jove ! Til do my best for you, Mick,' says I ; 
 and Mick nearly pulled the arm out o' my body, shaking my hand. 
 Bat Tm not done yet. Harry Walshe made his way to me : and 
 the boy to my fancy is Harry Walshe, Kate. ^ I'm up to th^ 
 saddle-skirts in love with your beautiful Kate,' says Hariy. * Pull 
 * 7. e. One who begins to use a razor. 
 
128 THE HARE-HOUN.D 
 
 away, my hearty fellows/ answers I. ^ Never fear, but Fll give 
 a plumper at your election.' " 
 
 My dear papa '* 
 
 Let me make an end, as I told you, Kate. Well, after dinner, 
 and the bottle going merrily round, and every one of us right 
 jovial, I rehearsed, for the benefit of the whole company all the 
 promises I had made, and a high joke it was. ' Here's what I'll 
 do among you all, my good boys ; says I ; ' Let every one of Kate's 
 wooers be on the turf the first morning of the next hunting season, 
 each mounted in his best style ; let there be no pull-in from the 
 cover to the death ; no baulking or shying,, but smooth sma^k over 
 everything that ofibrs ; and the lad that mounts the brush may 
 come a-courting to my daughter Kate.' Well, my girl, you'd think 
 they had all lost their wits at this proposal ; — such joy amongst 
 them, such shouting. Many a bottle the rivals emptied, each to 
 his own success. In ten days from this blessed mornings the match 
 comes off, my girl ; and whoever wins, Kate will have a wooer 
 worth throwing her cap at." 
 
 Kate remained silent ; tears of mortification and annoyance, 
 unseen by her father,, streaming from her eyes, 
 
 *' But the cream of the jest I have not told you, Kate. Rattler 
 is in training, privately, the last two months — no one the wiser ; 
 and, harkee,, Kate ! by Cork's own town, I intend to start for you, 
 myself ! The brush I'll wear in my own cap ; and then, if I 
 hav'n't my laugh, right out, why, in that case, 'tis the Divvle that 
 made little apples !" 
 
 And before the sensitive, and delicate-minded girl could reply, 
 away went her father to superintend Eattler, greatly chuckhng 
 over his scheme ; while poor Catherine sat alone to blush and 
 weep over the mortification of being made, by her own father, the 
 object of a vulgar and foolish contention. 
 
 Other sad thoughts mingled with her reveries. The unestated 
 military hero, to whom, while in Dublin, she had all but plighted 
 her troth, had promised, in answer to a letter she despatched to 
 him from the first post where she had halted with her father, on 
 their flight from town, to make his appearance in the country, 
 and try his fortune with the Squire. But days had now rolled 
 over, and he came not ; neither did he send a line to account for 
 his absence. This was sad mortification to the pure ardency of a 
 first love, in the breast of such a girl as Catherine ; particularly 
 when she recollected the disagreeable predicament in which her 
 father had placed her. 
 
AND THE WITCH. 129 
 
 The morninj:; of the hunt drew near, and still her L ver was absent 
 and silent. The match bad become the talk of the whole conntiy. 
 With great difficulty and perseverance, Catherine succeeded iti 
 bringing her fathei's mind lo contemplate her position, in some- 
 thing of a vein of seriousness. He could not, indeed, " for the life 
 of him," surmise why she seenned so earnest and annoyed. But he- 
 did see and comprehend that she was really unhappy ,- and the best 
 that he could think of to cheer her, he said and swore. He would 
 break his neck with pleasure, and to a dead certainty, rather than 
 not bring home thi3 brush, and fling it into her lap. And when 
 Kate's fears, at this solemn declaration, took, naturally, another 
 turn, the honest Squire was again at a loss to account for her tears,. 
 her clinging, though gentle embraces, and '' her tantrums." He- 
 bawled right out, in utter mystification, at her entreaties that, come 
 what might, he would not join the hunt. In fact, upon the ap- 
 pointed morning, away he rode towards the fox-cov^er, mounted 
 on his crack hunter, Morgan llattler,. as full of buoyancy and vigrmr, 
 and solicitude, as the youngest of the competitois he expected to- 
 meet. 
 
 Great shouts rent the &kies, asy one by one, the candidates for 
 the gentle Catherine arrived at the appointed ground. Their horses, 
 as well as themselves, were examined by curious and critical eyes, 
 and heavy bets were laid upon the issue of the day's chase. The- 
 Squire, without communicating to any of his rivals his intention to 
 hunt for his daughter himself, had contrived that his own fox-hounds 
 should be in requisition ; because he well knew that Morgan Rattler 
 would do surpassing wonders at their tails. 
 
 The ruler of the hounds was the same Tviho had held that situa* 
 tion under the former owner of Squire Hogan's estate. In his- 
 youth, twenty years previously, we have noticed him as a daring 
 fellow ; we should have added, that he used to be as remarkable for- 
 his boisterous good spirits as for his reckless intrepidity. Now-, 
 however, at five-and- forty, mirth and even outward dash of every 
 kind, had disappeared from his character. His face was forbid- 
 ding ; his words were few ; he never laughed, he never smiled ; 
 and, altogether, people regarded him as a dogged and disagreeable 
 man. But enough of our huntsman for the present. 
 
 The day promised to be most favourable for the remarkable 
 chase it was to witness. 
 
 A southerly wind and a c!ou(l^^ sky 
 Proclaimed a hunting morning." 
 
 K 
 
130 THE HARE-IIOUXI> 
 
 The ground was in prime order ; the horses were full of vigour an (1 
 spirit, after their long training ; and, except the huntsman's, (an d 
 he comes in again sooner than we foresaw,) every face beamed 
 with joyous animation. In fact, upon this day he was making 
 himself particularly offensive ; quarrelling unnecessarily with bis 
 hounds; sulkily refusing to take any advice or opinions (commands 
 were out of the question), concerning his treatment of them ; giving 
 short answers, and looking " as black as thunder." 
 
 What is the matter with you, Daniel ?" questioned the Squire. 
 
 " I have no fancy for the work to-day," answered the huntsman^ 
 
 " Why so, man ? what is all this about ?" 
 
 " It was this day twenty years that my ould masther followed 
 the witch down the rocks into the say ; and I was dreaming lasfe 
 night that he and I were hunting here, again, together, and that ho 
 dhruv me down head foremost from the brow of the cliff afore him." 
 
 " Hutt, butt, you fool! there is no witch to hunt now, you know." 
 
 " I know no such thing. You hav'nt heard that she is in her 
 cave again ?" 
 
 " Pho, no. Tis impossible." 
 
 " It is not impossible ; 'tis thrue. Let little Tony take my 
 place to-day ; for I tell you, twice over, I don't like the work." 
 
 "Bother, Daniel! This day, of all days, I can't and won't 
 spare you. Draw on the dogs. Come, stir ! see to your business.'* 
 
 With mutterings and growlings, Daniel proceeded to obey. Hei 
 cast the dogs into the cover. For some time they drew through, 
 it in silence. Presently some yelpings were heard ; then the leader 
 of the pack sent forth his most melodious note ; dogs and men took 
 it up ; the fox broke coyer ; away after him stretched the eager 
 hounds, and, close upon them, the no less eager huntsmen. 
 
 The Squire stood still a moment, willing to let the foremost and 
 most headlong candidates for his daughter's favour blow their 
 horses a little before he would himself push forward. While thus 
 manoeuvring, " Whom have we here ?" he asked of the person 
 nearest to him. His inquiry was aroused by a strange huntsmau 
 whohadjust then appeared on the ground, no one could tell whence. 
 
 " By the good day !" exclaimed the person addressed, " that's 
 Jack Hogan, who fell over the cliff this day twenty years." 
 
 " Nonsense, nonsense," said the Squire. The stranger turned 
 round his head, as if he could have heard these words, though he 
 was at a good distance. 
 
 " 'Tis he, man ! just as he looked the last day he hunted ! his 
 very dress I see how different from ours ; and his black horse., 
 
AND THE WITCH. 131 
 
 I'd know horse and rider among a million ! By all that's good, it 
 is himself!" 
 
 The horses of the Squire and of his neighbour, a man of fifty, who 
 thus spoke, would brook no further delay. Their riders were com- 
 pelled to loosen their reins, and allow them to spring onward. 
 
 Daniel, the black-browed huntsman, was at this moment im- 
 mediately next the hounds. Two or three of the rivals for fair 
 Catherine's love rode within a little distance of him. The new 
 comer loitered behind the last of the candidates : of course, the 
 Squire and his friend now pressed him hard. Suddenly his coal- 
 black horse, seemingly without an effort, and certainly indepen- 
 dently of one from his master, cleared the ground between him and 
 Daniel. The huntsman turned in his saddle, fixed an appalled 
 look on his follower, uttered a wild cry, and desperately dashed 
 his spurs into the sides of his steed. The stranger, still seemingly 
 unexcited, as also appeared his horse, stuck so close to Daniel's 
 crupper, that he couli have put his hand upon it. 
 
 All were of a mind that the fox outstripped the wind in swiftness. 
 The hounds did their very best, and more than they had ever done 
 before, to keep near to him. Each huntsman, including even our 
 honest Squire, spared not whip and spur to rival them. But the 
 huntsman first, and the stranger at his horse's tail, were the only 
 persons who succeeded in the achievement. 
 
 Vain was the endeavour to come up with those two. Every now 
 and then black Daniel would glare behind him into the face of his 
 pursuer, and with a new shout of horror re-urge his hunter to greater 
 speed ; still and still, although the stranger sat tranquilly in his 
 saddle, Daniel could not gain a stirrup's length a-head of him. 
 Over hill and valley, over ditch and hedge, over bog and stream, 
 they swept, or plunged, or leaped, or scrambled, or swam close 
 upon the dogs, as if life were no value ; or as if they were carried, 
 eddied forward, with supernatural speed, and in superhuman daring. 
 Onward, onward they swept, scarce seeming to touch the earth, 
 until at length only three other horsemen were able to keep them 
 even in distant view. Soon after, those three became two ; again, 
 but one followed remotely in their track. And this one was our 
 excellent friend Squire Hogan. 
 
 The sea-cliffs came in view, and straight towards them did the 
 mad chase turn. In amazement, if not in terror, the Squire pulled 
 up his horse on a rising ground, and stood still to note its further 
 progress. He saw the panting fox make for the dangerous place 
 over the cliff's brow. For an instant he saw him on its very line. 
 
132 THE HARE-HOUND 
 
 The next, he disappeared towards the sea. At his brush came the 
 hounds — down they plunged also. The rival horsemen followed — 
 they, too, were, in a second, lost to view. A woman suddeoly 
 started up over the perilous pass, gazed below, and then sprang as 
 if into the air. 
 
 The mysterious fate of his predecessor fully occurred to our 
 Squire; and he sensibly vowed to himself that ^' By Cork! the 
 faggot of a witch should never tempt him to leave the world by 
 the same road." He also brought to mind his huntsman's words 
 that morning ; and a struggle arose between his reason and his 
 superstitious propensities, as to whether or no the man's dream had 
 been verified. 
 
 While thus mentally engaged, one of the baffled aspirants for 
 Catherine's hand came up, himself and his horse soiled and jaded. 
 Another and another followed, until almost all the members of the 
 day's hunt surrounded Squire Hogan. He recited to them what 
 he had witnessed. Greatly excited, some of them dismounted, 
 and, under the care of an experienced guide, descended the cliff. 
 
 They found that the bewitched hounds and their bewitched fol- 
 lowers need not, as the Squire had supposed, have jumped direct 
 from the land into the sea ; inasmuch as they might havo turned, 
 obliquely, into a narrow, rocky ravine. Down this pass, however, 
 it seemed impossible that horses of mortal mould could have found a 
 footing. The explorers themselves were obliged to follow their 
 guide very cautiously; as well to avoid tumbling downward, as to 
 save their heads from the loose stones and fragments of rocks, 
 which almost every step displaced and set in motion. 
 
 After having proceeded a little way, they caught, far below 
 them, a glimpse of the dogs, whose cry came up to them, mingled 
 with the roar and chafe of the waters of the sea. Shortly after 
 they saw the huntsman, still closely pressed by the stranger. The 
 next moment dogs, horses, and riders, were lost to view, behind a 
 curve of the tortuous and stony course of the ravine, all hurrying 
 onward and downward, with whirlwind speed, as if to bury them- 
 selves in the waves of the ocean. 
 
 Our adventurers, persevering in their descent, suddenly turned 
 a projecting rock, and came in view of a strip of strand, runnings 
 promontory-like, into the sea ; this they soon gained. Daniel, the 
 huntsman, lay on his back upon it ; his horse not to be seen. His 
 dogs were squatted around him, each holding a fragment of bone 
 between his teeth. The stranger sat still in his saddle, as if in- 
 tensely observing the prostrate man. The woman who had ap- 
 
AND THE WITCH. 133 
 
 peared to Squire Hogan on the cuff's brow stood on a rock amid 
 the shallow breakers which rippled over the edges of the neck of 
 strand. 
 
 As the explorers approached this group the unknown horseman 
 glanced towards them, took off his cap, waved it, and said, " Let 
 no man claim Catherine Hogan^s hand till I come to woo it. I 
 have hunted for her ; won her; and she is mine." 
 
 Those of Catherine's lovers who heard this speech were not 
 chicken-hearted fellows. They resolved to ascertain who was the 
 dictatorial speaker. Their friend. Squire Hogan, appeared in 
 view, having nearly completed, at his cautious leisure, the descent 
 to the sea's level, after them ; and they first approached him, mo- 
 mentarily turning their backs on the object of their interest, for 
 the purpose of consulting him, and enlisting him in a common plan 
 of operations. After some discourse with the good Squire, and 
 when he and they would have confronted the unknown horseman, 
 no human form but that of sulky Daniel was visible on the patch 
 of strand. There he lay, stretched at his length, and still apparently- 
 insensible. 
 
 To him their attention became directed. They found him covered 
 with blood, and seemingly a corpse. His dogs continued to crouch 
 around him, holding bones between their grinning teeth ; and they 
 snarled fiercely when the new comers approached them. 
 
 " By the blessed light 1" exclaimed the Squire, " this is part of 
 a man's skull that Ranger has his teeth through." 
 
 " It is," answered Harry Walshe ; " and not one of the dogs 
 but holds a human bone between his jaws !'* 
 
 The prostrate huntsman opened his eyes, and glared fearfully 
 around him. 
 
 '' What has happened to you, Daniel ?" questioned the Squire. 
 
 Daniel's head turned in the direction of the voice, and he seemed 
 to recognise the speaker. 
 
 " Is he gone ?" he asked, faintly. 
 
 " Is who gone? for whom do you inquire ?" 
 
 ^' The masther's sperit — the sperit of the murthered man. The 
 man that I murthered, and buried in this sand, twenty years ago 1" 
 
 Amid exclamations of surprise and horror from all who heard 
 him, the huntsman gained, for a moment, more perfect power of 
 observation. He looked from one to another of the group around 
 him ; then at the dogs ; and then, closing his eyes and shuddering, 
 continued to speak in snatches. 
 
 " Ay, and it was a cruel murther. I have never slept a night's 
 
134 THE HARE-HOUND 
 
 sl^ep since I did it. And every dog of the pack brought me one 
 of his bones to-day. I will hide it no longer. I will own it to 
 the world, and suffer for it. His sperit drove me before him to 
 the spot where I had buried his broken body, after I tumbled him 
 over the cliff — yes, burled it as deep as I could dig. Twenty years 
 passed away, and he came to chase me to his unblessed grave ; 
 and at the sight of it my horse tossed me out of my saddle, and 
 my own accursed bones are broken this day ; and so I have half 
 my punishment. Did I see the witch near me, here, a while ago ? 
 I did. The wathers of the say gave her up, alive, to be a witness 
 against me. For, when I was burying him, this day twenty years, 
 I spied her watching me ; and I ran afther her, and saized her, 
 and pitched her far into the waves. But now she is come to hang 
 me. Let her. I will tell all — all — of my own accord. I will ; 
 and let them hang me for the deed." 
 
 He was conveyed to the Squire's house ; and in his presence, and 
 that of other magistrates, made a more ample confession. He had 
 been tempted to commit the murder under the following circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The mother of his old master had received under her protection a 
 friendless and penniless orphan girl of low birth. The young 
 huntsman loved her to distraction; and his ardours were seemingly 
 returned, until the Squire, then a minor, became his successful rival, 
 seducing, under a promise of marriage at his mother's death, his 
 fickle mistress. Eage, hatred, loathing, took possession of Daniel's 
 heart; he could have beaten out the brains of his young master 
 with the loaded end of his hunting-whip ; and his amiable feelings 
 were not added to, when, upon a day that he was expostulating, 
 alone, with the estranged object of his affections, the Squire sud- 
 denly rushed upon him, snatched that identical whip from his 
 hands, and energetically laid it across his own shoulders. 
 
 The Squire's mother died. The Squire cast off his mistress, and 
 married a wealthy wife. It was now the turn of the depraved, 
 bad-hearted, and forsaken girl, to look for her revenge. Upon 
 certain conditions, she offered herself, " soul and body," and with- 
 out the trouble of a marriage, to her old lover, Daniel's eager 
 passion for her, and his deep detestation of her undoer, had scarce 
 abated. He felt sorely tempted, but hesitated. The girl threw 
 herself in his way from time to time. In almost a year subse- 
 quent to the first attempt to make him a murderer he ivas one-^ 
 nay, a double one ; for, a few days after he had dragged his 
 master off his horse, and hurled him down the cliff, he placed in 
 
AND THE WITCH. 1^5 
 
 his tempter^s aniis, on the understanding that she was to destroy 
 it, the only child of his victim. Bat, even in the disappointment 
 of his feverish dream of passion, he had a foretaste of the punish- 
 ment due to his crime. From the moment he committed to her 
 the helpless infant she so much detested he had never seen the 
 authoress of his ruin ; and his belief was, that, after having 
 murdered " the child of days," she had put an end to her own 
 existence. 
 
 A few hours after this confession the huntsman died. 
 Whether or not the gentle Catherine shared the popular belief 
 that she had been hunted for, and won by, and was doomed to 
 become a spectre's bride, is not clearly ascertainable. True it is, 
 that her cheek faded, that her eye grew dull, and that the smile 
 of contented pleasure forsook her lip, now no longer red nor moist. 
 But these changes may as well be accounted for on less superna- 
 tural grounds. Her military adorer still continued absent and 
 silent — he who had so often vowed himself away into worthless 
 sighs, in the big effort to define how much he loved her, and 
 whose only hesitation to declare himself to her father had always 
 assumed the shape of a fear of being regarded as a speculating 
 fortune-hunter ; when, at a glance, it could be ascertained that he 
 was almost an unfriended adventurer, courting the hand of a 
 wealthy heiress. 
 
 As for good Squire Hogan, he contrived, or perhaps, rather tried 
 to laugh at the whole thing ; vaguely calling it a very good hoax — 
 " a choice one, by Jove !" just to save himself the trouble of trying 
 to unravel it, or else to hide his half-felt ignorance on the subject. 
 Meantime, he got some cause to laugh a little less than usual. 
 Ejectments were served upon his estate, in the name of the lost 
 son of the man whom he had succeeded in it. Squire Hogan only 
 strove to laugh the more, and to affect that he considered the claim 
 as an uncommonly good attempt at " a capital hoax !" practised 
 upon him by some unknown persons, whom, on some past occa- 
 sion, he must have outwitted "gloriously." But it was a poor 
 attempt at mirth ; and he saw that Catherine, as well as himself, 
 felt it was so. 
 
 In fact, he spent many hours alone, mourning for his beloved 
 child, and taxing his brains to shield her from probable and verg- 
 ing misfortune. And a brilliant thought came into his head. 
 
 Would it not be a happy, as well as an exceedingly clever, thing 
 to dispose of Catherine before the trial at law, grounded upon the 
 ejectments, should commence, and while the matter was little sus- 
 
136 THE HAKE-HOUND 
 
 pected, to oive or other of her ardent admirers at the cTab-'dinner 
 ia Dublin — to, in fact. Ned O'Brien, or George Dempsey, or Mick 
 Driscoll, or, above all, to Harry Walshe ? The wise fathei* made 
 the attempt, duly, four times in succession ; and learned, thereby, 
 that the serving of the ejectments was more generally known than 
 he had imagined. 
 
 Still he tried to laugh, however, until one morning, when his 
 bcisterousness ended in sudden tears, as he cast his head on Cathe- 
 rine's shoulder, and said: — "Oh, Kate, Kate! what is to become 
 of you'^ I think I can bear poverty — but you !" 
 
 '' My dear father, do not be cast down," answered Catherine ; 
 *' I can earn money in many ways, for us both, if good people will 
 give me employment." 
 
 " And you are going a-working to support your father, Kate ?'' 
 He left the room sobbing. His tears affected Catherine to th e 
 quick. Other sad and bitter recollections swelled her sorrow into 
 a flood. She could now account for the persevering neglect of 
 her lover — her tenderly-beloved, upon no other grounds than those 
 of lier approaching poverty. Ah, that was a heart- cutting thought ! 
 
 The day upon which the poor Squire must necessarily start from 
 the country to attend the trial in Dublin, arrived. He commenced 
 his journey with another magnificent conception in his head ; to 
 eke out which, he carried in his pocket, without her knowledge, a 
 miniature of his daughter Catherine, And with this miniature, 
 and a note, expr^sssive of his willingness to compromise the matter 
 by a marriage, he called on the new claimant for his squireship, 
 the evening of his arrival in the metropolis. But, having retired 
 to his own town house long before he could have thought it pos- 
 :?ible that his note had received a leisurely reading, he received 
 back the miniature with a technical epistle from his rival's attor- 
 ney, stating that no compromise could be entered into ; that the 
 lieir-at-law was determined to accept nothing which the law should 
 not decide to be his right ; and, adding, that any attempts to see 
 the young gentleman must prove unavailing, while they would be 
 felt to be intrusive, inasmuch as, in cautious provision against 
 a failure in his attempt to establish his claim, he had invariably 
 concealed his person, even from his legal advisers. 
 
 This w\as the most serious blow our Squire had received. Hi- 
 therto he had courageously depended on his own innate cleverness 
 to outwit the coming storm. Now, within a few hours of the trial 
 which was to determine his fate, he acknowledged himself without 
 
AND THE WITCH. 137 
 
 a resource or an expedient, beyond patience to attend to the grave 
 proceeding, sit it out, and endeavour to comprehend it. 
 
 To beguile the remainder of his sad evening, after receiving the 
 attorney's communication, he repaired to his club- room. He found 
 liimself coolly received there. Issuing, in no pleasant mood, into 
 the streets, he encountered, by lamp-light^ an individual in a red 
 coat whom he had hitherto considered rather as a deferential 
 hanger-on than as an acquaintance to boast of. Now, at least, by 
 unbending himself he need not fear a repulse ; so, he warmly 
 stretched out both his hands, received a very distant bow of re- 
 cognition, and was left alone under a lamp-post. 
 
 " By Cork !" said the Squire, with a bitter laugh, *' the puppy 
 officer thinks I am turned upside down in the world already !" 
 
 The case cann) on. Our good friend's eyes were riveted on 
 every person who uttered a word, upon one side or the other. The 
 usual jollity of his countenance changed into the most painful ex- 
 pression of anxiety ; when anything witty was said by one of his 
 Majesty's counsel learned in the law, at which others laughed, his 
 effort to second them was miserable to behold. Although it was 
 a bitter cold day, the Squire constantly wiped the perspiration from 
 his forehead and face ; gnawing, betw^een whiles, a scrap of a quill 
 which he had almost unconsciously picked off his seat. 
 
 The depositions, on his death-bed, of Daniel the huntsman, were 
 tendered against him. They established the fact of the wretched 
 self- accuser having kidnapped the heir of his then master, and 
 handed the infant to his partner in crime. And the first living 
 witness who appeared on the table, was that witch, supposed to 
 have been long dead, even by Daniel himself. She swore that she 
 intended to destroy the babe ; that, however, having got it into 
 her arms, she relented of her purpose, and gave it, with a bribe, 
 to a strange woman, in a distant district, to expose for her on the 
 high road. Next came the woman alluded to. She proved that 
 she had followed the directions .of her employer, and afterwards 
 watched, unseen, until an elderly lady of her neighbourhood, pass- 
 ing by with a servant, had picked up the little unfortunate. Lastly, 
 the aforesaid elderly lady, who, by the way, had endured some 
 little scandal, at the time, for her act of Christian charity, corro- 
 borated this person's testimony ; and further deposed that she had 
 carefully brought up, on limited means, until the day she procured 
 him a commission in his Majesty's service, the plaintiff in the 
 case at issue. Not a tittle of evidence, in contradiction to that 
 stated, was offered by the defendant ; and the only link of the 
 
138 THE HARE-HOUND 
 
 chain of proof submitted by the heir-at-law, which the Squire's 
 counsel energetically thought to cut through, was that created by 
 the first witness. On her cross-examination, it was ingeniously 
 attempted to be impressed on the minds of the jury, that no reli- 
 ance could be placed upon the oath of a depraved creature like her ; 
 that she had really made away with the infant, according to her 
 original intention ; and that the one she had offered for exposure, 
 must have been her own, the result of her acquaintance with the 
 son of her benevolent and ill-requited protectress. But, without 
 pausing upon details, we shall only say, that during the trial, sound 
 confirmatory evidence of the truth of the miserable woman's asser- 
 tion was supplied; and that, in fact, without hesitation, the jury 
 found for the plaintiff. 
 
 Squire Hogan's look of consternation, when he heard the verdict, 
 was pitiable. For a moment he bent down his head and wiped his 
 forehead with his moist handkerchief. Then, with a wretched 
 leer distorting his haggard countenance, he started up, and mut- 
 tering indistinctly, bowed low to the judge, the jury, the bar, the 
 public, all, as if he would humbly acknowledge the superiority of 
 every human being. After this, forgetting his hat, he was hurrying 
 away ; some one placed it in his hand ; he bowed lowly, and smiled 
 again. Finally* forgetting the necessity to remain uncovered, he 
 pressed ic hard over his eyes and left the court ; carrying wnth him 
 the sincere, and, in some instances, the tearful sympathy of the 
 spectators. 
 
 As fast as horses could gallop with him, he left Dublin, a few 
 moments following 
 
 " By Cork, Kate" he began, laughing, as his daughter, upon 
 
 his arrival at the house which used to be his home, hurried to meet 
 him. But he could not carry on the farce. His throat was full 
 and choking ; and suddenly throwing himself upon his child's neck, 
 he sobbed aloud. 
 
 She understood him, but said nothing ; she only kissed his cheeks 
 and pressed his hands, keeping down all show of her own grief and 
 alarm. "Woman ! in such a situation, you can do this : man can- 
 not : it is above the paltry selfishness of his nature. 
 
 He rallied, and tried to take up his absurd jeering tone, but soon 
 tripped in it a second time. 
 
 "Ay, Kate — by the good old Jove, I'm a poorer man than the 
 day I raffled for your mother ; and you must work, sure enough, to 
 try and keep a little bread with us. If there's anything you think 
 
AND THE WITCH. 139 
 
 / can turn my hand to, only say the word, and you'll see I'll not 
 be idle, my poor girl." 
 
 He entered into the details of his misfortunes and mortifications. 
 Among other things, he mentioned the slight of "the puppy 
 officer ;" and neither his wonder nor his curiosity was excited, 
 when, now for the first time, Catherine burst into tears. 
 
 It shows much good sense to take my Lady Law at her word. 
 Fortune is fickle, but law is fickleness : the principle itself. And 
 so seemed to argue the successful young aspirant to the Squire's 
 estate. While yet only expatiating on his past misfortunes, cur 
 worthy friend received a note which informed him that, in a quar- 
 ter of an hour, an authorised agent would arrive to take possession 
 of the house and lands ; and father and daughter had not recovered 
 from the shock this gave them, when the agent was announced, 
 and entered the room where they sat. Catherine turned away her 
 face: she could not look at him. 
 
 " Possession of everything in the house, too ?" asked the trem- 
 bling Squire — '^ everything, you say ?" 
 
 " Everything," answered the agent, who was no man's agent but 
 his own, after all. Catherine started at his voice — " Yes, every- 
 thing ; even of the angel that makes this house a heaven." He 
 advanced to her side. She turned to him — shrieked — laughed — 
 and lay insensible in his arms. It was the Squire's " puppy officer," 
 in the first place ; Catherine's faithful adorer, in the second place ; 
 the plaintiff in the late action, in the third place ; and the triumphant 
 hunter for his mistress's hand, in the fourth place. Surely, dear, 
 fair readers, he had a claim on her. " Yes — if he account for his 
 neglect, since she left Dublin." Very good. That's easily done. 
 He had vainly applied for leave of absence ; and his letter, informing 
 her of the fact, as also of his intention to take the field for her, 
 dressed in the costume of a picture which, in the Squire's town- 
 house, Catherine had often pronounced very like him, had miscarried. 
 
 " So your daughter is mine, good Sir, on your own terms," added 
 the four- fold hero. 
 
 " Capital, by Jove ! — Capital ! a glorious hoax, by Cork I capi- 
 tal 1" laughed the ex-Squire. 
 
 " I am delighted you think so. And I assure you, my dear Sir, 
 that I dressed myself up like the picture, merely at the time, to 
 endeavour to recommend myself to your good opinion, by the oddity 
 of the conceit. For I knew you liked a hoax in your very heart." 
 
 " Give me your hand, my dear boy! — Like a hoax ! — Ah, don't 
 1 ? — and it is such a prime one ! choice ! capital ! capital, by the 
 
140 THE HARE-HOUND AND THE WITCH. 
 
 beard of the great old Jove!" And, wringing his own hands, and 
 transported by his feelings, the worthy man left the room, to de- 
 sribe and praise to his very servants what so much gladdened his 
 soul. 
 
 " You were ignorant of your parentage upon the day of the 
 hunt ?" asked Catherine, after they had been some time together. 
 
 " I was. Upon the spot where the huntsman fell, I encountered 
 the woman, returned from half a life of wandering, who exposed 
 nie in my infancy: she had been seeking me in Dublin, to unburden 
 her conscience, and do me a tardy justice. I was on the road for 
 the hunt ; thither she followed me rapidly, and outstripped me some 
 days ; assuming the garb of the former witch of the cave, to con- 
 ceal her identity. I need scarce say, that from her I then received 
 the information which enabled me to prosecute my claim. My be- 
 loved Catherine's sense of delicacy will readily suggest to her, why 
 I kept out of her view, from that day, until I could prove the truth 
 or falsehood of her story. And now, here I sit, able, thank hea- 
 ven! to show to the woman of my heart, that she did not quite 
 misplace her generous love, when she gave it to a poor and friend- 
 less ensign, and with it the prospect of wealth, and of rank in the 
 world." 
 
 It is recorded that, from this hour, Squire Hogan never wore, 
 except, perhaps, when asleep, a serious face. Having resigned, 
 " with a hearty good will," his commission of justice of the peace, 
 there remained nothing on earth to compel him to " seem wise," 
 as Bacon says. He had full leisui-e to pursue, uninteruptedly, his 
 practical hoaxes ; which he himself, if nobody else did it for him, 
 called '• Capital 1 choice, by Cork's own Town !" 
 
 END OF THE HARE- HOUND AND THE WITGH. 
 
THE SOLDIER'S BILLET: 
 
THE SOLDIEKS BILLET. 
 
 Some years tigo, a regiment marched throngli the French town in 
 which I resided, on its way to the camp of Charles X. at St. Omer. 
 Two of the soldiers were billeted on me. I had been struck with 
 the face of one of the two as they entered the town — indeed, by his 
 conduct and manner, as well as his features. After passing the 
 gate, the regiment, at word of command, I believe, broke their lines, 
 and went scampering, and jumping, and shouting, like possessed 
 creatures, down the precipitous main street to the place where they 
 were to get their billets served to them — a most indecorous exhibi- 
 tion to eyes accustomed to the gravity of English soldiers after 
 a march — indeed, upon all occasions. I suppose, their pranks were 
 meant to express joy at having gained a resting point for the day and 
 night, with the near prospect of bread and onions and bonne soiipe. 
 But I digress. One man, among them all, cut no such capers as I 
 have mentioned, contenting himself with tramping sedately down 
 the street, his musket held by the middle in the left hand ; nor 
 did he shout or utter any boyish nonsense, like his comrades, nor 
 contract his features, as only Frenchmen can do. In fact, though 
 young — about seven-and-twenty — and handsome too, thought, if 
 not sorrow, sat on his open, manly brow, and compressed the cor- 
 ners of his mouth — so far as I could observe his mouth, it so ap- 
 peared to me. For not only did he wear moustaches of a prolific 
 growth, but his black beard had been suffered to grow at pleasure. 
 Another peculiarity about him — no second man of his regiment 
 having spared his chin from the razor. 
 
 After seeing the soldiers come in, I did not immediately return 
 home ; and when I got to my door tlie individual I have been de- 
 scribing was standing at it with his comrade, a lad, scarce one-and- 
 twenty. He handed me his billet with a grave, but courteous, 
 bow, asking if he had come to the right number. I told him all 
 was right, so far ; but that I was exempt from a billet, inasmuch 
 as my house was a furnished one, and that my landlord was to pro- 
 vide him with accommodation for the night. He replied, that he 
 knew no mere lodgers in a furnished house "could be called on to 
 
144 THE soldier's BILLET. 
 
 receive him, and asked haw far off was my landlord's residence. 
 I said, half a league in the country. He shook his head, and con- 
 tinued to say, still with the utmost civility, if not blandness, that 
 he and his young friend were too tired to take to the road again, 
 after a long march, and in such had weather (the poor fellows 
 were, indeed, soaked with rain, and the mud clung about their feet 
 and legs almost up to their knees) ; but they would wait till I 
 could send a messenger to my landlord for instructions, and, if I 
 could allow them to sit down at my kitchen fire in the meantime, 
 they would very much thank me. While he spoke, he leaned his 
 back against the wall of the house, and having reversed his mus- 
 ket, put its muzzle on his shoe, and rested his hands on its butt 
 and his cbeek on them. His manner, his voice, his expression — 
 above all, I believe, his large, mild blue eyes — made a conquest of 
 my precision, and of my praiseworthy attachment to a few franco. 
 I rang at the door, after a moment's pause, and telling him he 
 should wait for nothing at my kitchen fire but his dinner, I usherep 
 in him and his comrade to Mademoiselle Phrosyne, who received 
 her guests in a great fluster, but still with the due number of curt- 
 sies, in answer to their bows. Then she put a chair for each at 
 opposite corners of the fire ; and so behold me the host of, as we 
 are told, two of the " natural enemies" of England. I lingered in 
 the kitchen some time. My grave soldier sat down at once, cross- 
 ing his arms on his knees, and poking his body and head towards 
 the fire. His youthful comrade saved him the trouble of putting 
 liis piece in a corner and his cap on a table, and had a kind 
 " Thank you, Pierre," for his good-nature. The lad then pulled 
 oflf his own gaiters in a twinkling, and, tucking up his muddy trou- 
 sers, ran to the kitchen pump, as naturally as if he had been in the 
 house all his life, and set about washing, over the sink, the first- 
 named articles of dress. Phrosyne offered him her black paste 
 soap ; but he declined it, laughingly, and, while proceeding in his 
 work, said he dared her to wash his gaiters as well with soap as 
 he should withont it ; at which Mademoiselle laughed too, while 
 busy over her saucepans. It was not the first pleasantry they had 
 interchanged ; and Phrosyne was a youthful cmsimere, and did not 
 shame her name for comeliness. In fact, I saw she was in for a 
 pleasant evening, with one of her guests at least ; but the other 
 continued silent and melancholy. He did not hesitate, indeed, to 
 answer my qucstioris promptly and politely, but he never spoke of 
 his own accord. Before I left the kitchen he had begun to take 
 off his gaiters, in imita:iion of Pierre ; but the lad insisted on hav- 
 
THE SOLDIEIl's BILLET. 145 
 
 ing them to wash after his own, adding, " And for this eveniii<:, 
 at least, Louis, I will work for two, at the muskets, trousers, shoes, 
 and all." 
 
 "• Are you and Pierre relations ?" I asked. " No, Sir," he an- 
 swered ; '' but," smiling for the first time, as he pulled Pierre's 
 ear, who was kneeling to get off the gaiters, " we have been friends 
 nearly a year, ever since the day he joined the regiment." 
 
 All this interested me, and I went up stairs to interest my wife 
 by telling it over to her. We agreed to do something to make 
 the two men comfortable. A good fire was ordered in their bed- 
 room, at which they might sit to dine, after having cleaned their 
 arms, accoutrements, and clothes. Hours of the evening wore 
 away, and we did not hear their voices or steps in the house : 
 they only sent up their thanks for Monsieur's kind attentions. I 
 inquired from time to lime how they were occupied ; and when I 
 thought they might be at leisure, went down to their sleeping-room 
 to try and get the elder of them into conversation. He was alone ; 
 sitting over the fire, which he had suffered to decay, in the same 
 bent position he had adopted in the kitchen. I believe he slum- 
 bered ; for my entrance did not make him raise his head ; so, not 
 wishing to disturb him, after his weary march, I turned into the 
 kitchen to his more lively comrade, whose laugh, mingled with 
 that of Phrosyne and of her fellow-servant, attracted me thither. 
 
 I spoke to Pierre about his friend, and pointedly noticed his 
 melancholy. In a few minutes I learned the cause of it. Before 
 drawing his mauvais numero as a conscript, seven years before, 
 Louis had loved — *' not wisely" — Rosalie, the only daughter of the 
 richest man of his village — the miller, no less. Rosalie loved hiui 
 in return, but her father was obdurate. They met in secret — ■ 
 Rosalie became an unwedded mother. But before that event, and 
 while her condition was known to the whole village, Louis again, 
 and repeatedly, solicited the miller to allow her to become his wife^ 
 and again and again he was refused. He heard he was a father; 
 he asked permission to see his child — it was denied him. The 
 morning the infant was baptized in the church he suddenly ap- 
 peared amid the family group who surrounded it, kissed it, and 
 claimed it, and insisted that it should bear his name,, of which it& 
 stern grandfather wished, to deprive it. The clergyman was com- 
 pelled to yield him his right. A few days after he was a cou- 
 script ; " and," continued Pierre, '' they tell me that, since the: 
 first day he came to the regiment, now seven years ago, he ha* 
 been always, and to GVQry one, what Monsieur has seeu he is to- 
 
 L 
 
146 THE 
 
 day — civil, kind, but very sad. But this does not interfere with 
 his duties. He is one of the best soldiers, if not the very best 
 soldier amongst us. / uphold him to be tlie very best. A good, 
 and true, and most useful friend he has been to me since I joined 
 the 27th, and I love him like a brother. Everybody loves him — 
 ay, and respects him too ; men and officers, all the same : and it 
 is pleasure to me, when he will let me do a hand's turn for him, to 
 save him trouble. I wonder will his Rosalie be true to him for 
 another year — after which, he may return home to see her and his 
 child ? I hope she will." 
 
 " I hope so too," sighed Phrosyne. 
 
 "And I," echoed Sophie. 
 
 " And I, Pierre," said T, " with all my heart." 
 
 *' Thank you a thousand times, Monsieur," replied Pierre, his 
 feice glowing. 
 
 Now, were I writing what really did not happen, word for 
 word, and did I not dislike disturbing the honest facts in my own 
 mind, I could very easily go on to say that I had been travelling 
 by chance through Posalie's village, about a year after, and just 
 in the nick of time to witness the nuptials of her and Louis. But 
 I cannot bear to lie, even poetically, on this subject. The truth 
 is, I know nothing more about it ! and to the truth I limit myself. 
 That I continue to hope what we all hoped that evening round the 
 kitchen fire need scarce be doubted. Nor have I ever seen Louis 
 since ; he had gone to bed before I left the kitchen. I heard from 
 him, however, in the shape of the following note, handed to me 
 by Sophie, after the departure of him and Pierre, next morning, 
 long before daybreak : — 
 
 ^' The two French soldiers below thank the good English Mon- 
 sieur of this house for unexpected and unusual kindness, after a 
 long march, on a bad day. May God bless him and Madame, and 
 the little children." 
 
 TUE END OF THE SOLDIER's BILLET. 
 
A PEASANT GIRL'S LOVE. 
 
A PEASANT GIRL'S LOVE. 
 
 The county assizes had commeuced in my Bative town, when a 
 new batch of Irish tithe arrangers were brought in prisoners by a 
 strong party of police. They had attacked, only the previous 
 evening, a gentleman's house in our neighbourhood, for the pur- 
 pose of rifling it of arras — had been repulsed by the police, who, 
 aware of their intentions, lay in ambush for them, and lives were 
 lost on both sides. I was idling on one q{ the bridges when they 
 passed by to the jail, bound with ropes, and with belts and buckles, 
 to the common cars of the country : the expression of their hag- 
 gard cheeks, and hopeless or scowling eyes, was sickening in the 
 sun-light of that beautiful spring day. Some of them were 
 wounded too, and brow, or hand, or clothing, gave painful evi- 
 dence of the fact. 
 
 But, although the general impression made by the whole of the 
 wretched groups was disagreeable, one face among them strongly 
 interested me. It was that of a young man, not more than nine- 
 teen or twenty. His features were comely, and, I would have it, 
 full of goodness and gentleness. His clear blue eye, too, was 
 neither sulky, nor savage, nor reckless, but seemed to express only 
 great awe of his situation, unless when, from some sudden mental 
 recurrence — to home, perhaps — it quailed, or filled with tears. I 
 involuntarily followed the melancholy procession towards the jail, 
 thinking of that young man. After all the prisoners had been 
 ushered into their new abode, a popular anti-tithe attorney, whom 
 I knew, accosted me. He was always ready to conduct, gratis, 
 the defences of poor wretches similarly situated ; and he told me 
 his intention of going into the jail that moment, to try and collect 
 materials for saving the lives, at least, of some of the new comers. 
 I expressed a wish to assist him in his^task : he readily consented, 
 observing, that, as the unfortunate men would certainly be put on 
 their trials the next day, no offer of aid in their favour was to be 
 disregarded. So we entered the jail together. 
 
 It fell to my lot to vi<it the cell, among others, of the lad who 
 
150 A PEASANT GIRL'S LOYE. 
 
 had so much struck n,e. His assertions^ supported, or not con- 
 tradicted, by most of his band, seemed to argue that I had not 
 formed a wrong opinion of his character — nay, better still, that 
 there was a good chance of snatching him from the gallows, even 
 though he must leave his native land for ever. He had been 
 forced, he said, to accompany the others upon their fatal sortie — 
 had never been out before — and had not pulled a trigger or raised 
 a hand against the police. As I have said, his more guilty asso- 
 ciates supported, or else did not contradict, his statement. So, 
 confident that the police would also bear him out at the really 
 critical moment, I took notes of his defence for my friend the 
 attorney, and passed on to other cells -, but of the results of my 
 continued investigation I will not now speak. 
 
 The sagacious attorney was right. By twelve o'clock the next 
 day four of the men, including my favourite client, were placed at 
 the bar of their country: three others were too ill of their wounds 
 to be at present produced. All was soon over — and over to my 
 affliction. Instead of swearing that the young lad had been com- 
 paratively forbearing during the battle outside the gentleman's 
 house, the police, one and all, from some mistake — for surely they 
 thought they were in the right — distinctly deposed that his was 
 the hand which slew one of their force, and badly wounded 
 another. In vain did he protest, with the energy of a young 
 man pleading for dear, dear life, and all its array of happy pro- 
 mise, against their evidence ; in vain did his fellow-prisoners sup- 
 port him : he and they were found guilty in common. But his 
 fate was the terrific one — of him the example was to be made. 
 While the other men were only sentenced to transportation for 
 life, he was doomed to be hanged by the neck within forty-eight 
 hours, and his body given for dissection. 
 
 As the judge uttered the last words of his sentence, a shriek, I shall 
 never forget — it rings through my head now, and makes my nerves 
 quiver and cringe — a woman's shriek, and a young woman's too — 
 pierced up to the roof of the silent court-house, and then I heard 
 a heavy fall. The young culprit had been trembling and swaying 
 from side to side during his sentence. At the thrilling sound he 
 started into upright and perfect energy : his hands, which had 
 grasped the bar of the dock, were clapped together with a loud 
 noise ; the blood mounted to his very forehead ; his lips parted 
 widely, and, having almost shouted out, " Moya ! it's she ! I knew 
 she'd be here !" he suddenly made a spring to clear the back of the 
 dock. Obviously, no impulse to escape dictated the action ; ho 
 
A PEASANT girl's LOVE. 151 
 
 wanted to raise Moya — his betrothed Moya — from the floor of the 
 court-house, and clasp her hi his arms — and that was all. And, 
 doubtless, in his vigorous and tbrice^nerved stren<^lh, he must have 
 succeeded in his wild attempt, but that the sleeve of one arm, and 
 the hand of the other, became impaled on the sharp iron spikes 
 which surmounted the formidable barrier before him. Thus cruelly 
 impeded, however, he was easily secured, and instantly led down, 
 through a trap-door in the bottom of the dock, to his " condemned 
 cell," continuing, till his voice was lost in the depths beneath us, 
 to call out, " Moya ! cuishla-ma-chree ! Moya!'' 
 
 I hastened with many others, into the body of the court, and 
 there learned, from her father and mother, and other friends, the 
 connexion between her and the sentenced lad. They were to have 
 been married at Easter. This did not lessen my interest in him. 
 My attorney joined me, and we spoke of all possible efforts to ob- 
 tain a commutation of his sentence, after Moya's parents had forced 
 her out of the court-house, on the way to their home, rejecting all 
 her entreaties to be led into the jail, and — married. 
 
 We thought of hearing what the wounded policeman might say. 
 Eut he was fourteen miles distant, on the spot where the affray had 
 occurred, and, even though his evidence might be favourable, we 
 knew we must be prepared to forward it to Dublin, as the judge 
 would leave our town for the metropolis that day. We set to work, 
 however, mounted two good horses, and within three houi-s learned 
 from the lips of the wounded man that the llockite who had fired 
 at him was an elderly and ill-favoured fellow. It was our next 
 business to convey our new evidence into the town ; we did so, in 
 a carriage borrowed from the person whose house had been at- 
 tacked. He was confronted with all the prisoners ; we cautioned 
 him to say nothing that might give a false hope to the object of 
 our interest ; — but, after leaving the cell, he persisted in exculpat- 
 ing him from having either killed his comrade or w^ounded himself, 
 and, moreover, pointed out the real culprit among those who had 
 not yet been put upon their trial. 
 
 This was a good beginning. An affidavit was soon prepared, 
 which the policeman signed. A few minutes afterwards the attorney, 
 helped in his expenses for the road by some friends, myself among 
 the number, started for Dublin as fast as four horses could gallop 
 with him. Ten hours, out of the foriy- eight allowed to the con- 
 demned to prepare for death, had already elapsed. Our good 
 attorney mu^t do the best he could within thirty-seven hours — it; 
 was fearful not to leave an hour to spare — to calculate time wheu 
 
152 A PEASANT GIRLS LOVE. 
 
 it would jn?t be merging into eternity. Bnt he had good hope?. 
 If ho]S3s did not fail on the road, going and returning, and if the 
 judge, and, after him, the Lord Lieutenant, could be rapidly ap- 
 proached, it was a thing to be done. That ?/, however! — I scar- 
 cely slept a wink through the night. Next morning early, I called 
 on the clergyman whose sad duty it was to visit the poor lad in 
 his condemned cell ; he and I had been schoolfellows ; and he whs 
 a young man of most amiable character. He told me '' his poor 
 penitent" was not unfit to die, nor did he dread the fate before him, 
 notwithstanding his utter anguish of heart at so sudden and ter- 
 rible a parting from his young mistress. I communicated the hopes 
 we had, and asked the clergyman's opinion as to the propriety of 
 alleviating the lad's a^^ony by a slight impartation of them. My 
 reverend young friend would not hear of such a thing : his conscience 
 did not permit him. It was his duty, he said, his sacred duty, to 
 allow nothing to distract the mind and heart of his penitent from 
 resignation to his lot : and should he give him a hope of life, and 
 then see that hope dashed, he would have helped to kill a human 
 soul, not to save one. I gave up the point, and endeavoured to 
 seek occupations and amusements to turn my thoughts from the 
 one subject which absorbed and fevered them. But in vain; and 
 when the second night came I had less sleep than on the first. 
 
 Early on the second morning I took a walk into the country, 
 along the Dublin road, vaguely hoping to meet, even so early, our 
 zealous attorney, returning to us, with a white handkerchief 
 streaming from the window of his post-^chaise. That idea had got 
 into my head, like a picture, and would recur every moment. I 
 met him not. I lingered on the road. I heard our town clock 
 pealing twelve — the boy had but an hour to live. I looked to- 
 w^ards the county jail, whither he had been removed for execu- 
 tion — the black flag was waving over its drop-door. Glancing 
 once more along the Dublin road, I ran as fast as I could towards 
 the jail. Arrived at the iron gate of its outer yard, I was scarce 
 conscious of the multitude who sat on a height confronting it, all 
 hushed and silent, or of the strong guard of soldiers at the gate, 
 till one of them refused me way. I bribed the sergeant to convey 
 my name to the governor of the prison, and was admitted — first, 
 into the outer yard, then by the guard-room door, and along a 
 colonnade of pillars, connected with iron-work, at either hand, into 
 the inner courts of the jail. The guard-room was under the exe- 
 cution-room, and both formed a building in themselves, separated 
 from the main pile — the colonnade, of which I have spoken, leading 
 
A PEASANT girl's LOVE. 153 
 
 from one to the other. What had sent me where I now found 
 myself was an impulse to beseech the sheriff, (whom I knew, and 
 was necessarily in the jail, to accompany the condemned to the 
 door of the execution-room,) for some short postponement of the 
 fatal moment. He came out to me, in one of the courts at either 
 side of the colonnade ; we spoke in whispers, as the good and 
 kind-hearted governor and 1 had done, though there was not a 
 creature to overhear us, in the deserted sunny spaces all around. 
 I knew the sheriff must at his peril make any change in the hour ; 
 but I told him our case, and his eyes brightened with zeal and 
 benevolence, while he put his watch back three quarters of an 
 hour, and asseverated, with my uncle Toby's oath, I believe, that 
 ho would swear it was right, and that all their clocks were wrong, 
 and " let them hang himself for his mistake." 
 
 Our point arranged, we sank into silence. It was impossible 
 to go on talking, even in our conscious whisper : one o'clock soon 
 struck ! The governor, pale and agitated, appeared, making a sad 
 signal to the sheriff. We beckoned him over to us, and he was 
 shown the infallible watch, and retired again, without a word. My 
 friend and I continued standing side by side, in resumed silence. 
 All was silence around us too, save some few most melancholy 
 sounds : one caused by the step of a sentinel under the window of 
 the condemned cell, at an unseen side of the prison ; another by 
 the audible murmnrings of the condemned and his priest, heard 
 through that window — both growing more fervent in prayer since 
 the jail clock had pealed one ; a third made by some person, also 
 unseen, striking a single stroke with a wooden mallet, about every 
 half minute, upon a large muffled bell, at the top of the prison. 
 Yes — I can recall two other sounds which irritated me greatly : 
 the chirping of sparrows in the sun — and I thought that their 
 usually pert note was now strangely sad — and the tick, tick, of 
 the sheriff's watch, which 1 heard distinctly in his fob. The minutes 
 flew. I felt pained in the throat — burning with thirst — and losing 
 my presence of mind. The governor appeared again. My friend 
 entered the prison with him. I remained alone, confused. In a 
 few minutes, the governor came out, bare-headed, and tears were 
 on his cheeks. The young clergyman and his younger penitent 
 followed ; the former had passed an arm through one of the mana- 
 cled ones of the latter, and the hands of both were clasped, and 
 pointed upward, and they both were praying audibly. My old 
 schoolfellow wept like a child. My poor client had passed the 
 threshold into the colonnade with a firm step. His knees kept 
 
154 A PEASANT GIRL'S .LOYE. 
 
 peculiarly stiff as he paced along, and his cheeks and forehead 
 were scarlet, while his eye widened and beamed, and was fixed 
 on the steps going up to the execution-room, straight on before 
 him. He did not yet see me gazing at him. As the sheriff ap- 
 peared behind him and his priest, also bareheaded, I rapidly 
 snatched my hat from my head. The action attracted his atten- 
 tion. Our glances met ; and oh ! how the flush instantly forsook 
 his forehead and his cheeks, and how his eyes closed, while cold 
 perspiration burst out on his bro^/, and he started, stopped, and 
 faltered ! Did he recognise me as the person who had spoken 
 kindly to him in his cell, before his trial, and perhaps, with all 
 my precaution, gave him a vague hope ? Or was it that the un- 
 expected appearance of a human creature staring at him in utter 
 commiseration, in that otherwise lonely court yard, had touched 
 the chord of human associations, and called him back to earth out 
 of his enthusiastic vision of heaven ? I know not. I cannot 
 even guess — who can ? As he faltered, the young priest passed 
 his arm round his body, and gently urged him to his knees, and 
 knelt with him, kissing his cheeks, his lips, pressing his hands, 
 and, in tender whispers, manning him again for facing shame, 
 and death, and eternity. The governor, the sheriff, and I, in- 
 stinctively assumed the attitude of prayer at the same moment. 
 But I hate to give a character of clap-trap to a real, though won- 
 derful, occurrence by continuing too circumstantially. Moya's 
 " own boy" never even mounted the steps of the execution-room. 
 We were first startled, while we all knelt, by — as it afterwards 
 proved — her shrieks at the outer gates. She had escaped from 
 the restraint of her family, and had come to the jail, insisting on 
 being married to him " wid the rope itself round his neck, to live 
 a widow for him for ever." Next there was a grand shout from 
 the multitude on the rural heights before the prison, and my one 
 ceaseless idea of our attorney, with a white handkerchief streaming 
 through the window of his post-chaise, was realized, though every 
 one saw it but I. And Moya, self-transported for life, went out 
 to Van Diemen's Land some weeks afterwards, a happy and con- 
 tented wife, her family having yielded to her wishes, at the in- 
 stance of more advocates than herself, and put some money in her 
 purse also. 
 
 THE END OF A PEASANT GIIIL'S LOVE. 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the castle of Kilkenny generaUy held a 
 strong garrison, upon an October evening, in the year 1390, its 
 bastions, towers, and other points of defence, were almost un- 
 manned ; its courts almost silent. But a few very old or very 
 young domestics sat in its great hall, with arms in their hands, 
 and with doubt and anxiety impressed on their features. It had 
 sent out its last regular soldier, together with its able-bodied serfs, 
 to support its lord, James, Earl of Ormonde, in a battle against the 
 Desmond, touching the rights and bounds of certain lands. In- 
 telligence of the result of the fray was, upon this evening, every 
 moment expected at its gates. 
 
 The lady of the fortress knelt in her ])rivate chapel, at " the altar 
 of the holy stone," in fervent, but not faltering })rayer. The pride of 
 name, the pride of feudal animosity, and the pride of her love of her 
 martial husband, equally kept her unconscious of fear. The ut- 
 most condescension of her anxiety was to doubt ; but nothing did 
 she, or would she, doubt upon the subject which engrossed her 
 soul, so far as regarded its issue by mortal means. Uncontrolled 
 by a superior power, the Botiller, the Ormonde, the lord of her 
 heart and her life, ever commanded success against a Desmond : 
 she knelt, therefore, only to pray that the will of God might not, 
 on this occasion, fight against her, and hers. 
 
 Her orisons ended, she slowly arose, and after bending her head 
 and crossing her calm and high forehead before the alter, paced 
 along the solitary chapel, and issued from it, through a low, arched 
 door. Many flights of narrow stone steps, twining upward from 
 the foundations of the castle, upon a level with which was the 
 chapel-floor, conducted her to the suite of small rooms leading into 
 her sleeping-chamber ; thence she gained a lobby, w^hich gave en- 
 trance to what was called "The Long Gallery" of the edifice. 
 Where finding herself alone, the Lady of Ormonde blew a shrill 
 and loud call upon the little silver whistle which hung from her neck. 
 
 But no person answered her ; and while her commanding brow 
 
158 . THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 assumed a severe expressionshe was again about to put the whistle, 
 to her lips, when the notes of a trumpet, sounding the signal for 
 defence, reached h* from, as she believed, the embattled wall which 
 faced and fell down to the Nore, full forty feet, although its to]) 
 was still much lower than the foundation stone of the fortress it 
 helped to defend. The point from which the martial strain seemed 
 to arise was fully commanded by the spacious end window of the 
 long gallery ; thither the Lady of Ormonde now repaired, with a 
 more rapid step than was habitual to her. 
 
 Arrived at the window, she boldly flung open its casements, and 
 gazed directly downward. Two figures only met her view, those 
 of the individuals whom she had reckoned upon meeting in the 
 gallery after her return from the chapel ; namely, Simon Seix, the 
 half-witted foster-brother of her only son, (and only child, too,) and 
 that only son, himself, mounted on Simon's shoulders, who galloped, 
 or prancecl, or curveted, along the terra-plana of the wall. 
 
 " The poor born-natural !" she muttered ; " again will he disobey 
 my commands not to leave the castle with his young lord ? And 
 leave it for such antics, too, and to be played upon that perilous wall. 
 Doubtless it was he who erewhile mimicked the sound of trumpet 
 which so challenged us !" — 
 
 The lady recollected Simon's talent forimitating the tones of allthc 
 instruments of musicwhich he had ever heard played, as well, indeed, 
 as of the voices of many animals ; and even at the moment her 
 surmise was confirmed ; for, after he had exceedingly well performed 
 the loud neighing and snorting of an enraged battle-charger, as an 
 accompaniment to a devious and (still the lady thought) perilous 
 caracole, she saw and heard him blow a second trumpet blast 
 through the hollow of his hand, which might well be mistaken for 
 the martial music it faithfully copied. It was a strain of victory 
 and triumph ; and Simon seemed enamoured of his own execution 
 of it ; for he prolonged the sounds, as though he would never 
 end them, until, at last, they suddenly stopped, breaking oif in a 
 ludicrous cadence of terror as the overmastering shrillness of his 
 lady's whistle cut them short. 
 
 Turning up his large grey eyes to the open window far above 
 him, he saw the awful figure of his offended mistress half bending 
 from it. Her arm was raised, her hand clenched, and she stamped 
 her foot, and pointed to him to re-enter the castle. The Lord 
 Thomas— ^so was called the little boy of seven or eight years on his 
 back — looked up also. But while Simon assumed a face of the 
 utmost fright and affliction, he only laughed merrily and graciously, in 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 159 
 
 answer to his mother's signs ; and then, resisting his foster-brother's 
 preparations to place him on his own feet, he obliged Simon still to 
 bear him on his shoulders. 
 
 In a few moments, the little Lord Thomas appeared before his 
 mother, in the gallery. Her first look towards him was one of 
 grave reprehension ; but when, presuming on her love for him, as 
 well as prompted by his love for her, the boy came bounding for- 
 ward ; the stately Lady's brow relaxed, and, thinking of his father, 
 she opened her ams to receive him. 
 
 " But where tarries Simon Seix, boy ? With him, at the least, 
 the overgrown adviser and contriver of all thine antics, I shall call 
 a strict reckoning," she said^ after some previous words between them. 
 
 Lord Thomas made a gleeish signal to his mother of a confiden- 
 tial understanding sought at her hands. Then composing his fea- 
 tures, he spoke in a voice of mock solemnity, as he turned towards 
 the door by which he had come in. " Enter Simon," he cried, " and 
 face ray Lady mother." • 
 
 The ill-contrived figure of Simon, short, thick, and bandy-legged, 
 dragged itself through the doorway, and stood still a few paces 
 past the threshold. His long arms dropt at his sides ; his jaw fell ; 
 his crooked eye-brows became proportionately elevated ; his heavy- 
 lidded eyes turned sideways upon the floor. Altogether he pre- 
 sented a very ludicrous caricature of repentance, fear, and self- 
 abasement, of which one half \vas, however, only affected : for, 
 with his young Lord for an advocate, he really apprehended no bad 
 consequences. 
 
 '• So, knave," the Lady began, " neither your respect for my com- 
 mands, nor your love and fear of the Lord of Ormonde, exposed, at 
 this moment to utmost peril, can keep you within the castle with 
 Lord Thomas sage and sedate, as the time requires him and you 
 to be ?" 
 
 Simon whiningly, yet w^ith a certain sly expression of tone and 
 manner, replied — " 1 wot not, gracious Lady, wherefore, at this 
 time, aught is required from Lord Thomas, his father's son, or from 
 me, his poor, simple servitor and body-man, save the bearing which 
 bespeaks joyousness and trouble past." 
 
 " And why, sirrah, wot you not ?" 
 
 " Because by this hour of the day, our good battle hath surely 
 been fought and won, ^nd a Botiller's foot again planted on the neck 
 of a Desmond," answered Simon confidently. 
 
 " Say you so ?" continued the Lady, her eyes brightening ; " and 
 whence come your tidings, sir ?" 
 
160 THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 " From our common thought of whatever must be the fortunes 
 of the Ormonde against his present foe, Lady," said the reputed 
 fooL While he spoke, he gave liis noble foster-brother an anxious 
 sign to second his interested sycophancy, in consequence of which, 
 as well, indeed, as in assertion of what he really felt, the boy 
 answered : 
 
 " True, Simon ! And it would, in sooth, ill become the Ormonde's 
 only son to show, by wearing of a sad face this evening, a doubt 
 of his own gallant father." 
 
 '•List, excellent Lady!" adjured Simon, " his nobleness repeats 
 the very words which drew me from the castle by his side." 
 
 ^' Peace, knave ! said the Lady, her face, voice, and manner sud- 
 denly changing into great energy as she heard the well-known 
 sounds of lowering the draw-bridge before the principal gate in the 
 walls of the castle : " Nay, by my holy saint !" she went on rapidly, 
 while a burst of wailing voices reached her from the hall below — 
 " here I have been sinfully bandying words with an idiot, at the 
 moment that I should have bent my knee to Heaven ! Who comes 
 to greet us ? who waits below ?" she cried, pacing towards a side- 
 door of the gallery. She was about to issue through it, when the 
 sound of many feet echoed on the lobby without. She paused, and 
 grew pale. Old John SAx, the father of Simon, completely cladiu 
 mail, and looking jaded and agitated, presented himself before her; 
 the few servants left in the castle crowded at his back. Her ayvs 
 met his, and during their short but eloquent glance, she drew in 
 her lips hard, crossed one hand over her bosom, and with the other, 
 extended at full length, motioned him to speak. 
 
 " The noble Ormonde lives, dear Lady," answered the old man ; 
 and then he paused. 
 
 " But the battle is lost, John Seix ?" she said, apparently with 
 calmness. Evasively he replied, that his Lord, in quick retreat 
 upon Kilkenny, close pressed by the Desmond, had despatched him 
 to bid his Lady summon the citizens of the town to arms ; that 
 gome of them might help to garrison the castle, and some hasten 
 to join bis army at Greea's-bridge, half a mile up the river, where 
 he purposed making a last brave stand against his old foe. 
 
 " All things shall be tried," answered his Lady. Thereupon she 
 dt^spatched one domestic to the civil authorities of the town, over 
 whom the house of Ormonde held despotic sway ; and another to the 
 steeple, which held the great clock, in the court-yard, with orders 
 to ring the alarm. "John Seix," she resumed, walking up and 
 down thegalliry, " hjwever may betide this last struggle at the 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 161 
 
 bridge, I give way to no fears for the dear and precious life of the 
 Ormonde. Supposing him a war- prisoner at the present moment^ 
 a Desmond hath never lived who dares to harm a hair of his head." 
 
 " Nor ever shall live to but think of it, mother," said the almost 
 infant Lord Thomas, coming to her side and taking her hand — his 
 childish tears, which had flowed at John Seix's first news, being 
 now almost dried up. She raised him in her arms and pressed 
 him to her bosom, but she did not weep. After setting him on 
 the floor again, she continued— 
 
 "No, old and faithful servant. I fear not the poor Desmond 
 on my Lord's account ; but, should he a second time prove fortu- 
 nate at yonder bridge, and afterwards break his rude way into our 
 castle here, then, John Seix, ungarrisoned and alone as we are, 
 then would I fear him on mine own account." 
 
 " And wherefore, mother ?" demanded the boy at her side, 
 while old Seix sighed heavily and assentingly. 
 
 " It needs not that I inform you of the broad grounds of my 
 fear," she resumed, still addressing her old house-steward. " Before 
 my marriage with my noble Lord, you remember his bold preten- 
 sions to my favour — they were plain to all the world. Nathless,. 
 no living creature save myself can now tell you the special reason 
 why — woman, wife, lady, and mother, as I am" — her accents 
 trembled ; she stopped her rapid walk, and put her hand on her 
 son's head, while he looked up into her face most intently, though 
 not as if he comprehended her present discourse — the especial 
 reason why my soul begins to shrink before the Desmond." 
 
 " Hark to the noise which comes faintly down the river, Lady," 
 said, to her great surprise, Simon Seixy the half-fool, speaking 
 seriously and steadily, as he gracelessly moved from a corner in 
 which he had hitherto been standing unnoticed, though, perhaps, 
 not without noting all he saw and heard, and, edging round by 
 the wall, approached the end window of the gallery. 
 
 " Ay, and so it does !" exclaimed his mistress, hurrying to the 
 point of observation before him ; " and,, for the nonce, Simon, 
 well have you spoken." 
 
 She gained the open window. Quick as a flash, her glance 
 shot at once up the river to the bridge, and there fixed itself. 
 The October evening began to close in, audit was sunless and 
 heavy. Yet the twilight did not so much prevail as to hinder her 
 from distinguishing the general features of things at a good distance.. 
 
 The faint shouting and uproar still came down the Nore ; but 
 nothing to interest her as yet occurred upon the bridge. In a 
 
 M 
 
.:i62 THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 very short time, however, the wild tumult growing louder, she saw 
 •a large body of armed men pour over it, rapidly and in disarray. 
 Some rallied at the country side of the bridge, some between its 
 battlements, and some at its town side. The Lady of Ormonde 
 knew that these were her husband's men, hotly pursued by the 
 Desmond, and that they now prepared to make the last stand of 
 which old Seix had spoken to her. They were not allowed much 
 time to prepare themselves ; nor did they long resist the fierce 
 attack of their assailants. The particular incidents of the struggle 
 she could not see ; but, in the furious shouts of the Desmond, at 
 first confident and insulting, and then cruel and triumphant — in 
 the haughty blasts of their trumpets — in the gradual receding 
 from the bridge of hor Lord's bands as those of his enemy thronged 
 thick upon it — and in the frequent plunge of men and horses into 
 the river, at that point evidently possessed at first by her frignds. 
 In all these occurrences the unhappy Lady saw too plainly signs of 
 discomfiture and of wo to her husband, his child, and herself. 
 
 Old Seix, watching her from the interior of the gallery, needed 
 nothing but her action, and the expression of her countenance, to 
 tell him the issue of the fray, and to impart to his own bosom the 
 successive emotions which agitated hers. When she first looked 
 out from the window he knew, by her bending attitude, extended 
 neck, and unwinking eyes, that, as yet, she saw nought which she 
 had expected to see. Suddenly, in answer to the rush of the Or- 
 mondes over the bridge, she stood upright, and clenched her hands 
 at her sides : then she bent low again, and her fingers grasped 
 her knees. Then she started, a second time, to her full height, 
 stamped with one foot, waved an arm round her head with a quick 
 action of impatient command. Finally, she threw up her hands, 
 locked them together, and dropped her head between her arms. 
 
 " All is over. Lady of Ormonde ?" demanded Seix. 
 
 " It is, John," she answered ; ^' our base hinds fly like poor 
 deer, they are only fit to tend, scattered and wild, over the distant 
 country." 
 
 " Do the Desmonds pursue "?" again asked the house-steward. 
 
 '' Gallantly !" replied the lady ; '* and all in a body — not a man 
 stays on the bridge." 
 
 ■'* Then we have some pause, dear mistress ; since none of them 
 hasten this way." 
 
 " Ay, I grant you, if our townsmen enter the castle in time. 
 But where linger they ? false, bourgeois churls ! Begone, thou, 
 John Seix, and essay to rouse their sluggish spirit ! But, no — 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 163 
 
 liold an instant ; it may — it may be so !" She interrupted herself 
 by speaking these last words in a joyous, hopeful tone, as she 
 again looked up the river. 
 
 " The Ormondes, Lady ?" questioned the old man. 
 " By Heaven ! I do believe it is, John Seix ! Some five or 
 seven mounted men have parted from the confused body of pur- 
 suers and pursued, beyond the bridge, and now regain it — now 
 spur fiercely over it — and one keeps a-head of the others. Now I 
 lose him and them as they turn into the town. Quick, quick, 
 John Seix, and mount the turret over the grand gate ; thither 
 they repair, whoever thev be. Quick, old man! I wait you 
 here." 
 
 The house-steward did as he was commanded. In a short time 
 after he had taken his position in the turret, seven horsemen gal- 
 loped up the ascent which led from the near end of the town to 
 the castle ; and one of noble bearing led the rest. But, as it was 
 now deep twilight, and as the riders kept their vizors down, he 
 could not, at a first look, pronounce whether they were friends or 
 foes. Coming nearer, he fixed his glance upon a banner which they 
 bore, and his heart beat with joy, for it was the banner of the 
 Ormonde. He challenged them, as they pulled their reins before 
 the gate ; they, one and all, shouted the gladdening word, and 
 he hastened from the turret to admit them within the walls of the 
 castle. 
 
 Meantime, his Lady impatiently, pantingly, awaited his return 
 to the gallery. Leaving the window, she cast herself at first into 
 a seat ; then quickly arose, paced the gallery, stopped, listened, 
 took her son's hand, and rapidly walked with him to the door at 
 the remote end. 
 
 She had again heard the unbarring of the gate and the lowering 
 of the drawbridge. Now she distioguished hasty steps ascending 
 through the castle to the gallery. A few paces from the end door 
 she stood still ; a knight, clad in full armour, entered. In height 
 and figure he resembled her husband ; but his vizor was down. 
 Upon that she fixed her eye. An icstant passed in silence, neither 
 moving. The knight slowly raised his hand, and put up his 
 vizor — it was the Desmond ! 
 
 She did not scream nor start, nor even step back, for her heart 
 had misgiven her, and spared her a surprise which might have be- 
 trayed the heroic Lady into some weakness which she would have 
 scorned to show. 
 
 " 1 know you, Desmond," she only said, nodding her head, and 
 
164 THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 endeavouring to look down his deep and fearful stare ; " ay, and 
 I knew you before you put your hand to your casque." 
 
 " You did, Petronilla ?" he asked, in a low voice. 
 
 " Call me by my better name, here in mine own castle, Des- 
 mond. The Lady of Ormonde is that name ; none other have you 
 licence to utter. And then tell me what would Piers Gerald of 
 Desmond with the Lady of Ormonde — with her, and with her son, 
 whom she holds by the hand ?" 
 
 " It pleasures me," he answered, evasively, " that you knew me, 
 as you say." 
 
 " And wherefore should it ?" 
 
 "Because the knowledge so little angered you towards me, 
 when I feared far otherwise of our meeting. Lady of this castle." 
 
 " Is that all ? Then I tell you, Desmond, build not upon such 
 a seeming. Learn rather that there be some in the world who 
 deeply feel, though they despise much outward show of what they 
 feel, and who leave actions, in the stead of words, to decide be- 
 tween them and those they love or hate, honour or spurn." 
 
 *' And 'tis well, passing well, that thus calmly we do meet," he 
 resumed ; " for it hits the fashion of the time, and the change of 
 
 " Of what ?" she interrupted — for a woman, almost sternly — 
 " the change of what ? What change ? Think you, Desmond, 
 that for an hour's mishap — the first he ever knew from your hand, 
 at the least — the Lord of Ormonde, or I, his wife, will brook that 
 word ? Think you that spirit bends or snaps so soon ? Think 
 you that the cowards who fled from you on yonder bridge make 
 a tithe of the Ormonde*s truer and loyaler vassals and fighting 
 men ? or, granting that he stood alone to-night in some nook of 
 his own wide lands, think you no other friends may be near, 
 although come from far, to take his part, and give you back to 
 him, hand to hand, and foot to foot ?" 
 
 " What other friends ?" asked Desmond. 
 
 " Hark in your ear — true English friends ! Ay, Desmond ; 
 and with one who loves the Ormonde to bid them on — with Eng- 
 land's king to bid them on !" she continued, exultingly. 
 
 " Who hides behind this arras, to witness our discourse ?" de- 
 manded Desmond, striding to the place of which he spoke, his 
 hand placed on his sword. 
 
 "Harm not my poor jester, black Desmond!" cried the little 
 Lord Thomas, springing after him from his mother's side. " None 
 but he, Simon Seix, the half-witted, is there ; and he has only 
 crept behind the arras to sleep." 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 165 
 
 The child pulled aside the arras as he spoke, and discovered, 
 indeed, Simon Seix sitting behind it — his clumsy, bony knees 
 crippled up into his mouth, and his whole figure curiously twisted 
 into the smallest possible size, while he seemed, at least, to sleep 
 profoundly. 
 
 '' Bid him awaken, and to the hall with you for pastime, my 
 brave man,'* said Desmond, shaking Simon with his mailed hand 
 till he opened his eyes, uttering a strange cry, and starting to his 
 feet. " May they not leave the gallery, Lady?" resumed Des- 
 mond ; " our speech grows of import." 
 
 '* But surely of no value to an infant and a simpleton," an- 
 swered the Lady of Ormonde ; " wherefore, Desmond, they may 
 not leave the gallery for the hall." 
 
 " Dicken Utlaw, my proved body-man, will there do service 
 and ward upon your fair son," continued Desmond. 
 
 " And is he there? hef Dicken Utlaw, your proved body- 
 man ?" asked the Lady. " I know of him. In my days of un- 
 wedded youth I had a reason to know of him — the which you can 
 tell. And, oh ! heaven forgive you, Desmond, the intents, in 
 furtherance of which you bring the stony-hearted Dicken into this 
 castle !" 
 
 ** If the child and the fool are to rest here," rejoined Desmond, 
 *' I pray you let it be at the end of the gallery, out of hearing," 
 
 To this she assented, and the young Lord Thomas and Simon 
 Seix accordingly withdrew to the window. 
 
 '' Now, Lady, touching your wild speech of the English King's 
 coming to Ireland " 
 
 '' He lands to-day at Waterford, Desmond ; 'tis as wild as 
 that — England's Second Richard — at Waterford !" 
 
 " Hush !" cried Desmond, as he perceived that Simon had 
 again drawn near them, alone, so cautiously, that his steps were 
 not heard : " now, sirrah, do you dare to pry into the discourse 
 of your Lady and myself ?" 
 
 Simon humbly and earnestly denied any such bold and sinful 
 design ; and, reproved and chidden, he again withdrew, while 
 Desmond went on with what he had to say. 
 
 " Lady, 'tis passing strange I should not have heard of this : 
 but, let the King be at Waterford. I shall have loyal friends to 
 wait on him there before midnight — you can have none " 
 
 " The Ormonde may think of having some there, before mid- 
 night, Desmond." 
 
 " Alack the day, Lady !" said Desmond, s'ghing. 
 
166 THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 "Ha!'* she cried, receding from him ; "when yoib put on that 
 seeming grief, there must be a black tale for me to hear, in good 
 sooth ! Speak, man ! you have jumped upon his body — laid pros- 
 trate by thousands for you — and then passed your coward knife 
 through his noble heart.'* 
 
 " The Ormonde forced me to the field, Lady, in just defence of 
 my bounds of lands ; but, otherwise, I bore him no ill blood. His 
 life I never sought ; and, h>^d I seen it threatened, would have 
 saved it. But the last melee was fierce upon the bridge, and he 
 fell ere I knew that " 
 
 " Dead ! my Ormonde dead ?" she cried, clasping her hands, and 
 fixing her eyes on Desmond. 
 
 " I bore his banner to your gate — please you to see it in the 
 hall? Could he have drawn living breath when that was done '^" 
 
 " I think no," she answered. " And you have reached him, 
 then ? Now, Desmond, 'tis in your mind that all looks clear for 
 the fulfilling of an old oath." Stern despair was in her tones, as 
 she uttered these words. 
 
 " Sweet Lady, pass we that worthless matter — an error of mere 
 youth, and nought besides — unless we add an outbreaking of pas- 
 sionate love, as pure and true as " 
 
 " Insolent fool as well as villain !" again interrupted the Lady. 
 " Where are you, boy ? Come hither to my side, and hold fast 
 by my hand — hither, hither ! ha !" as she turned round, and looked 
 towards the end of the spacious and dusky apartment. " My 
 child hath left the gallery—with his poor fool, too ! and left it, 
 for what company ! for what chances ! Desmond, I leave you to 
 go seek him. Aid me in the task ; and promise not to part us, 
 when I find my boy, and I will kneel down to bless you." 
 
 Terrible fears of Desmond's designs began to press on her mind, 
 and, she scarce knew what she said. Her unwelcome visitor ear- 
 nestly promised to do as she requested of him ; and they left the 
 gallery by different doors. Desmond hastened to the hall, where 
 taking Utlaw aside, he said to him in a whisper — " Dicken, if by 
 some secret outlet the young spawn of the Ormonde hath evaded 
 us, we nearly lose our present game. Search well the courts and 
 outbuildings " 
 
 The calls and cries of the alSlicted mother, echoing through the 
 castle, interrupted his speech. She rushed into the hall, still ut- 
 tering the name of her child. " You have murdered him, too !" 
 she exclaimed, wildly, stopping before Desmond. " Ay, you ! even 
 while we spoke, above, some devils in your service spirited him 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. M7 
 
 away. Give place !" She darted past him, and left the hall, to 
 engage in another search. 
 
 Desmond followed close in her steps to receive the child, for 
 himself, if he should be found. His confidential follower explored 
 every hiding-place out of doors. None of them succeeded. Th'en 
 Dicken and some trusty comrades mounted their horses to ride ta 
 the town, and through all the surrounding country. 
 
 Half-an-hour before the lady of Ormonde missed them, Simon 
 Seix, stealing on tiptoe to the nearest side-door, had carried the 
 child out of the gallery in his arms. By private and obscure pas- 
 sages which, as he whispered to his young charge, the Desmond's 
 men would not be found to have yet mounted guard upon, they 
 then gained nearly the same spot, under the window of the long 
 gallery, where, somo hours before, he had enacted, together, the 
 parts of battle-charger and of trumpeter to the little Lord Thomas. 
 Here he put the boy on his feet, and stooped down upon the terra- 
 plane of the wall. " John, the father of Simon, showed it to me 
 more than once," he said : and, while speaking, he contrived to 
 loosen a small stone, and extract it from the surrounding ones. A 
 ring appeared : he tugged at it with all his strength, and a square 
 portion of smooth, small flags, moved, were displaced, and dis- 
 covered narrow steps winding down in darkness through the thick- 
 ness of the wall. 
 
 " Now, noble son of the noble Ormonde, and most noble foster- 
 brother of a born natural, remember all you promised me while >ve 
 w^hispered together at the window over our heads," resumed Simon. 
 " Here be the steps which will free us of the castle ; and, though 
 it seemeth somewhat dark a little downward, still trust to my guid- 
 ance ; for the sake of thy dear Lady-mother, and of thy " 
 
 . " I am not afraid, witless," interrupted the child. " Take my 
 hand, and lead me after you." 
 
 Without another word, Simon safely conveyed him to the bot- 
 tom of the turning steps. Here they stood in utter darkness ; the 
 misnamed fool groping with his two hands over the rough surface 
 which temporarily opposed their further progress. A j oyf ul excla- 
 mation soon told, however, that he had found what he sought ; and 
 the next moment a part of the wall, (here but of slight thickness,) 
 framed in iron, moved inward on hinges, and they saw, through 
 a low arched opening, only a few feet from them, the river, whose 
 rapid dash and chafe had come on their ears as they descended. 
 
 A rugged bank, often interrupted by eddies and little coves of 
 the river, fell from the foundation of the wall into the Nore. Along 
 
168 THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 this, his back turned to John's bridge and the town, and his young 
 foster-brother once more astride on his shoulders, Simon was soon 
 hurrying. The wall made an abrupt turn, striking off at right an- 
 gles, inland : he turned with it, and still pursued its course. 
 
 " There is the paddock, truly ; but where is my Lord's favourite 
 horse for the chase T* he said, after having made considerable 
 way — " nay, I see him — and now for a hard ride, without saddle, 
 and a svggaun bridle in hand." 
 
 Some hay was piled in the paddock : from it he adroitly and 
 quickly spun his mggaun — fastened it on the head of the fleet 
 courser — placed the child on the animal's back — vaulted up behind 
 him — and a few minutes, over hedge and ditch, brought them to 
 a highway. 
 
 '^ For Waterford, Raymond 1" cried Simon, shaking his hay 
 bridle: and we have need to see the end of the twenty-and-four 
 Irish miles in little more time than it will take to count them over." 
 
 ^' Tis well to be a fool, ay, and a sleepy fool, too, at times, 
 Simon, else neither Ra}Tnond, nor his riders for him, would know 
 the road so well," said the child. 
 
 " There be tricks in all born crafts, your little nobleness," replied 
 Simon ; else how would fools, or even wise men, win bread ! In 
 sooth, I deemed I might catch a needful secret behind the arras. 
 Though I wot not of the road till I bethought me of treading lightly 
 back from the window to hear another word." 
 
 It was aight — but a moonlight one — when the hoofs of their 
 courser beat hollowly along the banks of the Suir : they had avoided 
 the town, and followed the widening of the river a little distance be- 
 yond it. Unpractised as were his eyes to such a sight, Simon soon 
 was aware that a great many ships floated on the moon- lit water ; 
 that boats moved to and from them ; and that large bodies of sol- 
 diers, destined for taking the field against the formidable young Irish 
 chief, Arthur MacMurchad O'Kavanah, were every moment land- 
 ing. While he looked, a sentinel challenged him. He reined up 
 his foaming horse, and answered, by giving the name of Lord 
 Thomas of Ormonde, and demanding to see the King. The soldier 
 scoffed at his request ; and, as Simon insisted, his words grew 
 rough and high. A group of noble-looking men, who, from a near 
 elevation of the bank, had been watching the disembarkation, were 
 attracted to the spot ; and one, a knight completely clad in splendid 
 armour, advanced alone from the rest, saying — '* The Lord 
 Thomas of Ormonde to have speech of the King ! Where bides 
 this Lord Thomas, master mine ?" 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 169 
 
 *' I am the Lord Thomas of Ormonde !" answered Simon's little 
 charge, spiritedly, and as if in dudgeon that he had not been at 
 once recognised, 
 
 "Thon, gramercy, fair noble!" continued the knight, good- 
 naturedlj, as he touched his helmet. " And on what weighty 
 matter wouldst thou parley with King Richard ?" 
 
 " Atf you lead m« to him, like a civil knight and good, Richard 
 himself shall learn," replied the child. 
 
 *' Excellent well spoken," whispered Simon to his charge. 
 ** Abide by that fashion of speech." 
 
 " By our Lady, then, like civil knight and good, will I do my 
 devoir by thee, Lord Thomas of Butler," resumed the knight, 
 " little doubting that the King will give ready ear to thy errand ; 
 for passing well he affects one of thy name, the Lord James, Earl 
 of Ormonde," 
 
 " Which noble Earl is my own father," said the boy. 
 
 The knight showed real interest at this intelligence; and, com- 
 manding the horse which bore Simon and the child to be led after 
 him, walked towards the town of Waterford, 
 
 Half-an-hour afterwards, mounted on a fresh steed, and accom- 
 panied by their patron and a body of well-armed soldiers, our ad- 
 venturers galloped back to Kilkenny. The knight had pressed 
 their stay till morning; but Lord Thomas and Simon convinced 
 him that, for the sake of the Lady of Ormonde, this ought not to 
 be. She required not only to have her son restored to her, but 
 also to be protected against the Desmond, who, ere morning's 
 dawn, might work her irremediable harm. Finding these reasons 
 good, the friendly knight resolved to bear them company. 
 
 Upon the road, he an-anged with Simon various plans of pro- 
 ceeding ; and, upon a particular point, was wholly governed by 
 the simpleton's advice. Simon said that there was but one vassal 
 of the Desmond in Kilkenny Castle, who, after the tidings they 
 had to communicate, would, at all hazards, attempt to spill blood. 
 '' Then, can ye not make free with his, before I enter the castle- 
 hall?" demanded the knight. Simon demurred, but proposed an 
 alternative : — "We will make him drunk with wines, till he sleeps 
 soundly," said Simon ; " and then, upon hearing my signal, a 
 child may enter the hall." 
 
 The knight assented ; but added — " Good success still rests 
 upon the chance of the Desmond's army not having yet marched 
 from the field to greet their Lord in the Ormonde's fortress. For, 
 though our liege comrades here may well suffice to master the 
 
na THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 knaves already within its walls, they could not withstand thou- 
 sands." 
 
 Notwithstanding this chance against them, the travellers held 
 on, however, and by midnight gained the secret door, through 
 which Simon had escaped from the castle wall upon the rough and 
 scanty bank of the Nore. Previously, all had dismounted, and, 
 conducted by him, were now ushered, stealthily, into the interior 
 of the castle ; and their hopes grew high when it appeared evident 
 that Desmond's army had not yet come to garrison it. 
 
 Few moments then elapsed until Simon entered the hall of the 
 castle, leading his foster-brother by the hand. By the light of a 
 tripod, suspended from the arched roof, he saw his old father 
 stretched on the tiled floor, mournfully supporting his head upon 
 his hand, guarded by a soldier ; at the oak table, immediately 
 under a Scotch broadsword and buckler, won by the Ormonde, 
 some years before, in a battle against the Bruce, when that chief- 
 tain made pretensions to the crown of Ireland, sat Dicken UtlaAv, 
 the man whom Simon had meant when he spoke of the single fol- 
 lower of Desmond, whose hand would be prompt to shed the 
 blood even of his liege King, in defence of his Lord, or in revenge 
 of his discomfiture. A wine cup and a flagon stood at the ruf- 
 fian's hand, by means of which he had already anticipated, half- 
 way, Simon's designs upon him. 
 
 Utlaw's voice was high and angry, as the two truants appeared 
 before him ; and, in fact, he was roundly expressing his wrath 
 against them for the useless chase they had led him over all the 
 neighbouring roads, and from which he had only lately returned. 
 So soon as his eyes met theirs he started up, roaring forth com- 
 mands to the armed man who stood guard over old Seix to secure 
 the door of the hall. 
 
 " It does not need," answered the boy ; " we come hither to 
 be your prisoners, good Dicken." 
 
 " Ay, thoa vagrant imp ! and whence come ye so suddenly, 
 after all our chase, as if ye grew out of the ground, or were blown 
 in upon a wind ?" asked Utlaw. 
 
 " Perchance even as thou sayest we come," answered Simon ; 
 " for, all this evening, we have footed it merrily with the fays of 
 Brandon-hill. Be patient now, sweet Dicken Utlaw," as the bravo 
 raised his sheathed sword, " and but suffer us to enact for your 
 pleasure one of the good dances they have taught us, and I will 
 bribe my father here, the house-steward, to whisper thee in what 
 corner of the cellar thou mayest chance on a magnum of such re- 
 
THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 171 
 
 nowned wine as has scarce filled to-night the empty flagon at thy 
 hand." 
 
 Dicken became somewhat soothed; and, growling an exhortation 
 to the sentinel to guard all his prisoners well, strode off to avail 
 himself of the ready instructions of old Seix. During his short 
 absence, Simon studied the features of the soldier who rested on 
 histall spear near the door, and drew comfort from their tranquil, 
 and even benevolent expression. Utlaw returned to his seat at 
 the oak table, called the wine good, and gulped it down rapidly : 
 it was of great power, and Simon knew the fact well. But it also 
 seemed capable of making him obliging^ for he consented to see 
 the fashion of the dance practised by the hill- elves ; and accord- 
 ingly, Simon, with a whisper to the child, performed a vagary so 
 grotesque that the drunken savage laughed hoarsely in his cup, 
 and the guard smiled quietly on his post. 
 
 Simon continued his frolics till the critical powers of Dicken 
 began rapidly to desert him. Very soon afterwards he slept pro- 
 foundly, snorting like the swine he was. Simon now preparing 
 for his most important feat, proposed that Lord Thomas should 
 take a war-horse — namely, an old weapon at hand, and ride it 
 about the hall to the notes of the trumpet. The boy was soon 
 mounted, and Simon taking up a useless scroll of parchment, and 
 rolling it loosely, applied it to his mouth. 
 
 Before he would blow his sinal blast, however, he glanced into 
 the face of the sentinel, and afterwards to the half-open door of 
 the hall. The man was still smiling good-naturedly at the gleeish 
 gambols of the little Lord Thomas ; and, in the gloom without the 
 hall, Simon caught glimpses of armed men — one of whom pre- 
 sently entered, unseen by the soldier, and bent watchfully over 
 the snoring Dicken. " Now to the charge 1" cried Simon, ad- 
 dressing his foster-brother ; and, to the astonishment of the sen- 
 tinel, of the knight, who had just stealthily come in (Simon's 
 friend at Waterford), and of every one in the castle, a perfect 
 trumpet sound rang through the spacious building. 
 
 Dicken sprang to his feet, half conscious, and was instantly 
 felled to the ground by a blow of the knight's battle-axe, who had 
 been watching him. Old Seix arose, and seized his sword. Simon 
 armed himself with the weapon upon which the child had been 
 astride, and placed himself spiritedly, though grotesquely, before 
 him. The sentinel quickly brought his spear to his hip, and stood 
 upon the defensive, regarding the stranger knight (who wore his 
 vizor down) with a threatening look ; but a second knight now 
 
172 THE HALL OF THE CASTLE. 
 
 gaining that person's side rendered his hostility vain. Almost at 
 the same moment, an nproar and a clash was heard through the 
 castle : presently the Lady of Ormonde ran shrieking into the hall; 
 and she shrieked wildly again, though not in the same cadence, as 
 she caught up her child to her bosom. She was quickly followed 
 by Desmond, now the prisoner of some of Simon's friends. The bold 
 Lord had fought desperately, and bled from his wounds, though 
 the rage which was upon him did not allow him to think of them. 
 
 " What treachery is this ? and what villains be these ?'* he ex- 
 claimed, as he came in : " who calls himself chief here ?" 
 
 The knight who wore his vizor down raised his arm, and touched 
 his breast, in answer. 
 
 " Then call thyself by such name no longer?** continued Des- 
 mond ; and with that he suddenly freed himself from his guards, 
 snatched the sentinel's long spear, and aimed a thrust at the knight. 
 
 " Traitor ! stay thy hand !" exclaimed his antagonist, in a voice 
 of high and dignified command ; " thou knowest not what thou 
 doest, nor that, indeed, thy feudal sceptre is here broken in pieces. 
 Look at me now !" He exposed his face. 
 
 " Richard, the King !" faltered Desmond, dropping on his knee, 
 as the Lady of Ormonde and all in the hall knelt with him. 
 
 THE END OF THE HALL OF THE CASTLE, 
 
THE HALF-BROTHERS. 
 
THE HALF-BROTHERS. 
 
 Lucy Hawkins, at sixteen, was the belle, if not the beauty, of 
 her little sea-washed village on the coast of Kent. Other girls 
 might boast a more perfect shape and handsomer features, but her 
 air, her expression, or — if a fashionable French word may, with 
 allowances, be applied to a lowly maiden — her tournure eclipsed 
 them all. She was also celebrated for a vivacity of manner and 
 conversation unusual among young women of her class ; nay, 
 in the opinions of a numerous circle of good judges, who con- 
 stantly enjoyed her company and discourse, Lucy Hawkins de- 
 served to be termed witty. 
 
 Her mother kept the post-office of the village, together with a 
 general huckster's shop, and a hotel in one of her out-houses for 
 very humble wanderers or sojourners — beds three-pence per night. 
 Upon a large deal chest, the good dame's flour-store, which stood 
 under her shop window, opposite to her counter, hard-worked la- 
 bourers, employed in the neighbourhood, would sit and eat their 
 four penny-worth of bread and cheese, and drink their half-pint of 
 small-beer, by way of the morning's or afternoon's meal. And 
 Lucy generally served them, or else stood by while they were 
 served ; and her good humour materially helped to give zest to 
 their meagre breakfast or dinner. At the upper end of the counter 
 was a rush-bottomed, curiously-legged, old oak chair, a fixture, 
 put forward for any chatty neighbour or visitor who might like an 
 hour's gossiping. Since its establishment it had, indeed, seldom 
 been left empty, as was indicated, even during its leisure moments, 
 by a little round cavity worn in the tiled floor, just at the spot 
 where its successive occupants necessarily rested their heels. And 
 with the revellers on the chest, and the numerous patrons of this 
 oak chair, to say nothing of ordinary customers and her own par- 
 ticular friends, Lucy became quite a public character, and, as has 
 been hinted, quite a favourite. The poor people who, towards 
 night, crept through the shop to their straw beds over the hen- 
 house, in the yard, also shared her sparkling conversation, and 
 acknowledged its cheery influence. 
 
176 THE HALF-BROTHERS. 
 
 There were other visitors who also admitted her attractions, 
 though it would have been better for Lucy if we could limit her 
 encomiastic friends to those already mentioned. Over one depart- 
 ment of the manifold concern she had absolute sway. Her mother 
 did not know how to read hand-writing, and, considering the fre- 
 quency of almost illegible superscriptions on the backs of letters, 
 the deputation of authority alluded to became a matter of pru- 
 dence, if not of necessity. At the inquiry of every claimant for 
 letters *' to be left till called for," it was Lucy, therefore, who 
 always unlocked the little rude de^l box — about the size, and much 
 in the shape of a salt-box, — which, clumsily nailed against the 
 wooden pane with the slit in the shop-window, formed the whole 
 apparatus of the post-oiB&ce branch of the establishment. 
 
 Many ofl5<jers of the preventive service, although they had abun- 
 dance of unemployed men to go to Mrs. Hawkins's shop in their 
 stead, would call in every morning to ask for their letters, and at 
 different hours of their idle day return to purchase a quarter of an 
 ounce of Scotch snuff, or something else of which they could have 
 less use, such as a row of pins, a yard of tape, or a reel of thread. 
 In fact, it became evident that three of them were rivals for the 
 smiles of Lucy Hawkins. 
 
 Two of the three soon ensured to themselves, however, any- 
 thing but her smiles. For offences, separately received at their 
 hands, she invariably left the shop whenever they entered at 
 it ; and as Lucy's conduct was not a mere show of feminine anger, 
 they absented themselves, and gave up their unmanly pursuit. 
 The third, whose visits were still received, was more seriously in 
 love with Lucy than either of his friends; but, whether from a 
 nicer sense of honour, or that the fate of the others had taught 
 him a lesson, Lieutenant Stone did not lightly or hastily tell her 
 so. Much younger than his rivab, perhaps he was more romantic, 
 and, particularly since Lucy's late specimen of telf- assertion, would 
 not indulge his admiration with a view to any mean indulgence of 
 it. In fact, when, after sitting in the shop, upon the flour-chest, 
 or in the old chair, day after day, for more than six months, he at 
 last whispered his sentiments to Lucy, the declaration sounded 
 seriously and respectfully to her ear, and, she concluded, could be 
 made only in one hope — that of obtaining her hand, with the due 
 consent of father and mother. 
 
 The scene must now be very abruptly changed, with a breach 
 of the three unities of time, place, and action. 
 
 Twelve years after Lucy Hawkins accepted the suit of her chosen 
 
THE HALF-BROTHERS. 177 
 
 lover, we enter a small wooden house, indeed a very poor shed, iu 
 another little sea-coast hamlet, many miles distant from her native 
 one. The walls of its only sitting-room, a kitchen, are bare ; the 
 floor is tiled ; and the few articles of indispensable furniture are 
 old, common, and crazy. Yet the poor apartment looks clean, or, 
 to use an humble, but expressive and very English word, tidy. A 
 woman, as ill- clad as her house is ill-appointed, but, like it, tidy 
 too, sits on a stool, teaching a sturdy, sun-burnt boy of seven years 
 to read out of a "Reading Made Easy." She seems about forty, 
 but may be much younger than she looks, for her composed fea- 
 tures would suggest long acquaintance with misfortune — the often 
 successful anticipator of time's utmost efforts to destroy. A half- 
 finished female dress, of materials too costly, and of shape too 
 fashionable, to be destined to the use of the lowly occupant of the 
 lowly abode, lies, together with the little implements of woman's 
 industry, upon a table at her side, hinting the mode of pursuit by 
 which she earns scanty bread for her young pupil and herself. 
 
 The task is over, and Billy is kissed, and called a good boy ; 
 , and, while his mother combs his yellow hair in smooth and equal 
 portions towards either temple, — "There, my king," she says. 
 " And now, where is brother to take you out to play ?" 
 
 " The naughty great boys were quarrelling Charley on the 
 shingles, mother, when he sent Billy home to his task to be rid of 
 them." 
 
 " And what game did they quarrel over, Billy ?" 
 " No game, mother ; but Dick Saunders called Charley a bad 
 name." 
 
 " Tell mother the bad name, my man." 
 " Billy can't; he doesn't know it now, mother." 
 Their conversation was interrupted by the quick entrance of 
 Charley himself. The moment his mother saw him she uttered an 
 alarmed cry. His clenched hands were thrust into his trousers* 
 pockets ; he frowned, for the first time in his life his mother had 
 seen him do so ; his lips quivered ; tears glazed his eyes ; his face, 
 nay, his forehead and ears, flamed scarlet, and blood trickled down 
 - his cheeks. Obviously he had been fighting a hard battle, but, 
 as obviously, was the victor. The boy was about twelve. 
 
 " Let Billy go play at the door, and I'll tell you, mother," he 
 said, after she had addressed many anxious inquiries to him. 
 
 She led the little fellow out, and shut the door upon herself 
 and Charley. He dropt in a chair, flung his arms over the table^ 
 laid his face upon them, and burst into a furious fit of crying. 
 
 N 
 
178 THE HALF-BROTHERS. 
 
 *' Naughty Dick Saunders has hurt you, Charley, mother's dar- 
 ling!" she cried, approaching him. 
 
 " No — not so much as I have hurt him — the story-teller !" 
 puppy !" sobbed Charles, " Mother, Dick Saunders spoke ill of 
 me, and of you." 
 
 " What did he say, Charley ?" 
 
 " I can't repeat it after him — I won't. But, mother, I be old 
 enough to ask yon what I'm going to ask — Was Master Turner, 
 who died last year, Billy's father ?" 
 
 " To be sure he was, Charley." She grew uneasy. 
 
 " And your husband ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And my father, too ?" 
 
 She changed colour, and dropped her eyes beneath the deep 
 glance of her child. 
 
 " Now, Charley, I know what they said of you and me ; and 
 the time is indeed come for me to speak to you of what nearly 
 concerns you." 
 
 " Did Dick Saunders tell no story, mother ?" interrupted Charley, 
 sitting upright, and again unconsciously scrutinizing her face. 
 She raised her eyes, met his for an instant, and then sank back in 
 her chair, covering her features with her hands, and weeping dole- 
 fully. 
 
 " I ask pardon, mother," said the generous, and hitherto gentle 
 boy, as he gained her side, and put his arms round her neck : " you 
 always loved me, and I shall always love you, let them say what 
 they will of us. Kiss Charley, mother, won't you ?" 
 
 Fondly, almost wildly, she embraced him, and resumed. ** No, 
 Charley — Master Turner, my husband, was not your father: 
 stop a moment." She stepped into her little bed-room ; returned 
 with a small, square, red-leather case ; placed it in his hand ; sat 
 down ; averted her head ; began to move the work on her table ; 
 and would vainly hide her continued tears, as she added — " Open 
 hat, and you will know more of your father." 
 
 While he obeyed her commands, Charley recollected that he had 
 more than once detected his mother weeping over the little red- 
 leather case. When the miniature met his eye the boy started. 
 
 " My father was a ship's captain I" he cried. 
 
 " He was an officer in the King's navy," she answered. 
 
 " And a gentleman, mother ?" 
 
 " His commission made him one, Charley ; but he would have 
 been a true gentleman without it." 
 
THE HALF-BROTHERS. 179 
 
 " And he married you before Master Turner married you, mo- 
 ther ?'' 
 
 *' Charley, your father and I never were married." 
 
 A pause ensued. Charley's features betrayed a bitter and fierce 
 inward combat, as his glance still fixed on the miniature. 
 
 " Is he dead ?" he at length asked. 
 
 " I hope not, but I am not sure. Sometimes I think one thing, 
 sometimes another. Listen, my king. I was very young when I 
 met your father ; and I wondered, and many others wondered, what 
 he could see in me to love. I was his inferior in every way. To 
 be sure, my poor mother had managed to keep me at good schools 
 till I was a great girl, and perhaps this made me something in his 
 eyes. Then, when we began to keep company, with father's and 
 mother's consent, he taught me, like a master, himself, a great 
 many things that improved my mind and my manners, ay, and my 
 heart, too ; but I am not going on with my story. We were to be 
 married at the end of two years. Before the first year came round 
 he was ordered from the blockade-service to a ship, at only a few 
 hours' notice. He ran down to our shop, and showing the letter, 
 prayed mother to let us be made man and wife that very evening. 
 She would not hear of it, saying I was too young, and did not know 
 my own mind, and would not know how to behave as his wife. He 
 begged and prayed once again, and cried tears, and went on his 
 knees ; she held firm to her word. But alas ! Charley, it had been 
 doing better if she had not held so firm to it, or else not have left 
 us alone to take leave of each other that evening. And next day, 
 ay, before it was day, your father left our village, and I have never 
 seen him since." 
 
 " But he has sent letters to you, mother ?" 
 
 " I got none, if he did : though I believe he did, and that an 
 enemy kept them from my hands. A very short time after he left 
 us, my father died, my mother grew poor, and we were turned out 
 of our comfortable little house, not being able to pay our rent. The 
 shop was re -opened by a woman and her daughter who bore me no 
 good will, and on your father's account, too. He had paid some 
 compliments to the daughter before he met me, and they blamed me 
 for taking him from them. And — God forgive me if I wrong 
 either mother or daughter — but I do fear that letters from your fa- 
 ther to me, and from me to him, were stopt by the new keepers of 
 our post-office. Well, Charley, you were bom while my mother 
 and I lived in a very poor way, trying to support ourselves with our 
 needles, and keep out of the workhouse. Your father's silence al- 
 
180 THE HALF-BIIOTHLRS. 
 
 most broke my heart. I did not suspect foul play about the letters 
 then ; 'tis only lately people gave me some hints, and all I could 
 think was that he had forsaken us both, my king. My mother died 
 too, and you and I were quite left alone, Charley. Years after, 
 when, try as I would or could, we were getting worse and worse 
 off. Master Turner came from his village to ours, on business, and 
 knowing my whole story, asked me to marry him. He was a man 
 well to do in the world at that time, and a kind man too ; and so, 
 after giving up all other hopes, I thought, Charley, that, even for 
 your sake, I ought not to refuse a comfortable home and comfort- 
 able living. But it seemed as if every one was to have ill-luck with 
 me. Good Master Turner began to grow poor from that very day, 
 till last year, when he died, leaving us as badly off as he found us. 
 And that's the whole story, Charley ; only, here are you and I liv- 
 ing alone again, with your little half-brother, Billy, to keep us com- 
 pany. 
 
 " Well ; and I be glad of his company, mother," said Charley : 
 *' I always loved little Billy for his own sake, and because he loved 
 me" — (the mutual affection of the boys was indeed very remarkable). 
 >' And now, though, as you say, he turns out to be only my half- 
 brother, rU love him better for his father's sake, who was a friend 
 to you when you wanted a friend. But we must open the door and 
 let him in." 
 
 Billy's voice had been heard calling on Charles to run down with 
 him to the beach, and see the grand three-masted ship that was 
 passing but a little way out, and, people said, seemed about to send 
 a boat ashore. Ere Charles went to the door, he held out the mi- 
 niature, and asked, *' May I see it often again, mother ?" 
 
 " Keep it," — 'tis. your own, Charley. Here" — passing a riband 
 through the loop at its top, " hang it round your neck." 
 
 As his mother secured it, he once more felt her tears dropping 
 fast on his head, and looking up into her face, he stole his arms 
 around her. 
 
 *' Go, now, mother's darlings," as hand in hand they left her 
 humble threshold. " But, Charley, do not stray out far on the 
 sands : it will be a spring-tide, I fear, and the breeze comes fresh 
 from the sea." 
 
 Still hand in hand they proceeded on their walk ; Billy unusually 
 communicative, and Charles uausually silent. Indeed the younger 
 •boy remarked his brother's taciturnity, and taxed him with it. They 
 met groups of their former playmates in the village -street, whom 
 •the child wished to joia ; but Charles, chucking him closer to his 
 
THE HALF-BHOTHEHS, 181 
 
 SKle, passed them by, knitting his brow and holding up his head. 
 On the shingles appeared other groups, and the young misanthrope 
 would not descend to the water's edge until he had proceeded se- 
 veral hundred yards above their position. 
 
 It was a beautiful spring day. The breeze lashed the waves into 
 a sportive fury. Sun and cloud, light and shade, alternated their 
 effects over the wide bosom of the sea, streaking it with gold and 
 pea-green, with dark purple or deep blue. Now a distant sail was 
 a white speck on the horizon, now a spot of dark, dotting a clear 
 sky. The three-master, of which little Billy had spoken, lay- to, 
 about a mile from shore. Charles knew her to be an East-India- 
 man. His brother urged him to approach her as closely as the sands 
 permitted. Still wrapt up in his own thoughts and feelings, Charles 
 silently stepped down th« shingles, looking jealously around to 
 note if they were alone. 
 
 Behind him, as he began to move towards the waves, was a low 
 ]ine of cliff, forming, at a particular point, a jutting platform, from 
 the outward edge of which the continuation of the cliff swept, like 
 a buttress to the shingles. Before him stretched the strand, to 
 nearly the distance of half-a-mile, where it was met by an irregu- 
 lar circle of black rocks^ closely wedged together, and enclosing the 
 last patch of sand visible even at low tide. Charles had not in- 
 tended to approach this spot ; but as he walked in an oblique di- 
 rection from it, some straggling boys appeared coming against him, 
 and he hastily led his little charge to the convenient screen of the 
 tall rocks. 
 
 The tide had for some time been coming in. Often before, how- 
 ever, Charles had ventured farther out, when it was more ad* 
 vanced, and returned to shore with only wet feet and a splashing/ 
 The rocks could not at any point be easily scaled, so high and broad 
 was their barrier ; nor did they admit of ingress into the sandy 
 area they girded, save at a particular spot, sea-ward, where, some 
 feet from their base, appeared a narrow fissure, still difficult of ac- 
 cess. Charles therefore walked round them until he gained this 
 opening ; then, assisting his little brother to ^limb up to it, the two 
 boys soon stood upon a projection inside the rocky belt, and turned 
 their faces towards the sea. 
 
 They could perceive, by a bustle on the deck of the Indiaman, 
 
 now so near to them, that a boat would soon be lowered from her 
 
 side. They looked out, much interested, until the boat lightly 
 
 touched the tossing waves near the vessel's prow, and became 
 
 ;trongly manned, as if to put off for shore. Still, however, the men 
 
182 THE HALF-BROTHERS. 
 
 rested on their oars, and seemed waiting for some other person to 
 descend. And,i n a mood that sympathized with the scene, Charles 
 continued to watch the boat, dancing to and fro, and sometimes al- 
 most jumping out of the water ; for the breeze grew stiffer, and 
 the waves rougher. Half an hour he stood motionless, disregard- 
 ng, for the first time in his life, the prattle of the little boy at his 
 side. At last the individual for whom the boat waited, clad in blue 
 and white, and gold lace, to Billy's gi-eat delight, jumped in amongst 
 his men, stood up, at their head, pointed to shore, and was rapidly 
 rowed towards it. 
 
 For some time the near roar of waters had been ringing in Charles's 
 ear, but he made light of the warning, for he confidently ar- 
 gued from experience, whenever his thoughts reverted to the mat- 
 ter, that there was still suflicient time to return to the shingles with 
 scarce a wet shoe. But he did not reckon that the spot of sand, 
 with which he now stood enclosed, was much higher than the outer 
 sands which stretched to the bases of the rocks. He did not 
 reckon that the tide, at a certain period of its dow, after turning a 
 near point of land, usually ran with almost the rapidity of a mill- 
 stream, against the right-hand segment of the barrier, and then, di- 
 rected by its curve, inundated in a trice the previously open space 
 between it and the shingles. Above all, he did not remember what 
 his mother had hinted at parting ; for, indeed, her omen proved 
 true ; it was a spring tide. 
 
 The ship's boat, still seen at a distance, glanced athwart the 
 patch of sea revealed through the fissure at which the boys looked 
 out. More alive, after its disappearance, to the unusual noise of the 
 waters, Charley took his brother's hand to lead him home by the 
 way they had come. To his consternation, a fiercely-crested wave 
 leaped into their faces through the narrow opening, drenching both 
 to the skin. He let go Billy's hand, and sprang up to the top of 
 the circular wall of rocks. A foamy sea tossed all around him. His 
 eye caught the gallant boat, about a quarter of a mile distant. He 
 screamed to it ; jumped down to his little brother ; dragged him up 
 to the spot he had just quitted, and screamed again. There was a 
 little cavity, formed by the irregular junction, at their sharp exter- 
 mities, of the rocks, and in this he placed the now bewildered and 
 weeping child, to preserve him from being dashed inward by the 
 quickly increasing sea ; and clinging himself to the highest pinna- 
 cle he could grasp, once more he wildly hailed the boat. 
 
 Most probably he had now caught its notice. It put round and 
 pulled towards him ; but soon seemed deterred from venturing too 
 near the dangerous rocks. 
 
THE HALF-BROTHERS. 183 
 
 " Oh, God ! — oh ! mother, mother ! your Billy ! Mother's dar- 
 ling ! he at least will be drowned, though I may swim till they pick 
 me up — and all m^/ fault ! — but no, no I" He pulled off his jacket 
 and waistcoat, and tore his shirt into long stripes. — " No ! he shall 
 not ! — Come, Bill ! I will tie you to my back ! never fear, my 
 king — and see if I don't swim like a fish for you !" 
 
 The child, having heard and noted all his words and actions, 
 had stopped crying, and, as if struck with Charley's noble conduct 
 and sentiments, and unconsciously sympathizing with them, an- 
 swered : " I won't, Charley; I won't ; — I should sink you, and we 
 should only be drowned together, then ; and no one will be left 
 with mother." 
 
 All this while breakers had been dashing from without nearly up 
 to the summits of the rocks at the opposite sweep of the circle, and 
 as Charles eagerly, indeed violently, renewed his entreaties, they at 
 last came leaping and plunging up to its very edge, like dark, 
 white-maned war-horses, trying to rear and paw over some high 
 and well-guarded embankment Once again he hoarsely cried out 
 to the boat. It was nearer to him, but still seemed cautious of ac- 
 tual approach. He turned for the last time to Billy, and seized 
 him in his arms to compel him to do his bidding. The riband which 
 held his father's miniature round his neck snapped in the exertion ; 
 the miniature itself was rolling outwardly into the surf; he 
 snatched at it, and secured it, but lost his balance, and the next 
 instant was kicking among the breakers. 
 
 The captain of the East-Indiaman had with his pocket-glass 
 witnessed the greater part of the scene between the young brothers, 
 and, as he saw Charles tumble from the rocks, gallantly ordered 
 his men to dare a good deal, and pull towards the spot where the 
 boy had sunk. Presently Charley re-appeared, swimming stoutly ; 
 not for the boat, however, but back again to the now almost iuvisi- 
 bie rocks. The captain and his men called to him, but he did not 
 heed them. It has been mentioned that when the boys walked out 
 to the sands, they directly turned their backs upon a platform in a 
 low line of cliff. At that moment, not only the platform and its 
 rugged buttress-base, but the shingles beneath, were perfectly dry. 
 Now the raging surf of a spring-tide, excited by a stiff breeze^ 
 foamed up to the level of the former : and almost simultaneously 
 with Charley's re-appearance, a woman, screaming loudly, descended 
 the difficult passage from the brow of the cliff, and gained the 
 slippery shelf. Many people followed her to the top line of the 
 precipice, but no one ventured to her side. Her cries reached thft 
 
184 THE HALF-BROTHERS. 
 
 yonng swimmer, through all the roar of the sea, and he redoubled 
 his vain efforts to reach his little brother. But very soon exertion 
 became useless. At one enraged and reinforced charge of the 
 breakers, the area enclosed by the rocky circle, hitherto little in- 
 truded on, was inundated, and no part o£.the black barrier -line re- 
 mained visible, except that formed by the pinnacles amid which the 
 child. stood wedged : a curling chain of foam supplied its place. 
 And now, his mother from the shore, his brother from the sea, and 
 the captain and his men from their boat, witnessed the conduct of 
 the little sufferer. He had been sitting ; he stood up : a breaker 
 struck him ; he staggered : another came ; he fell, disappeared : 
 was still seen, however, upon a point of rock, raising his hands, and 
 clapping them over his head, until at the third blow the little fel- 
 low became engulfed in the whirling waters. 
 
 The boat was now very near to Charles ; and, at last, seemingly 
 attentive to the remonstrance of its crew, he turned, and languidly 
 swam towards its side. 
 
 " What the deuce has the young grampus fished up between 
 his teeth ?" said the captain, as he assisted in reaching out an oar : 
 " a boiled crab, I reckon ; though, where they got a fire to boil it, 
 at the bottom of this surf, is more than I can imagine." 
 
 Charles was dragged into the boat, and without a word or a cry 
 fell stupified upon its bottom. The miniature dropped from his 
 unclenched teeth ; the captain took it up, opened it, and startled 
 his men by uttering a loud exclamation. Then he stooped to 
 Charley's face, and peered into it ; then glanced to the cliff ; and 
 finally, ordering every oar to pull for the shingles, he knelt on one 
 knee, raised Charley's head to the other ; and his crew were still 
 more surprised to see their bluff captain embrace the almost sense- 
 less lad, kiss his cheeks and forehead, and weep over him pro- 
 fusely, though in silence. 
 
 The boat had not shot far, when little Billy floated ahead. The 
 captain gently, though hastily, put Charles down, and with much 
 energy assisted in picking up the child, who soon lay stretched be- 
 side his half-brother, rescued indeed from the sea, but, it seemed 
 evident, quite dead. Still the captain cried, " Pull, men, pull !" 
 
 Vigorously and skilfully obeying his orders, they ran the lively 
 boat upon toe shingles, a good distance below the point at which 
 the low cliff gradually dipped to their surface. The mother flew 
 down to meet her children and their unknown friends. The 
 anxious crowd followed her. She received Charley from the cap- 
 tain's arms ; a sailor followed, holding Billy, wrapped in the cap- 
 
THE HALF-BROTHERS. 185 
 
 tain's jacket, to his bosom. At her first word the elder boy opened 
 his eyes ; after straining him to her heart she flew to his brother. 
 No word had effect upon him. The captain called out for a sur- 
 geon : the village practitioner and the blockade surgeon were both 
 at hand. They caused the child to be conveyed into a neighbour- 
 ing cottage, and there, in the presence of the mother and the cap- 
 tain, promptly engaged in all the usual measures for restoring ani- 
 mation : but all failed. They repeated their exertions, still with- 
 out effect ; and at length, pronouncing Billy to be a corpse, left the 
 cottage. 
 
 Charles had been stretched across the foot of the bed upon 
 which, wrapped in blankets, lay his little half-brother. At first 
 he did not comprehend his situation, or notice the occurrences 
 around him. Now, however, he seemed to hear the departing 
 words of the surgeons, for, raising himself upon his elbow, he 
 gazed first into his mother's face, as she sat in silent anguish by 
 the bedside, and then he tried to move upward towards Billy. 
 While making this effort, the captain, gently laying his hand on 
 the mother's shoulder, asked to speak aside with her. She arose, 
 in the languid indifference of grief, and followed him into a corner 
 of the room, out of view of the bed. " Lucy !" was the captain's 
 only word, soothingly whispered at her ear. She drew back, 
 looked up into his face, and was in his arms. A brief ex- 
 planation proved that her suspicions of her revengeful rival at 
 the village post-office were well founded. While, from the sup- 
 pression of the captain's letters to her, Lucy had believed him cruel 
 and faithless, the holding back, also, of her letters to him had 
 caused her sincere lover to conclude that she was no better than 
 a village-coquette, who, the moment he left her presence, forgot 
 him, and insulted his memory and his devotion in the smiles of a 
 new admirer. Hence, after her seeming silence of many years, he 
 had proudly struggled to give up Lucy Hawkins for ever ; and 
 though, since their parting, he could often have returned to her vil- 
 lage, he would not so far humiliate himself. Some inquiries, how- 
 ever, he condescended to make by a confidential person sent for 
 the purpose, merely with the view of ascertaining if Lucy were 
 alive or dead, — for death alone, he argued, could explain her sup- 
 posed conduct. About the very time his emissary arrived in the 
 village, she had become the envied wife of the rich Master Turner ; 
 and this intelligence necessarily confirmed his former angry reso- 
 lutions. * 
 
 The Captain and Lucy were yet speaking, when Charles's voice 
 
186 THE HALF-BROTHERS. 
 
 sounded shrill and joyfully from the bed ; " Yes, Billy, yes ! — 'tis 
 Charley ! Billy ! — mother's darling !" They stepped round to the 
 bedside. He had crept under the blankets, and clasped the child 
 close to his bosom ; and now, indeed, the efforts of the surgeons, 
 although despaired of by themselves, began to yield a good result. 
 
 " He would not die, to let you say I killed him, mother," said 
 Charles, laughing through his tears. 
 
 " The child lives, by Heavens !" cried the captain. 
 
 That day Captain Stone was married to the woman of his early 
 choice ; and having dispatched, before evening, the trifling business 
 which first called him to shore, he conveyed his wife to his ship, to- 
 gether with her two sons, and pursued his voyage. 
 
 THE END OF THE HALF-BHOTHERS. 
 
TWICE LOST, BUT SAYED. 
 
 '^^ 
 
TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 
 
 Perhaps there is no country so little susceptible, generally 
 speaking, of public sensation as England ; events which agitate the 
 peasant, nay, the peasant's wife, at the other side of the straits of 
 Dover, would scarce reach John Bull in his village chimney- nook, 
 certainly would not disturb the serenity of his countenance if they 
 did. And yet there is one species of occurrence which excites, 
 and pervades English people, through every grade of society, more 
 than it could, or at least more than it does, any other civilized 
 nation. A murder — a downright murder — broad-featured, well- 
 marked, unequivocal, refined — arouses into unusual vivacity 
 all England, from the banks of the Tweed to the Land's End. 
 Its fame spreads, from cities and towns into the recesses of the 
 small mountain hamlet. Men, women, girls, and children, talk 
 and think of nothing else. The newspapers teem with nothing 
 else, excepting only and always the unheeded advertisements of 
 new books. Literary talent of really a high order is vented in 
 descriptions, speculations, deductions, and sentimental discussions 
 on the subject. Artists hurry down to the rural scene of the 
 atrocity to make money by making drawings of it, as well as of 
 all the innocent scenery and accompaniments within view. 
 Thousands of people, who cannot wait for their secondhand 
 information, hurry after them, or anticipate them, to see with their 
 own eyes ; or to hear with their own ears, the whispered anec- 
 dotes of the half-petrified carter, who, in the grey dawn of the 
 drizzling morning, found the stained bread-knife, or the discharged 
 pocket-pistol, (the first dreadful intimators of the deed,) in the 
 lonesome bridle-road, or by the side of the stagnant pool. Or they 
 pay round sums to have to say that they sat down in the little 
 back-parlour, or scrambled through the brake where the murderer 
 so lately sat or passed. A bit of the chair upon which he reposed 
 while contemplating his crime, as he glanced into his victim's face, 
 or a branch of the briars among which they struggled together, is 
 
190 TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 
 
 eagerly purchased, and reverently and tenderly preserved, like a 
 saint's relic or a true-love token. Is all this to be called honest, 
 national abhorrence ? What would Rochefoucault call it ? — par- 
 ticularly after detecting in the cabinet of the collector of curiosities 
 the last possible mementos of the sentenced and executed hero, in 
 shape, perhaps, (lavishly bribed from the law's humblest oflScer,) of 
 an inch of twisted hemp, the corner of a flaming red cravat, Jor a 
 gentle lock of redder hair ? 
 
 So thoroughly had the tidings of such an event as is alluded to 
 penetrated the nooks and comers of the land at the commencement 
 of this little tale, that nought else was discussed around the fire- 
 side of the humblest and most isolated country cottage ; and scarce 
 aught else upon the truant and noisy forms of the lowliest village- 
 school. While manhood and old age rehearsed the tale with the 
 profoundest interest, boyhood and childhood commented upon it, in 
 whispers which bespoke a little interest deepened by awe and fear. 
 The murder had, indeed, been of a fearful character. But it must 
 be remarked that weeks had now passed over since its occurrence ; 
 that its wretched perpetrator had undergone the earthly expiation 
 of his tremendous crime ; and that, notwithstanding, it had not 
 yet begun to relax its influence upon the general mind of the country. 
 And this part requires to be explained. 
 
 Justice had gained her victim with difficulty. Circumstantial evi- 
 dence was slight and loose against him, and although he had been 
 apprehended upon strong suspicions, it seemed that, after repeated 
 examinations before the magistrates, he must have been discharged 
 from prison. Upon the eve of his contemplated day of enfranchise- 
 ment, a woman visited him in his cell. A person was so posted 
 as to listen to their conversation. She had been suspected of 
 carrying in spirits to the prisoner, but the irregularity was over- 
 looked by the gaoler in hopes of the results it might produce. The 
 miserable beings caroused together, first speaking in cautious 
 whispers, but, gradually, high enough to be imperfectly overheard 
 by the eavesdropper. It appeared that although man-ied, they had 
 only recently met with each other, previous to which event the fe- 
 male had been a poor outcast, glad to avail herself of any protec- 
 tion. The listner thought he then could recognise allusions to the 
 murder, but that the man stopped them, his husky voice sinking 
 into a low and ominous tone. The topic changed. The woman 
 slightly upbraided her companion with having deceived her. She 
 said it was whispered that he had a wife living. His answer came 
 abruptly and savagely. She repeated her charge in an angry voice ; 
 
TWICE LOSL, BUT SAVED. 191 
 
 they quan-elled ; she reeled and shrieked under his blows ; and 
 during her fit of indignation, he who listened caught, though still 
 imperfectly, enough to authorise the gaoler in making more objections 
 tocher departure than he had done to her admission. In fact, she 
 was speedily removed to a separate cell, and carefully secured under 
 lock and key and bolt. 
 
 The object now was to induce a disclosure of all she knew. Ma- 
 gistrates, officers of justice, ministers of religion, visited her alter- 
 nately, or together. At first it became surmised that she was an 
 actual accomplice. Her gradual confessions, however, if they could 
 be believed, combated this opinion ; and finally, as if a heart, once 
 good and never irremediably depraved, had been touched in her 
 bosom by a horror of the insinuated accusation, she fell upon her 
 knees, and, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, called Heaven 
 to witness that, so far from having participated in thehellish crime, 
 she had often, though vainly, interfered to prevent it during the 
 unhappy moments that the murdered man remained alive in her 
 presence. 
 
 •This was enough, or nearly so, for executing justice upon her 
 wretched associate. The details were elicited at subsequent inter- 
 vals ; repeated by her before a judge and jury ; the murderer 
 perished, as a deliberate spiller of blood should perish. The doors 
 of her prison-house opened, and she passed out into the world — free. 
 
 Free — but it was not freedom to her. Hatred, abhorrence, 
 avoidance, curses, execrations, met her at every step, and left no 
 path open for her to choose among her fellow-creatures. All hearts 
 were shut against her as close, ay, closer than the iron door of her 
 cell had been. Public opinion, particularly in such cases, is ra- 
 pidly and tyrannically made up. In the interval between her con- 
 fession and the trial of the greater criminal, the notion first 
 adopted by her visitors in the gaol, that she had been a real accom- 
 plice in the cruel and abominable murder, seized upon the minds of 
 the community at large. Nay, immediately before the day of trial, 
 every one bandied about the belief that she was the sole homicide, 
 and that she had accused her former companion only in order to 
 save herself. Whether or no these rumours reached that indivi- 
 dual in his solitary dungeon cannot be said, but he acted so as to 
 give them a seemingly unquestionable confirmation. After the 
 verdict of the jury had been returned, and again upon the trem- 
 bhng verge of eternity, he declared his own innocence and her 
 guilt. The decent crowd, male and female, grey-beards and piping 
 childrenj fully credited his assertions, and gratified him with three 
 
192 TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 
 
 horrid growls upon the name of Martha Hali — for so was the 
 wretched woman called — before his ears grew dull for ever to the 
 sounds of this world. The only person who, at that moment, 
 seemed to doubt his sincerity was the clergyman who attended 
 him. For the culprit's heart had continued hard and obstinate to 
 the very last, against every exhortation to die in peace with God 
 and with his kind. 
 
 But the miserable Martha Hall could gain little from the single 
 doubt of the good priest. It was the crowd, the arbitrary, the in- 
 human crowd she had to face, and, one and all, they rose up 
 against her. Unnerved and ill after her release from gaol, she had 
 sought a squalid lodging in the suburbs of the town in which her 
 nominal husband suffered death. Half an hour subsequent to his 
 mortal exit, the howl of the people came towards her door ; her 
 old landlady thrust her out to them, and she fled through their re- 
 coiling masses, stunned with curses, with yells, with hissings and 
 hootings, with blows of oftal and of hands. The constables could 
 scarce save her life. Half-clad, faint, weeping, screaming, totter- 
 ing, they finally succeeded, however, in escorting her beyond the 
 . bounds of the town, and then left her panting on the road-side, her 
 back leaning against the fence, and her feet resting in the putrid 
 water at its bottom. Did she find peace here ? did any good Sa- 
 maritan pass that way ? No ; but some who had seen her in the 
 neighbouring streets did, and taking the other side of the road, 
 they refrained from heaping more cruelty, more dirt and revilings 
 upon her head, only until they could summon to their aid in the 
 task, the fellow-creatures in whose parish she had now dared to 
 set the sole of her foot. Soon the fresh crowd gathered round her ; 
 and, amid renewed yellings and blows, she was again hunted, like a 
 mad dog, into another parish, the local otficers still scarce able to 
 save her from perishiug under the hands of an indignant Christian 
 community, most of whom went, each Sabbath-day, to one place of 
 worship or another, and listened to the interpretation of the doc- 
 trine of Christian charity. 
 
 So, from place to place, wherever she sought a refuge, or a 
 breathing-spot, Martha Hall was pursued. Her name and the 
 cyrse upon her ran like wildfire before her ; so that she was 
 dreaded, and expected, and prepared for, ere she made her ap- 
 pearance in a near town, or village, or hamlet, or parish, and re- 
 ceived and welcomed accordingly. Reports of the outrages com- 
 mitted upon her regularly found their way into the newspapers. 
 ; And thus the more remote haunts of man became acquainted with 
 
TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 193 
 
 her " whereabouts ;" and people living a hundred miles from the 
 latest scene of her disgrace were able to trace her wretched wan- 
 derings, and calculate the likelihood of her shaping her course 
 towards them. 
 
 These were the circumstances which kept up in every mind, long 
 after such a public fever generally abates, the interest of the late 
 murder. At each new account of the expulsion of Martha Hall be- 
 yond the new bounds within which she vainly hoped to find aa 
 asylum, all the circumstances of the event that led to her persecu- 
 tion became discussed over again, with a vivacity which lost little 
 by the repetition. And, as has been said, the commotion and the 
 dread of her was general throughout the kingdom. But it will 
 readily be concluded that the districts nearest in turn to the fugi- 
 tive outcast experienced the greatest panic and abhorrence. 
 
 We must now visit a remote and thinly-inhabited parish in the 
 west of England, of which almost all the inhabitants, at least of the 
 middle and the lower orders, had passed an anxious and idle morning, 
 under the apprehension that their neighbours would send the va- 
 grant within the pale of their jurisdiction. A better illustration of 
 the state of the people's minds can scarce be given, than to notice 
 the fact, that, in expectation of Martha Hall's public entry, mo- 
 thers, although they flocked towards the public road themselves, 
 left behind them, under lock and key, such of their children as were 
 young enough to be so controlled. 
 
 In one only humble house of the parish was the topic of general 
 interest treated as it ought to have been. This was the dwelling 
 of Laurence Hutchins, a man advanced in years, a widower, and, 
 compared with older sojourners or with natives, a stranger. He 
 had come from a distant county, with his wife, a little girl, and an 
 infant son, only some seven or eight years before. Shortly afterwards 
 his vrife died, people said of a broken heart, the seeds of which ma- 
 lady she had brought with her to her new residence ; and if 
 Laurence Hutchins did not follow her to the grave, it was not that 
 he too seemed not to share the hidden grief of his companion, but that 
 his frame proved stronger than hers, or his mind more resisting, or, 
 perhaps, that Providence had given him the nerve to endure life for 
 the sake of his two orphans. The deepest sorrow, indeed, was 
 fixed on his hard-featured, though not displeasing face ; and all 
 his actions, and his whole manner, agreed with its expression. He 
 worked laboriously, as a common day-labourer, whenever he could 
 get employment : in his disengaged hours, he dag, or raked, or 
 weeded, or planted, or transplanted in the little garden attached to 
 
 o 
 
19^ TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 
 
 his solitaiy cottage ; but he made few acquaintances, and no com- 
 panions. To those who knew most of him, little as that was, he 
 spoke seldom, and never mirthfully : he had no person, male or 
 female, to assist him in the many cares claimed at his hands by 
 his two helpless children. If a visitor dropped in, although Laurence 
 did not demean himself uucouthly, there was no welcome such as 
 might induce a second call. To sum up the opinion entertained of 
 him by his surrounding friends, his poor cottage was termed ** the 
 sad house," and its master " sad Laurence." 
 
 And yet it was in this " sad house" that the expected arrival 
 of Martha Hall within the parish bounds created no indecent com- 
 motion. From the time of the first report of the murder, down to 
 the present morning, little Mima, or Jemima Hutchins, now a 
 growing girl of about twelve, observed that her father never be- 
 stowed a word on the subject. He had listened, indeed, to the ac- 
 count of it given to the lonely family by a gossiping neighbour ; 
 but, when the tale was ended, Laurence only took his hat and 
 spade, and strode heavily into his garden. Mima, however, could 
 not remain ignorant of the tidings which reached her secluded dis- 
 trict day after day. If no other person acted as her informant, 
 little brother Dick ran in to her, during her discharge of such 
 household duties as she was now able to undertake, with the free 
 translations of the newspaper, and other anecdotes, supplied to him 
 by urchins like himself, on the roadside, or at " the steps," by the 
 brook — a favourite rendezvous of the junior truants of the parish, 
 as it was also the place where the girls of the adjacent cottages 
 went to fill their pitchers for domestic uses. 
 
 Nor could Mima help feeling a portion of the excitement created 
 in all around her by the exaggerated stories of the innocence of 
 the executed man, the guilt of Martha Hall, and her flight from 
 parish to parish, from town to town. Although the practical vir- 
 tues and benevolence taught her by her father, always in act and 
 deed, and sometimes in sound doctrine, hindered the child from 
 fully sharing the thirst of persecution towards the fugitive, so 
 ostentatiously encouraged in themselves and others by the good 
 people who surrounded her, still she imbibed a strong aversion for 
 the object of all hate and all loathing, and felt a surpassing terror 
 of coming in contact with her. These sentiments gained strength 
 in her breast, from the necessity of keeping them to herself, and 
 brooding over the chimeras they engendered; for, though she 
 could not tell precisely why, Mima would not renew the topic 
 with her father, and she had no one else to claim confidence of, 
 except her little brother, of seven years, and he was nobody. 
 
TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 195 
 
 Tbe family of " the sad house" sat down to their frugal break- 
 fast. One after another, idlers dropt in to report the news of 
 Martha Hall's approach from the neighbouring parish. Still Lau- 
 rence Hutchins took no notice. Mima, however, listened eagerly 
 and breathlessly. An additional piece of information did not in- 
 crease her happiness. The last over-zealous friend who came to 
 unburden himself of his babbling at Laurence Hutchins's hearth 
 strangly advised the melancholy man to keep his children withia 
 doors, and to stand at his threshold with a bludgeon in his hand, 
 in order to obstruct the probable entry of the vagrant ; inasmuch 
 as the brook which ran by the falling ground at the back of his 
 cottage was the boundary of the parish in that direction, and most 
 likely Martha Hall would be driven in amongst them all at that 
 point or near it. Then she would make for "the steps," and, up 
 them, straight for his house, and so 
 
 Laurence Hutchins again interrupted his obliging orator by put- 
 ting on his hat and leaving the cottage, his little boy's hand iu 
 his, to cut rushes in a neighbouring marsh, for the purpose of 
 making saleable mats of them. 
 
 The gossip sat a moment, much offended, opposite to Mima. 
 Then, starting at some ominous sound which, he said, reached him 
 from a distance, also arose and left her alone. 
 
 Mima sat listening in great fear, more than once inclined to bolt 
 the door and secure herself. But, hearing nothing to suggest im- 
 mediate danger, and also recollecting that she ought not to barri- 
 cade her father's house without his permission or advice, she con- 
 tinued fixed upon her stool. Presently she bethought herself of 
 her forenoon duties, and, at a recurrence of the thought of the 
 first and most necessary, poor Mima turned pale. It was to go 
 down the bushy declivity at the back of the cottage, and fill a 
 pitcher of water from the brook at the steps, wherewith to pre- 
 pare her father's dinner. The very brook which, in that quarter, 
 ran between her parish and the parish whence the execrated Martha 
 Hall was to be expected — the very steps up which, in the opinion 
 of their anxious visitor, she would most probably escape into new- 
 bounds. 
 
 At the first view, the child deemed it to be impossible that she 
 could run such a risk. But her father must not be left without 
 his dinner at the usual hour — her good father, who, when she was 
 a little girl, took care to have hers ready every day. Besides, 
 would he deem her reasons for the omission of her duty sufficient ? 
 From a recollection of his habits of thinking and feeling, she be- 
 
196 
 
 lieved not. Finally, after some. time hr.d worn away, she knelt 
 down, as she had been taught to do from her infancy, and praying 
 to God to be saved from harm, Mima lifted up her pitcher, and 
 took her way to the brook. 
 
 There were two distinct descents to *• the steps" from the back 
 of the house. At the bottom of the first ran a broad pathway, 
 leading to the marshes whither her father had gone with little 
 Dick to cut rushes. This pathway she gained, stepping firmly, if 
 not courageously, and was mounting over the stile, which would 
 usher her upon the first of the rude steps leading down the second 
 descent to the water, when a distant uproar really reached her. 
 She hesitated, and stopped. The sounds grew louder. She was 
 turning to race home again. Her father and her little brother ap- 
 peared coming back from the marsh, having finished their work 
 sooner than she had expected. As they must pass her, she waited 
 for them. Laurence Hutchins expressed some surprise to find 
 her loitering at the stile. She wept. He looked earnestly into 
 her face, and took her trembling hand as he added — " But I see ; 
 you durst not go down to fill your pitcher, Mima, for fear of Martha 
 Hall?" 
 
 Fresh tears were shed by Mima, and she could give no other 
 answer. Her father patted her on the head, and continued : — 
 " Trip down to the brook, my maid, however ; do your duty, and 
 fear no one. Besides, why should you fear this poor woman ?'* 
 
 " I hate her more than I fear her, father 1" replied Mima, the 
 sudden liveliness of her manner emulating what she had seen 
 among her Christian neighbours. 
 
 ** Hate her, Mima, do you ?" pursued Laurence. " And who 
 gave you the leave to hate her^ or any liviug creature ? Not Him 
 who commands us to love all." 
 
 " All, father ! Even the guilty and the bad ?" 
 
 " All, Mima — even the guilty and the bad ! Even them we 
 are to love, though we hate the bad that is in them. But who 
 says that Martha Hall is so bad ? A judge and jury have believed 
 her innocent of the great crime, at least, laid by less wise people 
 at her door. Go down, my little maid, go down the steps and fill 
 your pitcher ; and go with courage. I will not even stay here to 
 give you false heart. You will find me and little Dick in the house." 
 
 He fondled and kissed her as he spoke, a rather unusual mani- 
 festation of his love, though he was practically a very affectionate 
 parent. This, and the reliance placed on her strength of mind, 
 suddenly encouraged Mima. Dashing the tears from her eyes, she 
 
TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 197 
 
 trotted down instantly to the brook's edge ; and, while Laurence 
 Hutchins and his almost infant son turned away from the stile to 
 pursue the easy path to their house, each carrying his bundle of 
 rushes, she seated herself on the steps, laid her pitcher at her side, 
 crossed her hands, on her lap, and unconsciously indulged for an 
 instant the pleasing sensations which had so suddenly taken pos- 
 session of her breast. 
 
 The clamour she had heard at the stile above, although unheeded 
 during her conversation with her father, here came loudly on her 
 ear. From the opposite side of the brook the ground swelled, 
 though not so suddenly as at her own side, and ran for about a 
 quarter of a mile, until it met a high road. It was a succes- 
 sion of stubble fields. From the high road, at its far edge, 
 Mima heard the uproar. Her eyes eagerly turned in that direc- 
 tion. She was left but a short time in doubt. A crowd broke over 
 the fence of the road into the most remote field, shouting, yelling, 
 groaning, and hissing, and came in almost a straight line towards 
 her. She started up — but a thought of her father kept her sta- 
 tionary. The rabble rout drew nearer — some running on before 
 Martha Hall, others at her side, others pressing upon her from be- 
 hind ; and all — men, women, boys, and young girls — all similarly 
 engaged, pelting her with clods and mud, spitting in her face, 
 cursing her, and hooting her. The thrice unhappy woman was 
 just protected, and no more, from their utmost fury by two over- 
 seers, each of whom held one of her arms as they hurried her 
 along ; and by a beadle, who exerted himself to keep off the vir- 
 tuous viragoes, and the manful husbands and fathers at her back. 
 Exhaustion, terror, almost madness, stamped her ghastly features, 
 her rolling eyes, and her parched and dust-clotted lips. Blood 
 stained her forehead, her long black hair streamed around her ; her 
 clothes were half torn off ; her feet were bare, weather-cracked, 
 and swollen ; her step altogether uncertain. Indeed, but for the 
 support and tugging of the stout overseers, she must have fallen 
 prostrate among the sharp stubbles. Such was the appearance of 
 Martha Hall in her present plight ; and yet more than half of 
 Mima's dislike, remaining after her father's words, was conquered 
 by that appearance. The child, shaping a phantom to suit her 
 prejudices, had fancied the outcast into a personification of some- 
 thing monstrous, ugly, and horrible ; now she beheld a woman not 
 more than four or five-and-twenty, handsome featured, well formed, 
 and Jookiiig no more like a murderess — and a double murderess — 
 and traitress, too — ^^than any other comely female she had before 
 
198 TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 
 
 een. Mima only felt that she looked scared almost to death^ 
 faint, and very wretched. Upon this feeling followed another*— 
 that she was barbarously treated. 
 
 They brought her to the edge of the brook, a few paces below 
 the steps, on the opposite side. Until now, Mima had thought that 
 she spoke not a word. At this close view, however, it was evi* 
 dent that her lips often moved in an effort to shape words, although 
 her voice was only a hoarse, struggling whisper. Seemingly, she 
 craved mercy — humbly, most humbly. A pause took place. The ab- 
 horred vagrant was to be forced across the shallow water ; but how ? 
 Her bitterest haters did not feel inclined to wet their shoes, even 
 to. satisfy their magnanimity, " In with her ! in with her alone !'* 
 arose the cry — " in with her ! and we shall soon pelt her over to 
 our neighbours !" They gathered close and clutched her. The 
 overseers resisted a little, as in duty bound. . The wretch herself, 
 with clasped hands, blood-shot eyes, bending knees, and cringing 
 body, mutely implored : the next instant, shrieking wildly, she 
 was splashing in the water. The next, stimulated as well by a 
 dread of a shocking death, as by a shower of clods, sodsj and 
 stones, she had, with a desperate effort, scrambled across the 
 brook, crawled up its easy bank, and disappeared among the trees 
 and bushes, which, at that point, thickly clothed the base of the 
 ascent thence arising towards Laurence Hutchins's house. Shortly 
 afterwards, with a parting yell, her persecutors hurried back to the 
 road from which they had come ; the overseers and the beadle 
 slowly followed, and little Mima was left alone on the steps. 
 
 Terrified, shocked, and now full of pity rather than of hate, the 
 child dipped her pitcher in the brook, and hastened to her home. 
 Halfway up the steps, groans and hard breathing reached her 
 from a clump of bushes to one side. She leaned, not without awe 
 and some fear still, over the spot. Stretched upon her back, some 
 distance beneath her, she saw Martha Hall. The woman was 
 staring vaguely straight upward. Her eyes and those of he child 
 met ; she started through her whole frame — her glancetbecame 
 more intelligent — she half arose on her knees, grasped h r hands 
 together, and now, in the deep silence, Mima could distinctly 
 hear her piercing whisper. 
 
 " Mercy ! mercy and pity, young girl ! Save me from them, 
 over again ! save me this time, only this time ! Let me have a 
 day — an hour — to breathe ! Here — I ask no more than to lie 
 here^ and of you no more than not to tell them where to find me I 
 
TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED'. 199 
 
 0, my maid ! my maid ! take compassion on me I You are young 
 and innocent, and o^ you I beg some pity !" 
 
 ^' If I am innocent," replied Mima, weeping, " are you as bad 
 as they say ?" 
 
 " No !" answered the supplicant, her vehement whisper forcing 
 itself into a wheezing scream — " No ! of blood I am free — I am, I 
 am ! and not for what they lay to my charge do I deserve this ! 
 Though. I do deserve it for great wickedness — for early disobeying 
 and shaming a good father and mother — for sending them upon 
 the world, wanderei-s, till they have gone I know not where — 
 gone where I cannot find them — where I cannot find them, to lay 
 my head at their blessed feet, and die ! But, hush ! does not some 
 one come ? Oh ! will you promise not to betray me ?" 
 
 " No one comes — wait a moment," answered Mima. Shehurried 
 home, and told her father every word the woman had said. At the 
 last words he seemed suddenly and greatly aroused, looked hard 
 into Mima's face, and said, in a very low voice, " Go back to her, 
 child, and ask her, as she hopes for the mercy of God or men, to 
 tell you her real name and her birth-place. My mind misgives 
 me that the name she bears is not her true one." 
 
 Mima, though wondering at the nature of her commission, did 
 as she was commanded ; and, having got the woman's answers, 
 returned to her father and said — 
 
 '* As she hopes for mercy from God or from men, she sends you 
 word that her real name is Mary Ware, and her birth-place a vil- 
 lage in Devon." 
 
 " Ay, Mima," questioned the old man, shuddering, while his 
 head drooped, and his eyes fell glaringly on the floor. " Come 
 here, then, my maid ; come here." The child went over to him ; 
 he took her hand, strove to continue speaking, closed his eyes, and 
 fainted. 
 
 His child's cries called back his senses. Summoning up, with 
 a great effort, self-command, and presence of mind, his first en- 
 deavours were to calm her. When he saw her assured, Laurence 
 Hutchins asked, " Is there not a cup of elder wine, and a mouthful 
 of meat, since supper last night, Mima ?" 
 
 Mima, rapidly answering, '^ Yes," went to make hot the elder 
 wine — often the poor English cottager's greatest luxury ; and when 
 she had done, she brought it, with a plate of cold meat and bread, 
 to her father. 
 
 " Not for me, my little maid, not for me," he resumed : " take 
 it to — her'^ — speaking in a constrained manner, and pointing 
 
200 TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 
 
 through the back door — " and tell her she is safe with us. But 
 talk no more with her till you have come back to me." 
 
 Mima returned from her errand, and found her father seated in 
 the same spot, weeping. At her appearance, he strove to hide 
 his tears, beckoning her to him with an extended hand and arm. 
 A second time she came to his side. He put the arm round her 
 neck, made her stand between his knees, and continued: — 
 
 " The time has come, Mima. After believing that the offender 
 had suffered for crime committed, I had hoped, mostly for your 
 sake, my maid, that it would never come. But it has ; and, be- 
 cause it has, listen to what I have prayed, morning and night, youi 
 should die without hearing from a living tongue. Listen to our 
 shame, Mima. Eight years ago she left her precious mother 
 ftud myself — left us, after growing up, under our love and care, 
 and in the love and fear of God, into a beautiful creature, the light 
 of our eyes, the pride of our hearts, and the boast of our vain lips. 
 Neither had her mind been neglected ; for I was then in what is 
 called a respectable way of life, and had received some education 
 myself, and was therefore doubly able to attend to hers. But she 
 left us, Mima, after being a child to us — and sucifi a child ! — for 
 seventeen years. I own that her first temptation was not small. 
 The man — the robber — was of rank in the world, young, handsome, 
 and he promised her marriage — a secret marriage — ay, and flattered 
 even her old love for her father and mother by swearing to enable 
 her to raise them above a chance of want all the days of their life. 
 " So much I have learned since, though it was not from her I 
 learned it — no^ nor anything else ; for she would hold no inter- 
 course with me after her elopement, I pursued her. The man's 
 servants turned me from the door. I wrote to her ; she did not 
 answer my letters. Then came the news of his abandoning her, 
 
 and then a terrible rumour of no matter what. I believed in 
 
 it for some time, because in no other way could I account for her 
 still avoiding us. Well, my maid, you were four years old then ; 
 and when your mother and I looked at you we said to each other, 
 ' This child is now our care ; let us save her from the curse of her 
 sister's shame in after life.' And, with that, we left our native 
 place, ruined in fortune on account of the numb that came over 
 me, and, changing our names, we settled here. But your mother, 
 Mima, could not bear up against it. She died, you know ; and I 
 was left alone to meet this day." 
 
 " Then, father," said Mima, pale and trembling, " this w oman, 
 Martha Hall — that is, Mary Ware, I mean " 
 
TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 201 
 
 '' She is your sister," my maid. You want to ask why I never 
 mentioned her name before ? why, in fact, I never told you you 
 had a sister ?" 
 
 '' No, father, no ; I understand why now : you made me under- 
 stand it when you began to speak. Are you able to come with 
 me to her yet, father, and help her up to the house ?" 
 
 He groaned wretchedly, and then said — " I will at least hear 
 her denials more at length of what she spoke of to you, my child. 
 
 But I must go alone ; and, before I go " He walked into his 
 
 little sleeping nook, leaving the sentence unfinished. But Mima 
 knew what he meant, and, as she went on her knees, was sure that 
 she joined him in prayer. Providence had been prepaiing some 
 alleviation of misery for both. 
 
 The child was disturbed in her innocent devotions by the sound 
 of men's voices at the hack of the house. Alarmed for her unfor- 
 tunate sister, she sprang to her feet ; her father, also startled, 
 came out of his chamber. The fears of both were not allayed by 
 meeting, on the threshold of the back door, the overseers and the 
 beadle of the next parish, preceded by an elderly person in black, 
 who seemed to be a clergyman. Nor did the question of one of 
 the overseers appear to bode good. 
 
 *' Have you seen the woman, Martha Hail, pass this way ?" 
 
 Father and child could not conceal their embarrassment. 
 
 " Yes, you have seen her, thank God ! for the poor creature's 
 sake," said the clergyman. " Fear nothing, my good people, on 
 account of your Christian act towards her. She has undergone 
 much — oh ! much, much wrongfully. But her trials are over — she 
 is proved innocent ; and the proof having reached my hands, it 
 became most peculiarly my duty to hasten after her upon her 
 wretched pilgrimage, and save her from future persecution. Tell 
 me, my good man, is she not under your protection ? in your 
 house ? and how has she borne her misfortunes ? life not in dan- 
 ger ? Where is she ? Let me see her. Oh, thank God that she 
 is found !" 
 
 " Thank God !" repeated the father, and he staggered backward 
 against the wall. Mima flew out of the cottage — he knew where. 
 " You seem greatly overcome by your first fears for her and 
 yourself, master," continued the clergyman. " But compose your- 
 self, for I assure you again that there is nothing to apprehend/'^ 
 
 '^ And so she is quite, quite innocent of it, sir !" demanded old 
 Ware, grasping the hand which the good priest had kindly laid on 
 his arm. 
 
202 TWICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 
 
 " You shall hear. You know the whole previous story, of 
 course. You know that the declaration of the real culprit formed 
 the chief grounds for the popular fury against the poor, unhappy, 
 and greatly wronged woman." 
 
 " Poor, unhappy, and greatly wronged woman !" echoed Ware, 
 and then added, " I do know, sir." 
 
 The. clergyman went on. 
 
 " It was I who attended the miserable man in his last moments. 
 I could not credit his assertions for reasons of my own. A subse- 
 quent event proved my judgment correct. The clothes of such a 
 wretch as he was, became, after death, the property of the almost 
 as depraved being who executes the law's sentence. Weeks after 
 the nominal husband of Martha Hall had expiated his hideous 
 crime, a half-written letter, found in a secret pocket of his coat, 
 was brought to me. It would seem that the murderer had been in- 
 ten'upted, almost in the act of writing it, by the officers who ar- 
 rested him, and that afterwards it escaped his recollection : but we 
 have proved it to be in his hand. It is addressed to a brother- 
 profligate in London, and, although the language is disguised, not 
 only admits his commission of the crime for which he has suffered, 
 but alludes, petulantly and savagely, to the vain interruptions he 
 had received, during his perpetration of it, from Martha Hall. And 
 now you know all, and will hesitate no longer in introducing me 
 to the poor woman, that I may carry her, if she is able to be moved, 
 to some asylum where she can be comforted, cherished, and saved 
 in body and in soul." 
 
 " This is her asylum while she or I live, sir," answered AVare ; 
 " and here, and here alone, she shall be comforted, cherished, and, 
 if we can, saved in body and in soul." 
 
 " Your intentions do you honour, my good friend ; but let me 
 ask you, do your circumstances allow you to offer her a home ?" 
 
 Ware started, looked towards the overseers and the beadle, who 
 stood at some distance, put his lips to the clergyman's ear, and re- 
 plied — ^^ Let me whisper you, sir. This is her home ; and home 
 will be home to her, be it never so homely." 
 
 " Walk out with me," resumed the clergyman, much moved. 
 " What am I to understand ?" he continued, when they stood 
 alone in the open air : " is she anything to you ?" 
 
 " She is my child, sir," answered Ware, as he covered his face 
 with his hands. 
 
 A short explanation followed, and they went together in search 
 of Mary Ware. Mima met them at the stile leading down to the 
 
TAVICE LOST, BUT SAVED. 203 
 
 brook. She was crjing heartily, and yet smiling. Her sister had 
 heard all she could tell. " And she expects you, father," con- 
 tinued Mima : " and oh ! pray make haste ; for it troubles her so 
 that I fear, I fear I"— 
 
 They quickened their pace, Mima running on before them, and 
 disappearing, at the bottom of the steps, into the thicket. When 
 they gained a sight of Mary Ware, her head drooped over her little 
 sister's shoulders, who knelt beside her, her arms hung helplessly, 
 and her eyes were closed. Her father embraced her before she 
 seemed aware of his presence. At last she opened her eyes and 
 fixed them on his : then a great change took place in her features, 
 and she could no longer support herself on her knees. Evidently, 
 however, she strove to speak, and, after much dreadful struggling 
 whispered, " What word, father ? what last word from you ?" 
 
 " God forgive and bless my poor child as I do," answered Ware. 
 Again she made a feeble and useless effort to utter seemingly a joy- 
 ous and comfortable ejaculation. '' Come here, sir," resumed the 
 father, addressing the clergyman, who stood apart. " She wants 
 both our help now." The benevolent man understood him, knelt 
 by his side, and prayed aloud. Ware repeated his words, as so 
 did little Mima, though weeping convulsively. Mary seemed for 
 many minutes aware of the sounds they uttered, and her voiceless 
 lips moved too, as if her mind prayed. The father stopped sud- 
 denly as her head lay heavier on his shoulder, after a long sigh 
 had escaped her. " She is dead, sir," he said, in an even, solemn 
 tone. 
 
 " But saved," replied the clergyman. 
 
 '' We hope it, sir ; and I am not impatient under this ending 
 of all her faults and sufferings. It pleases me better to hold her 
 dead in my arms to-day, than it could have done to have held her 
 alive in them yesterday." 
 
 *' Let me be your friend," sobbed the clergyman, grasping his 
 hand. 
 
 THE END OF TWICE LOST, BUT &AVED. 
 
'l 
 
 THE FAITHFU-L SERVANT. 
 
% 
 
THE FAITHFUL SERYAKT. 
 
 AziNEB, the son of Omar, succeeded to his father's crown, at an 
 early age. All his subjects, the old and wise men, as well as the 
 unlettered and the humble, instead of withholding their confidence 
 from his youth, blessed Alia and the Prophet for the prospect of a 
 good and happy reign. For, although nineteen years had scarce 
 rolled over the head of Azineb, he was known to be matured in 
 wisdom and virtue. From his boyhood he had devoted himself to 
 books, and the conversation of the learned and the accomplished ; 
 his days and nights of study being relieved only by practising such 
 manly and warlike feats and sports as would at once prepare him 
 for probable future hardships in battle, and exercise the physical 
 strength and skill with which God had blessed him, and which, 
 therefore, were not to be permitted to remain uncultivated. So that, 
 while few or none of his subjects, of his own years, rivalled Azineb 
 in a knowledge of the grave literature of his country ; in science, 
 in poetry, and, above all, in his Koran ; and while the wisest, the 
 oldest, and the most religious men of his court, wondered at the se- 
 da*eness and vigour of his discourse ; he was also unsurpassed, if 
 not unequalled, in graceful feats of horsemanship, in the use of 
 the scimitar, in courage and adroitness in hunting the lion, the 
 leopard, and the tiger. His own hand had given the death-blow 
 to many of these ferocious animals : indeed, he bore home more of 
 their skins than did any other adventurer of the chase. Yet, so 
 tempered with skill and prudence was his intrepidity, that from 
 tusk or talon he had never received a wound. 
 
 The learned fathers of his mind were justly proud of their scholar, 
 and boasted of his acquirements and talents, more than they did 
 of their own. It was whispered, however, by some satirist of the 
 court, that they thus took the best way of ensuring royal tribute3 
 of admiration and gratitude to themselves. Another of Azineb's 
 instructors might also be allowed to feel honoured in his pupil- 
 namely, Mustapha, a man high in military command, and his maste^ 
 
208 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 
 
 ever since childhood, (until the princely boy first equalled, and then 
 eclipsed his own skill,) in warlike exercises and in the hunting- 
 field. But whatever were Mustapha's inward feelings on this sub- 
 ject, he never boasted of his pupil, as did the more superior and 
 reverenced men who had aided in forming the mental and moral 
 excellence of the (so-called'i Royal Wonder. Had any one raised 
 a question of Azineb's manly prowess, he would have gainsayed the 
 slander, at risk of his life : but he seemed too sure of the fact, to 
 insist upon it ; and of its general acceptance, to talk about it. 
 Making it a theme of self-praise, either in vanity, or that his master 
 might hear his speeches, and show a pleased consciousness of them, 
 never entered into his mind. The sole privilege which Mustapha 
 appeared to think he had acquired by his successful instructions of 
 Azineb, was that of loving him the more. And in this love of the 
 subject for the prince, was essentially included the zeal of serving 
 him faithfully. Azineb, understanding and feeling the claims of 
 Mustapha, not only recognised and admitted his love, and afforded 
 opportunities for its indulgence, but returned it, also, with his 
 heart, and rewarded it with his bounty. 
 
 It was amazing, if not irksome, to the philosophical, the poetical, 
 nay, the pious colleagues of Mustapha, that he should succeed so 
 well at court, merely by saying nothing on the topic which, of all 
 others, seemed calculated, if well kept alive, to ensure him success. 
 None of them got on better, if so well, by the contrary, and as 
 they argued, more advisable, rule of conduct. Their individual re- 
 veries on this point, for they were too wise to communicate, at pre- 
 sent, their sentiments to one another, began to create a jealousy of 
 Mustapha. And, upon the occasion of a grand banquet given by 
 Azineb in the palace, in honour of all his former tutors, this jea- 
 lousy rankled into something akin to hatred, in consequence of a 
 particular mode of designation adopted by the prince towards his 
 old riding-master. 
 
 During the feast, the young monarch proposed in succession the 
 healths of his guests. One was his " most reverenced helper in 
 reading the Koran ;" another, " his honoured tutor in astronomy ;' 
 a third, his " most useful assistant in languages ;" a fourth, his 
 " accomplished play-fellow in the bowers of poetry !" but Musta- 
 pha he simply called, " my faithful servant." And one would have 
 thought that, by complimenting in their own polite style, each of 
 Mustapha's rivals, Azineb had taken the best means of gratifying 
 their laudable pride, and of leaving them nothing to complain of. 
 Indeed, so he had, until the proposal of his last toast ; but that 
 
THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. ^09 
 
 was too much for logic, rhetoric, rhyme, and piety united. From 
 that hour, Mustapha had active enemies at court, and they at last 
 began to make common cause against him. 
 
 The ethical sage of the cabal, sitting down to consider a plan for 
 disgusting Azineb with his Faithful Servant, soon built up a formid- 
 able battery of syllogisms. His first assumption was a simple one, 
 an axiom in fact, or something else, more true, if possible, namely, 
 *' Azineb is very young." Then he proceeded to the following ef- 
 fect, though with greater order. " Very young, and blessed with 
 robust health, and a vigorous constitution ; consequently, notwith- 
 standing his precocious philosophy, religion, and morality, contain- 
 ing within him all the springs of strong natural passions. Suppose 
 some of these excited — what then ? Mustapha is an][austere man ; 
 a crabbed man ; and somewhat of a rough-spoken man. He 
 deems he loves the prince ; would he relish Azineb's backslidings ? 
 Would he let them pass without reproof ? And then, how would 
 the prince take his constant moralizing, either in its matter or man- 
 ner ? — Let us see." 
 
 The professor consulted his colleagues, and they admired his sys- 
 tem, and pledged themselves to each other to carry it into effect. 
 The master of belles lettres began the attempt. He composed 
 beautiful verses in praise of the most lovely and fascinating maiden 
 of the royal city, and sang them, and caused them to be sung re- 
 peatedly in the presence of Azineb. From admiring the poetry, 
 I he prince unconsciously was led to ask questions about its object, 
 and received answers which heightened his curiosity. In due time, 
 the charming Zobeide supped at the palace ; and after an evening 
 of song, smiles, roses, perfumes, music, wit, and wine, her youthful 
 (entertainer proved mortal. So far were verified the inverted ethics 
 which conjectured this event. 
 
 Little was now necessary but to continue an application of ex- 
 citements, sufficient not only to satisfy the cravings of new-born 
 passions, but also to smother the occasional pangs of remorse ; and 
 the conspiratcrs were not idle in their duty. Day by day, step 
 by step, Azineb surrendered himself into the arms of sensual plea- 
 sure and licentious enjoyments. To his great comfort — for during 
 liis first hours of repentence he had feared the contrary — neither 
 the moralists nor the divines of his council troubled him with their 
 reprehensions. As they had calculated, however, there was one 
 man who did exercise the duty of affection towards his royal master. 
 
 Not after the first lapse of Azineb, nor yet after his third or 
 fourth, were the unwdcome hints of Mustapha addressed, not-' 
 
210 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT- 
 
 withstanding, to his ear. The beloved and princely boy had sinnec? 
 long, and impulses were on the verge of becoming habits, (iiideous 
 change !) before his Faithful Servant uttered a word of expostula- 
 tion ; and then, indirectly, he would say, " The wisest man, in his 
 youth, is made weak. Who therefore wonders ? It is so." — - 
 Again. " When the young man is wise and virtuous, and has 
 fallen into no snares, the old bless him, though they wonder, and 
 say the snares have not been spread in his path." — Or, at another 
 time, " The stumblings of the good, and the sins of the hardened 
 in evil, are two things. It is so." 
 
 To such gentle admonitions Azineb gave little heed, though he 
 lent them an ear. The temptations to disregard them were too 
 strong for their refraining tenderness. By degrees, the sincere 
 Mustapha grew bolder in the stern task of love. But his idolized 
 prince had become less sensitive of admonition, and still he pro- 
 duced no effect. He gained his utmost possible point of reproof^ 
 beyond which even his feelings dared not to pass. Now Azineb 
 heard him impatiently, because he was still more self-devoted to 
 licentiousness, and therefore still more removed from sympathy 
 with Mustapha's heart. The sole thing he could or would event- 
 ually distinguish was the uncouthness of his monitor's manner- 
 This he called rude, at first, and then bold, and at last audacious ; 
 knowing not, or seeing not, that here he was confounding manner 
 and motive, and so misrepresenting true friendship. 
 
 The learned and accomplished conspirators could not long re- 
 main ignorant of such a change in Azineb's sentiments towards hi^ 
 " faithful servant f" for exactly such a change they had hoped to 
 produce, and were watchful accordingly. Thereupon they sharp- 
 ened other weapons for Mustapha's overthrow. The poet took an 
 occasion to exhibit, garishly, the old soldier's lack of accomplish- 
 ments, by calling upon him for an impromptu, of which all the 
 world knew he did not even comprehend the nature ; and Azineb, 
 to whom, at that moment, the power of saying a witty thing in 
 verse was a great talent, (because he could excel in it himself, and 
 because it hit the vein of the hour,) joined in the scoff against his 
 old friend's simple rejection of the challenge. Upon a less elated 
 occasion, he agreed with the astronomer, that any man who was 
 ignorant of at least the rudiments of heavenly science was a dis- 
 grace to the cabinet of a civilized court. And it was not long till 
 he listened to an insinuation of Mustapha's orthodoxy, originating 
 with the sage of the Koran, the uncle of the unrivalled beauty 
 who had been introduced to the royal palace. 
 
THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 211 
 
 In fact, Azineb soon admitted, nay believed, or thought he did, 
 that, for many weighty and virtuous reasons, he ought to dismiss 
 Mustapha from court, and confine him to a provincial military 
 command, hundreds of miles distant. Yet a cowardliness of pur- 
 pose, the common attendant curse of tho sensual, or else a linger- 
 ing recollection at his heart, hindered him from issuing the neces- 
 sary order. Meantime, he tried to palter wfth the embarrassment. 
 His queen of the hour would be amused by assuming a part in a 
 tiger or lion hunt ; and he desired Mustapha to prepare for taking 
 the field upon a certain day, with extraordinary pomp and prepara- 
 tion — supposing that his old tutor might thus be diverted from 
 present thoughts into the bias of former enthusiasm. 
 
 Upon the morning of the appointed day, the hunting cavalcade 
 left the palace in as much pomp as Asiatic gorgeousness ever wit- 
 nessed. The beauty and trappings of the Arabian coursers, the 
 highly-ornamented castles of the elephants, the surpassing splen- 
 dour of the palanquin which contained AzineVs reigning favoua- 
 ite — beside which the youthful prince rode upon a steed of un- 
 matched proportions and flefetness — thie bands of music, the ensigns, 
 all formed a magnificent spectacle. 
 
 Intelligence had just been gained that a lion had descended, the 
 night before, upon the herd of a neighbouring noble, and, after 
 having been surprised and scared from his prey, had retreated into 
 an adjacent wood. Those skilled in the knowledge required for 
 a good hunt decided that he should be tracked, roused, and chal- 
 lenged, in his temporary lair, because they concluded that his 
 balked appetite would render him peculiarly disposed to manifest 
 the true spirit of his nature. Mustapha, the conductor of the sport, 
 agreed to these reasons and arrangements, and the cavalcade ac- 
 cordingly got into motion for the wood pointed out by the guides. 
 
 It was approached across an almost barren plain, scorched by 
 the sun, and scantily studded here and there with sharp rocks, 
 which afforded root, among their crevices, to some meagre shrubs 
 and blades of brown grass. A broad and rapid river di- 
 vided this plain from the leafy retreat of the lion, and was to be 
 crossed only by a rude bridge, a good distance up its stream from 
 the cavalcade's line of advance. The middle of the wood, deemed 
 to be the beast's couching-place, was, however, straight before the 
 hunters, close by the river's opposite bank ; and a flat country, 
 stretching to the right and to the left from its skirts, and a gentle 
 ascent beyond and above it, showed the only ground over which, 
 'after having been scared from his lair, he could be pursued, Aa 
 
312 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 
 
 all stopped on the sterile plain, some distance from the near bank 
 of the turbulent water, Azineb understood, at a glance, that upon 
 this spot he ought to halt his beautiful favourite. From it she 
 could fully see any possible turn of the chase, excepting the start 
 in the wood, without sharing one of its perils. He accordingly 
 gave orders to have her palanquin rested, its bearers halt, and a 
 body of horse form around her, while he turned to cross the bridge, 
 with his attendants, and so approach the wood. 
 
 Mustapha had been consideriug the opposite ground as atten- 
 tively as his master, and, from his own conclusions, respectfully ob- 
 jected to the proposed arrangement, so far as concemed the safety 
 of the lady. The wood was not thick, he said : it afforded numerous 
 temptations to an angry lion to break through it, regardless of 
 any line of men who might be left to guard its edges ; in rea- 
 sonable anticipation, the beast they were about to rouse would 
 prefer attempting a return to the prey from which he had been 
 scared the previous night, to a retreat into the hungry wilderness 
 he had abandoned upon his late adventure. 
 
 Rendered obstinate by his self-opinion, Azineb laughed at this 
 advice. Whispers from some of Mustapha's enemies prompted 
 him to treat it even more despotically. He told Mustapha that 
 he believed it arose rather from a design to betray the lady into 
 danger, ^han to save her from possible harm, 
 
 " Then Mustapha will watch by the palanquin to share the dan- 
 gers of his own treachery." 
 
 To this, still prompted by a whisper, Azineb made a cruel and 
 tyrannical retort. " The old hunter tears for himself," he said. 
 
 '•' If Mustapha has taught the young hunter to fear for himself, 
 it is so," replied Mustapha, with more spirit than the highest sub- 
 jects were allowed to use towards an Asiatic prince. He had scaice 
 spoken the words when Azineb struck him on the shoulders with 
 the flat of his sabre, and ordered him to quit the hunting-ground 
 and retire down the bank of the river. A great struggle was 
 seen in Mustapha's features, and his hand involuntarily moved to- 
 wards his own sabre. But pure love of the royal boy, whom he 
 had often helped to his saddle, and pure love alone, subdued all 
 his majestic wrath. Making a low salutation, he rode slowly in 
 the direction in which he was commanded to go. 
 
 He halted, about the same distance from the palanquin, down 
 the stream, as was the bridge from it, towards the water's source. 
 Proud, bitter, yet tender tears filled his eyes. At first he felt no 
 wish to notice the proceedings of the pompous and gallant train 
 
THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. fel^ 
 
 from whom he had been ignobly banished. Their music and their 
 cries aroused his interest, however, and he glanced to the bridge 
 and then to the wood : the greater number were just entering the 
 latter, after having stationed a weak line round its skirts. Farther 
 he could not observe the chances of the hunt. But the continued 
 cries, now of a changed cadence, which broke from the lion'3 
 umbrageous lair, told his experienced ear, first, that the animal had 
 been tracked; next, that his anger had been roused into an attack 
 upon his assailants. And the ensuing sound Mustapha heard was 
 the explosive, almost crashing roar of the terrific beast himself, as 
 he sprang out of the wood, overwhelmed two or three of his scared 
 enemies on its outposts, and plunged into the river exactly opposite 
 the bank where the palanquin rested. 
 
 His fiery eyes were scarce seen glaring in the water, by the 
 horsemen left to guard the lady, ere they fled across the plain like 
 one of its own hurricane-blasts ; the equally frightened horses not 
 requiring spur or whip to urge them to utmost speed. Then Mus- 
 tapha heard piercing shrieks issue from the palanquin, and saw its 
 glittering silk curtains shaken violently in the sun, and white arms 
 tossed in agony through their openings towards the wood. The 
 following instant, Azineb's worshipped one, and all her young slaves 
 ran, still screaming, along the river's bank, approaching the poinfc 
 where Mustapha had stationed himself. ^' She is very young and 
 beautiful," muttered Mustapha, " and but for him would have been 
 innocent. He loves her too," he continued, as in answer to her 
 startling calls, the young prince just then issued from the wood, 
 and, casting his eyes abroad over the river, began — after bounding 
 forward a few steps — to return her cry for cry, tear his hair, rend 
 his garments, beat his breast, and exhibit all the actions of utter 
 anguish and despair. For now the lion gained the confronting 
 bank ; and as Azineb and all his attendants had left their horses 
 at the bridge, pursuit was useless. '' Loves her," resumed Mus- 
 tapha, " as the apple of his eye ! loves her, even as he hates me. 
 What then ? he took another glance at the terrified girl. From 
 excessive fear or lack of strength, she had been left far behind by 
 her slaves, and the lion, evidently selecting her as an object of 
 vengeance, closed fast upon her — ''What then ?" — Mustapha made 
 but a moment's pause, when he added, " It shall be so. He shall 
 see it — " and suddenly taking off a loose part of his dress, he 
 threw it over his courser's eyes, to hinder him from seeing the lion, 
 and galloped amain to meet the poor fugitive. 
 
 Shouts, in applause of his heroism, arose from the prince and 
 
214 THE FAITIIFUF SERVANT. 
 
 many of the attendants. Azineb now ran along liis own side of 
 the river, towards the bridge, obviously bent upon seiionding, i^ 
 possible, the danng attempt of Mustapha. During his hurry thither 
 accompanied by his hunters^ he lost sight of the appalling 
 scene : when he and they had remounted, and crossed the bridge, 
 Mustapha held his prize before him on the saddle. Again all 
 shouted tremendously, now to overawe the lion, and turn him from 
 his unremitted pursuit. The enraged beast paused an instant ; 
 looked back upon them ; and. then, as if ascertaining that the dis- 
 tance between them and him allowed him scope for his present 
 purpose, uttered a roar of defiance, and renewed his bounds after 
 Mustapha. That roar gave him fearful odds. Hitherto, Mustapha's 
 steed had not been aware of his proximity, for his eyes were hood- 
 winked : now he heard the voice of the king of beasts, and it was 
 enough. Swerving aside, he shook the piece of drapery from his 
 eyes, and with tottering and failing limbs remained paralysed. 
 Again and again Azineb and his train uttered wild cries, and nrged^ 
 on their own fear-stricken coursers. " It is vain !'* shrieked the 
 prince,/' Behold ! — Yet shout ! still shout!" 
 
 The lion had sprung against the side of Mustapha's horse, and 
 fastened upon a limb of the rider. Mustapha saw him prepare for 
 his last bound, and with one arm holding her up, and another hold- 
 ing her back, endeavoured to place his charge out of immediate 
 danger. It gave him pleasure instead of pain, when he felt the 
 beast's fang tearing his own flesh. " Come on 1" he exclaimed^ 
 to the approaching hunters ; " I can hold her till ye vex him away 
 from us !" They jumped from their saddles, and ran forward with 
 spears and scimetars. Mustapha felt his strength failing, and his eyes 
 growing heavy, and his frame cringing, in spite of him * for the 
 lion had now fastened his tusks in his body. But he faintly caught 
 the sound of more feet, and louder cries ;and was sensible of being 
 released by the lion. The next moment he recognised the prince's- 
 voice, making quick inquiries, and could just utter, '' She is un- 
 touched to the hair of her head — Mustapha, whom you love no 
 longer, says it ;" when he fell from his saddle, dead. 
 
 That day won Azineb back to virtue, but it lost him his Faithful 
 Servant. 
 
 THE END OF THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 
 
THE ROMAN MEECHANT. 
 
THE KOMAN MERCHANT. 
 
 The Norman and Welsh Lords of the Pale, in Ireland, deter- 
 mined, in the first instance, upon building themselves in from the 
 natives of the country in which they colonized ; that is, at such 
 seasons as they did not deem convenient for voluntary recontre in 
 the field, or by wile, with their detested neighbours. The rudely- 
 wrought and ungraceful square castles, without adjunct of any 
 kind, which to this day are found in the Pale districts of Ire- 
 land, were the results of their earlier attempts to indulge this love 
 of solitude. Soon after, walled towns sprang up in the land, still 
 to keep out all pure-blooded descendants of Heber and Heremon. 
 But this could not last. The general similarities of human nature 
 began, in the course of time, to attract and approach each other 
 among the two people. Common wants, suggesting common in- 
 terests, had the usual and inevitable effect of levelling the barriers 
 of exclusiveness on the one hand, and of qualifying hatred on the 
 other. And long before Cromwell's devastating visit to Ireland, 
 neither double-curtained walls, nor lines of circumvallation, nor 
 massive gates, nor yet laws stronger than any of those, were able 
 to keep the Anglo-Normans and the mere Irish from mixing com- 
 fortably together. 
 
 It may appear, however, that the natives were not aU at once 
 received into the bosoms of the towns and cities of the strangers, 
 even when liberality and common sense had begun to legislate 
 in their favour. Most probably, they were only permitted at first to 
 settle extramuros^ and there erect dwellings of their own. 
 
 By degrees, that part of the wall of the Pale-town running be- 
 tween the two communities was thrown down, or suffered to fall 
 into decay ; and the quickly -blending races then agreed to let ono 
 continued wall enclose and protect both. 
 
 In this manner two towns would have become a single town, 
 known to the world by a single name. Such was the case with 
 respect to Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, and other places of 
 considerable and even of much less not© in the west, the south, and 
 
218 THE ROMAN MERCHANT- 
 
 the middle of Ireland. Either a relic of the old spirit of making 
 distinctions, or else common parlance, continued, however, to de- 
 signate separately the two clusters of houses thus massing together, 
 by the names of English-town and Irish-town ; or else, while that 
 quarter originally English was distinguished by the geographical 
 name equally applying to both, the streets of Milesian architecture 
 retained their mere Irish title. 
 
 This *' distinction without a difference" (no common-place quo- 
 tation,) exists at the present day ; and so we arrive at our story. 
 
 The Irish-town of our dear and not uncelebrated native city is 
 now before our eyes, as vividly as when we roamed through it in 
 childhood. One side of its main street reposes in the sunshine of 
 a sunny Saturday. (Why has the word occurred ? — rather, why 
 ask that question ? — what reader who has been a school-boy will 
 not comprehend the associations that suggest it ? A sunny Satur- 
 day! — school dismissed at noon — the whole day and evening, ay, 
 and the next day too, lengthening out before our minds in a most 
 luxurious prospect of leisure and enjoyment — and the blessed sun 
 shining ! Oh ! to this hour, a sunny Saturday wears its own pe- 
 culiar radience to our eyes, and gladdens our heart like a very act 
 of happiness ! — But we must describe — not be guilty of sentiment.) 
 
 We have said that the main street of our Irish-town appears to 
 us this moment, as vividly as wdien we w^ere children ; yet not ex- 
 actly so. Memory is at best but a camera-obscura, in w^hich, though 
 there be true forms, there are sobered colours and subdued lights ; 
 even the sunlight cannot be brought to mind in it as brilliant as in 
 reality it has been. It is promised, however, that our little sketch 
 shall be faithful enough. And so, look once more down the main 
 street. The sunny side shows a straight line of humble houses — 
 some very humble — the most considerable not more than two stories 
 high ; they are all old, or oldish, and here and there runs up a 
 gable-front with round stone chimneys, that speaks of absolute 
 antiquity. They are all .the abodes of shopkeepers — not a single 
 gentleman's hall-door, with a heavy brass knocker, is to be seen in 
 the row. Some of these honest men (" comfortable" folk, neither 
 affluent, nor struggling like certain of their contemporaries " in 
 town," who figure, or try to figure, on a larger scale,) are standing 
 at their thresholds, talking across to their opposite neighbours, or 
 .leaning over their closed half-doors doing the same thing. And 
 tliey happen to be almost all of an age, that age some fifty years. 
 And you may perceive in the fashion of their respectable clothes, 
 and in their sleek three-curl wigs, as well, indeed, as in the cha- 
 
THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 219 
 
 meters of their facesj a sober attachment to the usages and to the 
 iniiid of old times, which strikingly distinguishes them from their 
 brethern only a few streets off. The narrow flag-w^ay before- their 
 shops is worn from age, rather than from the bustle of the street at 
 any time. Even upon this day, at noon, there is little crushing 
 or pushing by their doors. When one of the respectable house- 
 liolders raises his voice, you can hear him talking, from the steps 
 going up to the cathedral, all the way to the little bridge that con- 
 nects the street, quite at the other end, with the English-town ; the 
 shouts, gabble, laughing, and crying of the urchins who are at play 
 in the middle of the road, make the air ring ; and when a horse 
 trots over the stones, or a cart or car rolls over them, you would 
 think the little old houses were about to tumble down with the noise. 
 
 This outline bears date some — no matter how many — years ago. 
 Enough to say that we were schoolboys when we studied (uncon- 
 sciously indeed) the original. A grand-uncle, then about sixty, 
 told us he remembered the Irish-town just the same when he was 
 a boy. It may hence be inferred that the present sketch will stand 
 good for from seventy to eighty years, past and gone, according to 
 the reader's good-natured allowance for our objection to be called 
 middle-aged. And so, seventy or eighty years ago, we are in the 
 main street, seeing nearly the same houses, shop-windows, and 
 shop-doors, and nearly the same kind of shopkeepers standing at 
 them, or leaning cross-armed over them, which have already been 
 described. It is past noon, too, and the summer-sun is uncloudedly 
 shining. 
 
 Amid all the quiet and listlessness of the little street, a remark- 
 able man, leading a small cart, drawn by an ass, entered it by a 
 cross-street, at the country side of the Irish-town, and attracted 
 immediate attention. He wore a costume which, to whatever nation 
 or tribe it belonged, proclaimed him a stranger, not only in that 
 town, but in Ireland. This consisted of a loosely- fashioned great- 
 coat, of a brown colour, reaching nearly to his toes, secured tightly 
 at his throat, and girt round his middle with a leathern belt and 
 buckle ; of russet boots, falling in folds to his ancles; and of a 
 head-dress of red linen, or some such cloth, wound round and 
 round his forehead. Having turned the corner of the street, he 
 raised his eyes, which had been previously fixed on the ground, as 
 if to note the situation of a little inn, to which he might have been 
 directed. Then the interest of the shopkeepers of Irish-town in- 
 creased ten-fold. Those eyes were very large, deep black, sad, 
 mysterious, and yet tranquil ; his nose was long, slightly hooked. 
 
220 THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 
 
 and prominent ; his cheeks and whole visage swarthy and thought- 
 worn : but what most attracted notice was his short, thick, coal- 
 black beard, which completely hid his chin, and his mouth almost, 
 and, when again he bent his head to his breast, made a black spot 
 even on the surface of his dark-brown robe. Those who looked at hira 
 could not call him old, nor even advanced in years, though they 
 hesitated to call him young. His pace was as heavy as his face 
 was serious. The dust of travel was on his dress, his hair, his 
 whiskers, and slightly on that strange beard. Although he appeared 
 leading the li-ttle cart, no one thought of classing him with the 
 vulgar of any country, who perform such humble offices ; nay, 
 whether from natural character, or from former rank, he impressed 
 himself vaguely as a person of superiority. His cart was well 
 loaded with trunks, boxes, and bales packed in sackcloth or in 
 matting. 
 
 It seemed, that the one glance he gave, after entering the street, 
 assured him of the point to which he walked ; for, as if content 
 with it, he passed along the middle of the way, looking neither to 
 the right nor to the left, nor, indeed, again lifting up his eyes. If 
 he were conscious of the general attention he attracted, he was 
 also indifferent to it. The little inn was the last house but one to 
 the bridge, at the further end of the street. He gained the open 
 gate- way which led into its stable-yard ; halted his ass ; turned his 
 face towards the opposite houses ; fixed his regards on one — a very 
 humble one — of which the closed door and shutters told that it was 
 uninhabited and to be let ; and wiped his heated brow with the 
 wide sleeve of his gaberdine. Then, still taking not the least 
 notice of the many curious eyes bent upon him, he again put his 
 hand to his ass's halter, and led it to one of the stables of the inn. 
 
 More than one of the shopkeepers of Irish-town, after debating 
 with their neighbours the probable country, rank, profession, and 
 religion of the stranger, passed over to the inn to hold consultation 
 on the same points with its shrewd and observant landlady. But 
 they found her as much surprised and as curious as they were them- 
 selves. Her new guest, after seeing his little beast well disposed 
 of, had summoned her servants to unload his cart, and caused them 
 to convey its trunks, boxes, and packages into a private room. 
 Then, placing a purse in her hands, he had retired after his property, 
 ordering a frugal dinner. Since that moment, neither she nor any 
 one in her house had seen him. He kept his door locked, and 
 objected to open it till the hour of dinner. His language was 
 English, broadly marked with a foreign accent and idiom ; yet he 
 made himself sufficiently intelligible. 
 
THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 221 
 
 Conjecture continued at a stand for many hours. At last, in 
 the cool of the evening, the good folk of Irish-town saw the same 
 man issue from the inn, dressed like one of themselves, his beard 
 gone, and a decent three-cocked hat on his head, instead of the un- 
 christian-looking pile of red linen. He crossed the little bridge, and 
 passed " into town.'* Again his landlady was consulted, and her 
 answers, while they gave more information than before, caused 
 more surprise. At dinner he had asked of her the name and resi- 
 dence of the proprietor of the house which was to be let in the 
 street, and noted down both in his tablets. After his meal, he a 
 second time went up to his chamber ; there cut and shaved off his 
 beard, and changed his dress. When he had done dressing, he 
 locked his door on the outside ; and finally left her house, as her 
 neighbours had observed, without speaking another word. 
 
 This unknown, and perhaps infidel and dangerous wanderer, was 
 about to become, then, a citizen of Irish-tow^ ! And what wei e 
 his means of support, and what were they to be ? Would he live 
 in the house as a private gentleman, or would he open the shop 
 and carry on some business ? If so, what business ? The well- 
 laden cart here occurred to the thoughts of his future neighbours, 
 and good-hearted and straight-minded people as we wish them to 
 be believed, it will not be wondered at, if fears of rivalry, and 
 (considering that the stranger must have travelled much, and seen 
 many markets) of eclipsing rivalry, too, made some of them look 
 grave. 
 
 Perhaps the least liberal among them it was who started the com- 
 forting thought, that the proprietor of the uninhabited house might 
 " look two ways," before he consented to accept a tenant of such 
 a questionable description. Different opinions were being exchanged 
 on this point, when the stranger re-appeared, crossing the httle 
 bridge, followed by the clerk of the attorney, who did legal business 
 for the gentleman whom he had gone to seek. Both gained the 
 house in question : at its threshold the clerk handed a key to his 
 companion, and wished him a good evening ; the new comer un- 
 locked the door, and entered the premises, which had now evidently 
 become his. 
 
 In a short time he was seen standing at the door, looking up the 
 street. An upholsterer and two of his apprentices came in view, 
 bearing a few of the most necessary articles of household furniture. 
 He beckoned to them : they passed into his house, as if to arrange 
 their goods. He went over to the inn ; returned with all its spare 
 hands carrying the baggage of his cart. Before night fall he had 
 
222 THE HOMAN MERCHANT. 
 
 secured his door, and was alone in his house, the light of a candle 
 shining through the chinks of one of the windows. That was a 
 memorable night in the charitable club-room of Irish -town. 
 
 The earliest riser among his neighbours next morning, saw his 
 shop open, and an ample stock of various articles handsomely dis- 
 posed in its little bow window, and hanging at its door. These 
 consisted of a strange medley : — woollen and linen ; cheap showy 
 jewellery; tobacco and snuff ; books and pamphlets ; knives, scissors, 
 needles, and such matters ; ready-made shoes and boots ; and 
 flaunting coloured engravings, mostly of Divine or sacred subjects. 
 All Irish-town were soon up and stirring ; and, one by one, bis 
 competitors walked observantly by his door, or entered his new 
 establishment, in a more blunt and friendly manner, to wish him 
 good morrow and a welcome. They found- him sitting behind his 
 counter gravely, and like a man of business, " taking stock," as 
 they believed, in a large book. He received all his visitors politely, 
 and if he did not return their smiles or good-humoured sayings, 
 was not backward in replying to their merely complimentary 
 or triendly expressions. All curious inquiries about strange articles 
 in his shop he answered ofF-hand and satisfactorily. He was asked 
 if he proposed to stay some time among his new neighbours ; and 
 he said — " I hope so ; I have taken the house for seven years." 
 Was he not a foreigner ? " Yes ; a native of Home." And his 
 name ? " Bartolini." 
 
 When public anxiety had been pretty well allayed, the old 
 householders of Irish-town began to compare opinions upon the 
 stranger ; and, nothwithstanding previous prepossessions, and even 
 a present certainty that he must prove a formidable rival to more 
 than one long established shop in the street, no man said or felt 
 that he disUked Bartolini. The sad suavity and unpretending com- 
 posure of his manners were openly admired ; then, the irresistible 
 conclusion that he was a friendless wanderer, who had suffered 
 much, gained him pity; and a vague sejnse of mystery completed 
 the simple interest raised in his favour. As to his name, it was 
 judged to be, indeed, foreign enough ; so much so, that plain Irish 
 tongues could scarce be expected to get round it. And after 
 various laughing attempts to pronounce it as he had done, hia 
 friends, as they said, " left it to himself to go through the trigono- 
 metry of it. But as he had informed them that he was a native 
 of Rome, this fact and his present occupation suggested a substi- 
 tute appellation ; in a few days Bartolini went by the name of 
 
THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 223 
 
 '* The Roman Merchant," and never afterwards was otherwise de- 
 signated. 
 
 The first morning of his residence in Irish-town he went out 
 among his neighbours to purchase provisions for breakfast and 
 dinner, and conveyed them home with his own hands. From this 
 it was concluded that he meant to live quite alone without a ser- 
 vant : and such, indeed, proved to be the case. Neither man nor 
 woman, girl nor boy, resided, during his life, under his truly soli- 
 tary roof. When the night of that morning drew on, he put up the 
 shutters of his shop-window, secured them, locked his door, and 
 walked forth, as if for exercise. Close by the corner of the street; 
 by which he had entered Irish-town, it has been passingly said, 
 were steps which led up to the cathedral. These, a long flight, be 
 was observed to ascend. Then he passed into the church-} ard of 
 the venerable and beautiful edifice spoken of, by a small door, afc 
 that time always left open — through it, and out of it by another 
 door at its opposite side — thence into the suburb, and the open 
 country ; returned to his residence in about two hours, and went to 
 rest for the night. 
 
 His proceedings on this day are minutely mentioned, because, for 
 years, he scarce ever made any alteration in them, from sunrise to 
 sunset, winter or summer. It is to be particularly observed, that a 
 solitary stroll invariably closed his day of serious and unremitting 
 attention to his shop. Add to which, he was often noticed in the 
 cathedral church-yard, for a longer time than seemed necessary to 
 pass through it into the adjacent environs of Irish-town. The only 
 occasions upon which he was not found behind his counter, or met 
 in the street purchasing his breakfast or dinner, or seen upon his 
 evening walk, were when he was absolutely absent, for a while, in 
 Dublin or elsewhere, laying in a new stock of goods. Then the 
 Roman Merchant's house remained shut up, till his return with a 
 fresh pile of bales in his little ass's cart. 
 
 Soon after his settlement in Irish-town he \vas more than once 
 invited to a neighbour's house : he declined the civility with his 
 usual blandness, but so firmly and gravely as to put an end to 
 future solicitations. He aked no one to his house : in fact, from 
 the night it became his, until he was no longer master of it, it 
 never was entered by any one, except by the customers, or chance 
 visitors of his shop. Proposals were made to him to become a 
 member of the charitable club of the parish. He readily consented, 
 and sent in treble the amount of the specified subscription, but 
 never went to the club-room. Here it may be mentioned, that to 
 
224 THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 
 
 the poor of every description, to the wandering beggar at his door, 
 and to distressed objects in the suburbs, he gave hberally andcon- 
 tinuallj. And thus passed his life, for years ; holding no com- 
 munication with his kind, beyond what a return of mere passing 
 good manners demanded of him; indeed, never speaking, but when 
 spoken to ; a true hermit, though not of the desert ; a man esteemed 
 and thought well of, though, from year to year, still as much un- 
 known, and as much a mystery to his neighbours, as he had been 
 the first day of his appearance in the street. 
 
 It was more than five years after his coming to Irish-town, that, 
 one morning, the Roman Merchant's shop appeared shut at an un- 
 usually late hour. People wondered, but supposed he had over- 
 slept himself. Hours wore away, and still he was not seen engaged, 
 as usual, in taking down his shutters. They knocked loudly at his 
 door — they thundered at it ; no one stirred within. A little 
 alarmed, they began to surmise that he might have gone to pur- 
 chase goods before day-break ; for it was winter-time. 
 
 To ascertain this point, some went to the cabin of an old woman 
 who took care of his ass and cart. The ass and cart were under 
 their shed, in her yard ; of course, he had not left the town, as had 
 been supposed, as he never did so without them. Consternation 
 as to his fate took possession of the minds of his neighbours. 
 
 Noon came ; night was drawing on. Authorities of the borough 
 caused his house to be forcibly entered. He was not in it ; he had 
 not slept in his bed the previous night, for it was undisturbed after 
 having been made up. In his little back parlour a humble sup- 
 per was found laid out, a bottle of water to one hand, his single 
 chair placed to the table, and the ashes of a turfen fire on the 
 hearth. All his property seemed untouched. Everything was 
 sealed up, the house agaia secured, and inquiries set on foot in all 
 directions. 
 
 Days elapsed, and he was not heard of. The moment and the 
 circumstances, at and under which he had last been seen, now were 
 carefully established. His street neighbours, the night before his 
 disappearance, had noticed him locking his shop-door, and then going 
 towards "the long steps," upon his accustomed walk. Other in- 
 dividuals had met him in the suburbs afterwards ; and one had seen 
 him, at a late hour, roaming through the church-yard. No further 
 could he be accounted for. 
 
 At about the end of a week, spent in vain searches and conjec- 
 tures, some youths of the suburbs were amusing themselves, vault- 
 ing over the tomb-stones in the church-yard of the cathedral. It 
 
THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 225 
 
 was now dark, and the winter's moon began to rise,* shining ghastily 
 upon a light sheet of snow, which for some days had covered the 
 ground. They recollected what description of place they were so 
 merry in, and half serious, half in jest, began to banter each other's 
 superstitious misgivings. One, stepping back in mock terror upon 
 his companions, pointed to a far corner, among the stems of two 
 rows of trees, and said that ' the sperit of the Roman Marchant 
 was watching them !" All took to flight, in laughing confusion, 
 along the narrow pathway, pushing and justling each other. Two 
 of themslipped on the snow, and fell to one side among the graves. 
 Their kicking and struggling displaced a loose and carelessly- 
 heaped mound, and the hand and arm of a man, gloved and clothed, 
 started up between them, from the earth. They were the hand 
 and arm of the Eoman Merchant, The fact was established when 
 by the light of lanterns and torches, a crowd, whom their cries had 
 summoned, disinterred the body. 
 
 It was fully dressed. Even the poor man's hat was found in his 
 ill-made grave. Closer investigation showed that, along with the 
 key of his shop, his purse had been left in his pocket, his old- 
 fashioned but valuable watch in his fob, and a mourning ring, of 
 value too, upon his finger. They touched something hard at his 
 breast — it was the handle of a dagger, which they could not at 
 first pull out ; the blade traversed the middle of his heart, and its 
 point appeared at his back. The death-blow had been unerring 
 and vehement, and must have killed him before he could have felt it. 
 
 Who struck it ? That was the question of every tongue, but it 
 remained unanswered. It remains unanswered to the present hour ; 
 although the motives of the unknown assassins are darkly imagined 
 and hinted at, whenever this true and unvarnished story is re- 
 lated — and it is still related — in our Irish- town. 
 
 The fact of finding his money, watch, and ring, untouched upon 
 his person, removed the first natural suspicion, that the Roman 
 Merchant had been set upon in a thirst of plunder. It then be- 
 came almost evident that hatred or revenge alone could have done 
 a murder, of which the object was life — poor life, only : and of 
 the primitive community whom he had chosen for his last earthly 
 associates, not a heart or mind was found to attribute to its neigh- 
 
 • Since writing the above, we have returned to the scene of the story, 
 and been informed that we made an important omission, as regards the 
 moon,in this part of it ; for that, upon the night of the discovery of the 
 body of the Roman Merchant, the planet, strange enough to say, was 
 eclipsed. 
 
226 THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 
 
 hour either of these baleful sentiments against the Roman Merchant. 
 Although he had not permitted that close and continual intimacy 
 which produces lively feelings of friendship, all had respected him 
 for his demeanour, admired and esteemed him for his charities, 
 and compassionated him, as well for his hermit-Ufe, as for the un- 
 explained misfortunes that must have influenced and shaped it. In 
 what direction, then, was the deadly enemy to be sought ? The 
 dagger when unsheathed from his heart, suggested the first vague 
 elucidation of the mystery. It was at once seen not to be of Irish, or 
 even of Enghsh, manufacture. An old military gentleman of the 
 city, a native, who, after half a life of foreign service, had returned 
 to repose himself among his early friends, unhesitatingly pro- 
 nounced it to have been made in Spain, by a hand well known to 
 him, and to others who wrought with such tools. But other evi- 
 dence, much more important, though still not giving a clue to the 
 identity of the murderer, came to light. 
 
 The Roman Merchant's little abode was again entered by com- 
 petent authority. A more careful and minute search took place 
 in it, after any documents likely to tell who he really was, and 
 who might have been his early friends and connexions in a distant 
 land. In the drawer of his desk was found a sealed packet, with 
 a superscription in a foreign language, which none of the persons 
 then present could translate. An old friar, half hiding in the suburbs, 
 from the enactments of the time, was summoned to their councils ; 
 he had been a Salamanca student ; he declared the direction on the 
 back of the packet, as well as the writing in the body of it, to be 
 Spanish ; and he supplied the following translation : first convincing 
 all, that the writing was dated only some days before, from the 
 residence of the murdered man. 
 
 *' To my ruthless and terrible enemy : — 
 
 " You are upon my track again ! After more than five years of 
 quiet, gained by successfully eluding you, you are upon my track 
 again ! After escaping you seven times, in the four quarters of 
 the globe, you have hunted me into this little nook of earth ! — I 
 know it — lam sure of it ! Your blood-hound has crossed my path — 
 the subtle devil whom you always sent forth to course after me 
 through deserts and cities, over the most silent places, and into the 
 thickest abodes of men, to mark me, and to fix me for your blow. 
 I have once more seen him ! This very day, though he does not 
 think it — ay, beneath all his consummated disguises of feature and 
 of person, I knew his eye ! — this very day, among a crowd of 
 humble peasants in my little shop, and at the very moment that 
 
THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 227 
 
 he bargained with me for one of the paltry articles, by the sale of 
 which to them I gain the only bread you have left me — this very 
 day he and I stood face to face. And now he has gone to tell 
 you he has found me, and you will surely come for the last time ! 
 ^es ! — my relentless enemy ! — my fate ! — my destruction cloud !— 
 already you have cast forward your thick shadow upon me ! 
 
 " You will come for the last time, I say. Ay, for the last time ; 
 because I will not try to baffle you now. Heretofore I exerted the 
 utmost skill and energy of man to save your soul from future fire 
 (yes — you will die without regretting it !) and my own life from 
 your hand, because Ihad injured you — because you were ^er blood — 
 because she prayed for you to her God in heaven, and forgave me — 
 and because, penetrated with a Christian's sorrow for the past, it 
 was my duty, as well as my heart's great yearning, to preserve my 
 wretched existence from one who had well forewarned me of his 
 thirst to end it. But now, if after five years' time for thought, 
 you come — after sending me out, a Cain upon the earth — after 
 taking from me name and rank, fortune, friends, a country, human- 
 kind — after using your power and your sway to disgrace and 
 beggar me — after trampling me, treading me with your heel, down, 
 down into the dust — if now, once more, you come, let it be for the 
 last time! I cannot save you— it is doomed ! Or, perhaps, not- 
 withstanding my uncharitable fear of the stoniness of your fierce 
 heart, perhaps my life alone stands between you and the capability 
 of feeling forgiveness and remorse. Perhaps, when you can see 
 me stretched stiff at your feet — perhaps then, and then alone, it is 
 decreed that you may relent — that out of the last of my earthly 
 punishment will grow the first of your earthly repentance. Come, 
 then! 
 
 ''And yet, have I not already been punished enough? Oh, 
 very hard has been my life since I injured you ! That you have 
 sent me out to earn my bread in the sweat of my brow — me, nursed 
 on the very knee of luxury and honour — I count as nothing. So 
 much, at least, I can thank you for. Humility, in all things, became 
 my quick and full sense of my sin, and it has been my only solace. 
 
 " But remember ! — your hand has, before now, struck sharp steel 
 into my body ; and when you thought I fell to rise no more, whose 
 foot spurned me ? 
 
 " Yet why remonstrate with you on this paper ? — you can nevef 
 read the words I write, nor hear them read, till you have shed my 
 blood. And I do write them, only to hint to the Christian people 
 who shall find my lifeless body, some shadowy ej^planation of the, 
 
2 28 THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 
 
 cause of my coming death. Give me no praise for suppressing 
 your name, and all allusions that might lead to a discovery of it. 
 An angel, — and your child — your only, only child, (alas ! alas ! — 
 strike home when you strike next ! — I merit it !) — she now watches 
 my heart and its workings, and she can feel, if you cannot, why, 
 at more than the hazard of a thousand lives, I refrain from bringing 
 to disgrace a name that I have already tarnished, through my 
 treacherous love of the brightest creature that ever bore it, or any 
 other. If they who shall find this paper ever publish it, then you 
 may further reflect that, with a good omen of your coming, I 
 called not on the arm of justice to shield me from you : but still, 
 thank me not, nor on this account alone indulge remorse. Oh, may 
 the expressions of sincere sorrow and misery I now give vent to, 
 move you to a more lively regret ! — and that is a cheering hope. 
 You have never before allowed my voice to reach you ; you have 
 stopped short my words with execrations, boisterous as a raging 
 sea ; you have interrupted them by outrage on my person ; you 
 have sent back my letters unopened ; you would have struck down 
 any messenger from me. It is probable, then, that, all along, you 
 have believed me a hard-minded villain, untouched by the result of 
 my own fearful crime. If so, let these, my last protestations, un- 
 deceive you. I am penitent ; humbly, crawlingly penitent. Come ! — 
 you will not find me raise a hand, an eye, against ^owr hand, i/ojireye, 
 " I am certain you will be minutely informed of my usual haunts 
 abroad, in this little place, that so you may surprise me upon a 
 secret spot. Knowing this, it is my resolve to tempt you to a haunt 
 of mine, the most favourable for your purpose. Every night, hence- 
 forward, till the last — my last — I will loiter in a lonely corner of 
 the burial-ground of the cathedral, already, or soon to be described 
 to you. For thither, I am assured, your spy must have watched 
 me repair, during my accustomed evening walk. There, among 
 the graves, and perhaps standing upon my own, there, in the dark, 
 I will expect you. Not a cry, not a loud word, shall expose you 
 to detection. Come ! — could I avoid you still, I would do it — no 
 matter what words may have escaped me ; but is there the slightest 
 hope that I can ? After all that has passed, what corner of the 
 wide earth is able to hide me from his glance, and 7/our arm ?^ 
 And by walking out in the night, as is my wont, and in the places 
 I am accustomed to — particularly when you know not that /know — 
 how shall I be accessary to my own death ? True, I might await 
 you, trebly armed — but against whom? -fiV father! — unutter- 
 able horror is in the thought. Ay, come ! — and let the last words^ 
 
THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 229 
 
 I shall hear on earth be even her name ! Hers — growled forth as 
 you will !" 
 
 Thus ended the document. Of that anticipated meeting in the 
 silent church-yard nothing but the result is known. The paper was 
 published, and that it produced some of the effects hoped for by 
 the writer is thought by the good and Christian. For, some six 
 months afterwards, a large wooden case came, directed to the 
 mayor of the city, from Dublin, where it had been imported ; and 
 upon opening it was found a marble urn, with a pedestal, inscribed 
 to " The Roman Merchant." 
 
 THE END OF THE ROMAN MERCHANT. 
 
ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 
 
ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 
 
 " Well — it's my turn, now, sure enough, genteels, to tell my 
 story ; and it will be most about how ould Square (Squire) M'Cass 
 come by the great fort'n, that he couldn't keep with as strong a 
 hand as he got it — ' III got, ill gone,' ye know, neighbours." In 
 these words, one of a circle of Irish villagers, assembled round a 
 winter fire, and beguiling the long holiday evening with their 
 favourite amusement of story-telling, began his imposed task. The 
 tale is preserved in his words, or as nearly so as possible. 
 
 " Every one that hears me, young and ould, knows who I mean 
 by Square M'Cass, though he's dead and gone from among us many 
 a year. Let any gorsoon or little girl that doesn't know — or, at 
 laste, that has heard tell of him, but not of what a great man he 
 was in his time — just step over the trassel of the door of this good 
 friend's house, and look up the slant of the hill, in the moonlight. 
 There is to be seen the remains of a big barrack of a place he built 
 for himself, more than fifty years ago, though its tall gables and 
 chimblies are now tatthered and torn with the weather, and the 
 bat and the scallcrow have more to say to it than Square M'Cass. 
 And, when any one looks at that ould ruin, and is tould, more-be- 
 token, that all the land you can see from the highest windowhole, 
 at every side of it, belonged to him that built it once upon a time, 
 then, certain sure, it will be guessed what a man he was. 
 
 " Well, genteels : ' Tisn't of Square M'Cass, alone, I have to say 
 ' 111 got, ill gone ;' — the word fits them he got his money from, as 
 well as it fits himself: but ye shall hear what ye shall hear. I had 
 the story, in bits and scraps, from more than one knowledgable 
 body, and from time to time. From the poor darling mother o' 
 me — rest her soul in glory ! — from cousins and cousin's childher 
 of some of the people I'm to talk about ; and from Jude Murphy, 
 the misthress of the Fighting Cocks, below in the village, and own 
 granddaughter of the widow Murphy that kept the same house 
 before she was born. And, sure enough, it's into the kitchen of 
 the Fighting Cocks we are to step, the first going off. 
 
234 ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 
 
 " A nate, cosy kitchen it was ; kept clane and well-swept ; a full 
 barrel always in the corner, and a fire-side almost as snug as this 
 one we are sitting at — everything befitting man and horse that came 
 that way, supposing them the first in the land — and barring that 
 the horse had his own good lodging in the warm stable, nigh at 
 hand. And so, Biddy Murphy was sitting foment her man o' the 
 house (they were newly married at that same time) by the pleasant 
 fire, of a winter's evening, like this, only earlier, when she hears a 
 sound she was always glad to hear — the noise of horses' feet, 
 stopping at her dour. And, when she hurried to the trassel, two 
 decent, well dressed, mannerly men were stepping down from their 
 saddles. She made her curtshee to them, and called Mickle Mur- 
 phy to put up their horses ; and soon she had them settled in the 
 warmest corner, a can of good ould shibbeen (home-brewed ale) a- 
 piece, in their hands, and the fresh eggs and the nice bacon screech- 
 ing in the pan for their supper. Certain sure, she said in her own 
 mind, that she had the luck to have two responsible (respectable) 
 pleasant bodies in her house that night ; and, when Mickle came 
 back from the stable, and made one at the fire-side, they all chatted 
 jocosely together, of one thing or another, though nothing particu- 
 lar till afther. 
 
 " Biddy Murphy's hand was on the frylngpan, to turn out the 
 eggs and bacon on the dish, when she stopt herself, and said, 
 'Hushth ! merry Christmas to me! but I hear another man and 
 horse for the Fighting Cocks this blessed night !' and, sure enough, 
 she whipt to the door, laying the pan on the hearth, and stepped 
 back with a new-comer. 
 
 " He was a sogering-man, a throoper, discharged from the wars, 
 as it turned out to be, afther ould Shamus ran from the Bojle, but 
 still in his soger^s clothes, and carrying his long sword at his side, 
 that clanked at every step he made across the flure, in his jack- 
 boots and spurs. His tongue betokened that he came from the 
 Black North, where they don't spake either English, or Irish, or 
 Scotch, but a kind of a mixtrum-gatherum of their own, made up 
 of the three together, that's not like any dacent Christian speech — 
 much good may it do them. The way he had with him tould of 
 the place he had come from, more-be-token ; for he was not 
 sprightly nor pleasant in his looks or his words to Mislhress Murphy, 
 nor any one about him, but as serious as a pig getting a sun-dial 
 by heart, and stand-oifish, aud apt to find fault with other people's 
 discoorse, and quite full of himself. The greater the shame for a 
 young man like him, that nigh% at Biddy Murphy's hearth, and 
 
ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 235 
 
 she doing her best to plase him ; for, young enough he was, not 
 above thirty, and a tall broad-shouldered throoper into the bargain. 
 
 " When he took his stool at the fire, afther seeing his horse la 
 the stable, the hearty gossip that had been going on there, afore he 
 came to the door, was amost put a stop to. He would not laugh 
 at anything that the woman o' the house, or the man o' the house 
 said, to cheer up the hearts of their customers, or that the two 
 jocose-looking men, who had come in before him, said in return. 
 So, by degrees, every body grew as down in the month as himself : 
 or, if the discoorse was taken up now and then, it had no laugh in 
 it, but turned on sarious things. Even the good supper that he 
 had his share of, and the cmiskeen lawn, (full cup, or pitcher,) left 
 at his hand, couldn't make him put on a merry face, so that the 
 people round him might find heart to be jocose again ; no, nor as 
 much as make him join in the most in-earnest talk. Only from 
 time to time he said a cross word, blaming the victuals, or the 
 shibbeen, or making out that his companions were ajscoorsing like 
 fools, or not like Christian cratures. By and by, howsomever, he 
 found a little more of his tongue, though it was the bad tongue still. 
 
 " ' Ye are not of our parts, genteels,' says Misthress Murphy to 
 her other two customers. 
 
 '' ' No ma'am,' says one of them, making answer, ' this is the 
 first time we ever came into the county Louth.' 
 
 " ' And ye come a good way up the country, I'll go bail,' says 
 Misthress Murphy, again. 
 
 " All the way from Kerry, ma'am,' the man said to her, very 
 civil and hearty. 
 
 *' ' Mush a, ay, that's a good step, of a sartainty. And, is the place 
 round about here very sthrange to ye, afther laving your own place, 
 so mortial far in the south ?' asked Biddy over again. 
 
 " The two men looked hard at each other, before he that had 
 spoken first said, ' We have a quare answer to that question, ma'am ; 
 for, though this is our first journey into Louth, as I tould you afore, 
 and though the night fell on us just afther crossing the bounds of 
 the next county, only a stone's throw from your snug house, we 
 think we could describe every tree and bush of- ' 
 
 " ' Hushth, Aby !' says the second man, taking the word out of 
 his gossip's mouth. 
 
 " ' Never fear, Dick,' Aby made answer, ' I'm not going to make 
 a fool of myself, or you — every tree and bush, ma'am,' he went on, 
 turning to the woman o' the house, ' and every thing in the world 
 besides, of a certain spot, not very far from the spot we are talking 
 
236 
 
 ILL GOT, ILL GONE. J 
 
 on this blessed minute. It's a truth, sir,' he repeated, nodding to 
 the throoper, who, at his last words, raised up his eyes from the 
 hearth to look at Aby. 
 
 " ' Well, and that's quare, of a sartinty, as you promised it would 
 be, sir,' says Biddy Murphy. ' Ye got your knowledge of the spot 
 ye mane, out of a book, I'm thinking ?" 
 
 " ' No, indeed, ma'am,' says he. 
 
 *• • Then ye saw it dhrawn out and painted in a pictur, and the 
 name printed undher it ?' Biddy a second time demanded of the man. 
 
 " ' Nor that either, upon my word and credit, ma'am,' he replied 
 to her. 
 
 " ' But somebody that knew it well described it to ye, stock and 
 stone, afore ye came — sure that must be it,' says Misthress Murphy 
 for the last time, very curious to find out, as ye may suppose. 
 
 " ' No living tongue has ever made mention of it to us, ma'am !' 
 was all that Aby answered, only he spoke in a remarkable way, 
 very slow, and half undher his breath. 
 
 " * Blessed hour!" cries Biddy, opening her mouth and her eyes 
 at her two customers. The throoper also grumbled out something, 
 and kept staring. 
 
 " '^ Biddy,' says the man of the house, handing her the pipe, ' I'll 
 guess it for you. The two genteels saw the place in a dhrame, 
 whatever place it is.' 
 
 " ' Hoot -toot,' grunted the throoper, shifting himself on his stool, 
 and t urning sideways to the company, eyes and all, mighty wise 
 and scornful. 
 
 *^ * The Lord save us !' cries Biddy again, while the two Kerry 
 men only looked more and more serious. 
 
 " * You may hoot us, sir,' the husband went on to the throoper ; 
 ' but I'll lay you a small wager I am in the right — and, more than 
 that, I'll lay the same wager that the dhrame was about money 
 being hid in the place, and that the two genteels have dhremt it 
 together, over and over, and that they are come into Louth to- 
 night, to see their dhrame out.' 
 
 " ' All nonsense, and turf and butter-milk,' the throoper made 
 answer, in words like my words, though maybe not the very same, 
 for I don't pretend to spake his north bad English — * and all come 
 of the errors and superstitions of ould Papistry.' And he gave 
 himself another swing round, and spoke down in his throat, and 
 turned up his nose like my lady's lap-dog at cowld pee-aties. And, 
 upon that, every sowl that heard him snapped at him, because they 
 were all good Christians like ourselves, or had the name of it, at 
 
ILL GOT, ILL GOXE, 237 
 
 laste. And Biddy Murphy's husband dared him to make the wager ; 
 and her two customers promised to decide it, by making oath of 
 the truth one way or another. And she called him names, and told 
 him he ought to be ashamed of himself. And at last he consented, 
 and wagered his sourd agin two gould guineas that the Kerry men 
 could and would not uphold what Mike Murphy had said. So, the sourd 
 and the money were put on the table together, and he swore the 
 men on a little Bible he took out of his pocket ; and, sure enough, 
 the sourd was lost, for they made oath that every word Mike had 
 spoken was gospel. 
 
 ** ' Now, what's the rason you don't take it up, man o' the house ?' 
 says the throoper, speaking to Mike, who didn't make the laste 
 motion for the sourd, but only looked at it as a body would look 
 at a live thing that might turn on a body, and bite. He thought 
 he had a rason for keeping his hands to themselves — or, maybe, 
 two rasons. Biddy used to say that, first and foremost, he didn't 
 half like to meddle with it, and its gruff-looking owner to the fore, 
 even supposing he had won it quite fair. But she used to say, be- 
 sides, that he cotch the Kerry men winking and smiling at one 
 another, in a knowing way, just when they were going to kiss the 
 little Bible ; and, upon that, Mike wasn't sure of them, out and 
 out ; and, moreover, he thought the throoper saw them doing the 
 same thing, and had a maning in his words and look when he 
 said — ' What's the rason you don't take it up, man o' the house V 
 
 " ' Never lay a finger on it, Mike !' cried Biddy, as soon as the 
 speech was out of his mouth — ' Huth, sir, facing herself about to 
 the throoper, ' put your purty sourd at your own side, where it 
 ought to be — its little use I or my good man have of such things ; 
 and sure it was all out of fun we laid the wager with you, and no 
 more did we want than just to show you that Mr. Murphy can 
 make a sharp guess at a riddle now and then.' And Mike himself 
 bid the throoper take it, saying the same words that Biddy said ; 
 and so he stretched out his big long arm for it at last, with a grave 
 kind of smile on his own faccj for the first time that evening. 
 
 " Very well. You must not think, genteels, that Mike Murphy 
 had any doubt of the guess he made — no such thing : he believed 
 firmly, and so did Biddy, that the Kerry men, Aby and Dick, as 
 they called each other, had dhremt the dhrame, and came into Louth 
 to dig for the money. And when I said that he did not depend 
 on them, out and out, for winning the wager, it was to give ye to 
 understand that he feared they did not kiss the book right — only 
 their thumbs, maybe— that was all. Very well again. Mighty 
 
238 ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 
 
 nnasy he was to try if they would tell him whereabouts in the 
 neighbourhood they expected to find the threasure ; and so, giving 
 a sign to Biddy — and Biddy wanted little asking — he got her to 
 thry Aby ou that head. But Aby was not entirely the fool she 
 took him for ; and all she had for her trouble was — ' Ah, ma'am ! 
 and sure that would be telling !' 
 
 " It was growing late, and the two men got up from the fire, as 
 if going to shake themselves, and make ready for bed. The sad- 
 dles of their horses lay in a corner where they had put them down ; 
 they took them on their arms, and stood awhile together, whisper- 
 ing. The throoper was nearer to them at that time than the mas- 
 ther or the misthress of the Fighting Cocks : and it's said he heard 
 a word or two, for all his not seeming to take notice. In a minute 
 or so, Aby said to the other, spaking loud, ' Come up the loft with 
 me, Dick, till we take care of the saddles, and then we'll settle who 
 is to go out, and have a peep first.' 
 
 " ' It's talking of looking at the place, out of doors, they are,' 
 says Biddy to Mike. And then she tould them not to be uneasy 
 about the saddles, for that they would be quite safe in the kitchen — 
 as safe as if they put them undher their heads, for pillows, in 
 the loft where they were to sleep. But they made answer, that 
 the saddles did not belong to them ; that they had borrowed them 
 of a friend or two in Kerry ; that they were new, and of value ; 
 and that they did not like, for the same rasons, to trust them 6ut 
 of their sight. 
 
 " * Of great value they must be, surely,' says the throoper, get- 
 ting up, too, from his stool — ' of great value to make you so care- 
 ful of them ; I ought to know a good saddle from a bad one. Let 
 me handle one of them ; — with that he whipt Dick's saddle off 
 his arm before any one could hinder him : and, ' sure enouojh,' 
 says the throoper, says he, ' this is a serviceable sort of a saddle ; 
 but what makes it so heavy, I wondher !' 
 
 " ' Huth, that's the virtue of it,' answered Dick, snapping it 
 back again. And then he and Aby went up the laddher to the 
 loft, and staid there a long while, whispering over agin. 
 
 *' No one had come down, when the throoper said he would walk 
 out a bit to sthretch his long legs, afther his hard day's ride, be- 
 fore he went to bed. ' He's slipping out to lie in wait for them, 
 Mike,' says Biddy to the husband — let you step out, too, and who 
 knows but you might have a share of what's going. And many a 
 time she bid him thry his fortune ; but Mike Murphy was a quiet 
 man, and staid where hie was. 
 
ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 239 
 
 " While they were talking under their breath, Dick ran bouldly 
 down the laddher, and, looking pleasantly at them, and speaking 
 as if he wanted to make no great secret of anything, except the 
 real spot where the money was, said, ' Now for it !' and darted 
 out of the house. The man and wife sat at the fire, going on with 
 their gosther. Aby soon made one among them agin. In a short 
 half-hour's time, Dick came in, rubbing his hands, and dancing 
 about, now on one leg, now on another. ' You have found the 
 place ?' asked Aby. 
 
 *' ' The very place, sure enough,' says Dick. * And honest 
 people, we'll tell you. Lend us a spade, a crow, and a pick-axe, or 
 borrow them for us from the neighbours, and wait here till we go 
 try our luck — 'twould be unmannerly for any one to follow us — 
 and, according to what we may find, ye will be the better of your 
 civility.' And no sooner said than done : Mike and Biddy got the 
 things they asked for in a jiffy, and out they went together, strip- 
 ping off their coats and waistcoats to be ready for their work, 
 
 " For the hundredth time, ay, and more, Biddy wanted Mike 
 to stale easy afther them ; but she couldn't get him to stir, ' Well, 
 then, salvation to me, but I'll have an eye afther them myself,' says 
 she ; and, putting on her cloak, she was as good as her word, sure 
 enough, crossing the trassel, and leaving Mike alone at the fire. 
 
 " The place, above all others, nigh at hand, that a body would 
 dhrame of finding money in, was an ould castle, built by the thieves 
 of Danes the time they had all Ireland to themselves, before Brian 
 Boru the Great dhruve them all into the say, at Clont^rf, like a 
 flock of half -starved wolves. And Biddy Murphy was not the 
 woman to forget that same the moment she left her house, but 
 sthraight away she bent her steps to the ould four walls. Round 
 about the narrow window-holes, and the low doorway, she went 
 peeping like a cat ; and it was easy for her to see the Kerry men 
 inside on the ground floor. But they were not digging, and did 
 not seem as if they were much in earnest about going to dig — not 
 at all ; but there they sat, side by side, on the big, loose stones 
 that had tumbled in from the top of the castle, and the moon 
 shining strong on them through the doorway. And Biddy thought 
 they were only listening, as if to hear some footstep they expected 
 might come, laughing low to one another, andlooking very 'cute 
 and knowledgable all the time. 
 
 " And at last she heard one of them say to the other, with a 
 big curse — asking your pardon, genteels — * The hussey ! won't she 
 stale over here to watch us, afther all ? If she doesn't, half our 
 good plan fails.'* 
 
240 ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 
 
 " * She will, man alive,' the other made answer — ' she's the 
 woman to do it, I tell you. Her husband is a gom (ass) — but 
 Biddy has the right curiosity in her.' 
 
 '^ Thank ye kindly, gossips,' says Biddy to herself, and faix 'tisn't 
 a bad guess ye have, no more than Mike Murphy ; and so here 
 goes to give ye a notion that I am here, but not that I know that 
 ye know anything about it.' For Biddy had it in her mind, in a 
 minute, that they wanted her to see them rise the treasure, and be 
 a witness for them that it was honestly dhramt of and come by. 
 And with that she stirred her feet among the weeds and rubbish, 
 outside o' the ould place where she stood, so that they might hear 
 her a little, which they did, at the same time, and then, with 
 signs to each other, the two rogues of the world began to clear 
 away the big stones, and to dig at last. 
 
 " They were but a short time at work, when Aby cried out, as 
 his spade sounded like music against something. * Here it is, by 
 the piper !' and down they threw their spades, and began to clear 
 round the treasure with their pickaxes, and, one by one, they drew 
 out of the earth a great many little tin cannisthers like. ' Goold 
 in them all 1 goold in every one o' them ! and the whole lot full to 
 the brim !' they said, dancing like wild men, the same that Dick 
 had done in the Fighting Cocks, according as they examined the 
 little cannisthers one afther another — * Goold enough to make rich 
 men and gentlemen of us, for ever and a day !' They went on, 
 ' Goold enough to buy a nate bit of land out of ould Ireland's 
 ground !" 
 
 " ' Yes,' said some one else that Biddy did not see at first — 
 ' Yes, but not for ye !' — and behold, ye genteels, with that the big 
 throoper came jumping down upon them, from a hiding-hole in the 
 ould Avail of the room, or whatever we are to call it, and his sword 
 in his hand, and his cross face, now looking terrible entirely. Down 
 he jumped, and rattled, jackboots, spurs and all, among the loose 
 stones ; and the first thing he made bould to do was to split poor 
 Aby's skull to the chin, before any one could say, — ' Don't, sir, 
 and I'll be obliged to you.' 
 
 " Biddy was goin' to screech murder, as loud as she could, when 
 something flew, whistling, — for all the world as if one of the good 
 people (fairies) did it — by her ear, and stopt her breath ; and to 
 tell the truth, she was more and more frightened at the noise of a 
 gua or pistol going ofi*, entirely at the same time : for it came into 
 her mind that it was the bullet she heard so close by her ear, and 
 that she had what might be called a great escape, for the same 
 
ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 241 
 
 rason. And the second Kerry man fin^d tbe shot, sure enough, at 
 the throoper, thinking to have revenge for his gossip's death ; only 
 he missed his mark, somehow. — And he dhrew another pistol from 
 his bosom, and presented it, when the throoper knocked it out of 
 his hand, and then they closed and had a brave wrastling match. 
 " Biddy now found her voice, and pillalooed, and clapt her hands, 
 and danced on her heels, at the narrow window-hole, enough to 
 bring down the remains of the ould castle on all their heads, though 
 she had not the thought, nor maybe the strength, to do a betted" 
 thing by far, that is, run home to Mike Murphy. 
 
 " ' Hould your tongue, woman!' cries the throoper to her, roaring 
 all the time that he was shaking the Kerry man, like a dog worrying 
 a rat — ' hould your foolish bastely tongue, and come in here to us ! 
 I am glad you came in time to bear witness.' 
 
 " ' Musha, and I'm in great request with yon one after another, 
 for bearing witness,' says Biddy; ' and what good can I do you^ 
 misther throoper, by giving a true account of what I have seen?' 
 '' ' Come in, and you shall learn,' he grumbled, and in speaking 
 these words he got the Kerry man on his face, and was strapping 
 his arms behind him. 
 
 " ' Come in ?' asked Biddy — ' come in to you, to be murdered, 
 as you are afther doing to one of my honest civil customers, and 
 are going to do wid the other ?' 
 
 " ' Fool of a woman !' roars the throoper, madder than ever — 
 * you do not know what you say ; — but I care little^ so you listen 
 to me, and heed me. The man I have cut down with my sword 
 was a great highway robber, and so is the man who lies bound at 
 my feet. For many years they have pursued their bad calling in 
 the south ; nor are their hands clane of the blood of some of the 
 people they plundered. They had gained a powei* of riches bj 
 their evil deeds, and thought to leave Ireland with it, and live like 
 grandees in a foreign counthry. But the government, and the 
 great gentlemen of the south, hearing of their plan, sent descriptions 
 of them, printed, all over Ireland, and to every port where thoy 
 could take shipping, in particular ; so that after many attempts, 
 they gave up their notion of going abroad, and laid another plan to 
 enjoy their riches at home. And it was this last plan that sent thcra 
 into Louth, a good distance from every place where they were well- 
 known, and set them upon inventing their story of the dhrame, at 
 your fire -side,' 
 
 '' ' Blessed hour, sir !' says Biddy, speakin<^ in through the split 
 in the ould wall — ' but how d d you come to know all this ? and did 
 
 B 
 
242 ILL GOr, ILL GONE. 
 
 not tliey find the threasure uigh to the spot you are standing on, at 
 any rate ?' 
 
 " ' He that hides can find/ the throoper made answer. ' Before 
 they left your home together, for this place, one of them came heie 
 alone, and put the goold into the ground, and haped stones over it. 
 I saw him at the work. Ay, and I suspected his intent before he 
 quitted your roof.' 
 
 '* 'You did, sir, did you ?' asked Biddy again. 
 
 " ' 1 did ; and from the moment that I took his saddle in my 
 hand, too, for it was almost as heavy as so much lead, by rason of 
 the goold that was hid in it. Ask me any other question you like/ 
 he went on spaking in a very slow, determined voice — ' any other 
 questions ; but be quick, my business must be finished.' 
 
 '' ' Why, then, it's only what I asked you before, sir,' says Biddy. 
 
 " ' That is,' says he, taking the word from her, ' how have I 
 come to know all the rest I have told you : you shall learn. 
 Afther the man, who now lies dead, had concealed the goold, he 
 Avent back for his comrade, and I remained where I was till they 
 came side by side, carrying their spades, and other things. Here 
 tiiey sat down to wait for you ; and from their discoorse together, 
 1 larned who and what they were : and the hopes they had that, 
 u})held by your evidence, the fable of their having found the 
 money, by virtue of a dhrame, might pass current in your super- 
 sti^hous nei;i;hbourhood. I also recollected a description of them, 
 which I had often read in the printed hue and cry raised afther 
 them, and not a doubt was left on my mind. Then my part was 
 soon taken. You have seen me go half through with it. Having 
 to face two bould men, both well armed, of course, 1 knew that it 
 behoved me to rid myself of one of them at the first blow.' 
 
 " And so you did, sir, to a sartainty — but who does the threa- 
 sure come to ?' says Biddy. 
 
 " ' To me ! — fool, I call you agin, for asking !' — cries the 
 throoper. ' Do you think a single man will dare what I have 
 dared for nothing ? Larn that the proclamation made for taking 
 these men gives all the money found in their hands to the person 
 who does its bidding on them, dead or alive, ay, and a good re- 
 ward besides. And so you may tell whom you like, that you have 
 seen me gather up my own / and saying these words, he stooped 
 down, sare euough, and put the little cannisthers into his pockets, 
 one afther another, as many as twenty of them. ' You are looking 
 at me, too,' he says agin, turning his eyes on the sham Kerry- 
 man, who, to tell the truth, was watching him mighty close; — 
 
ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 243 
 
 * but ' III got, ill gone/ you know, comrade. And come, now, 
 stand on your legs, and walk with me down to the village, till we 
 can see about sending you to be well looked afther ; help me, wo- 
 man, to lift him/ 
 
 " Biddy, none afeard, did as he bid her ; her mind not at all 
 asy on the head of which of them was the real robber, and which 
 not. But the throoper's story turned out to be true enough. 
 The man he had bound was sent to jail, put on his thrial, and 
 hanged, upon the oaths of many who knew him well, and there 
 was no law to take a single goold piece from the throoper ; but, as 
 he tould Biddy it would happen, he got more and more riches and 
 the greatest of praise, and who but he from that day out. And, 
 now, genteels, ye'll be guessing the throoper's name, afore I tell it 
 to ye ; and, sure enough it was M'Cass; the very M'Cass that 
 bought all the land in these parts, and was the great Square M'Cass 
 among us. And ' 111 got, ill gone,' was his word to the bould 
 highwayman ; but men and women are now living that can say 
 the same word of himself ; for, afther the first spurt of his good 
 luck, nothing went right with him ; he soon became a struggling 
 man, canting (selling), and dhriving, early and late, to make both 
 ends meet for the keeping up of his big house, and his hounds, and 
 his horses, and his ladies. Ay, and a sorowful man he was, too ; 
 without wife or child, kith or kin, true friend or kind neighbour ; 
 and so he spent his life, and so he died ; in poverty he was put 
 into the ground, without any Christian show of a funeral, without a 
 tongue to Jceenth (wail) him, or a hand to fix a stone at his head. 
 And people have it, that the night he departed. Square M'Cass 
 talked as if the man he cut down in the ould castle was sitting by 
 his bed-side ; and that the last saying heard from his lips was his 
 own saying of ould — '111 got, ill gone — 111 got, ill gone' — repeated 
 over, and over, till he was stifl?' 
 
 THE END OF ILL GOT, ILL GONE. 
 
THE CHURCII-YAED WATCH. 
 
TPIE CHUECH-YAED WATCH. 
 
 The dead are watched lest the living should prey on them. A 
 strange alliance of the living with Death 1 — that his kingdom and 
 sovereignty may remain untrenched upon* In different parts of 
 England we have seen watch-houses, almost entirely composed of 
 glass, built in lonesome church-yards, of which generally the 
 parish sexton, and perhaps his dog, are the appointed nightly 
 tenmts ; with liberfey, ceded or taken, to leave their dull lamp in 
 the watch-box, and roam, here and there, at their pleasure, 
 among the graves, until day-light. What stern necessities man 
 forces upon man ! There can scarce be a more comfortless lot, or, 
 making allowance for the almost in-born shudderings of the human 
 heart, a more appalling one, than that of the poor grave scooper 
 or bell-puller who is thus doomed to spend his night, summer and 
 winter. Habit, indeed, may eventually blunt the first keenness 
 of his aversion, if not terror: he may serve a due apprenticeship 
 to horrors, and learn his trade. After a thousand secret and un- 
 owned struggles to seem brave and indifferent, he may at last 
 grow callously courageous. His flesh may cease to creep as he 
 strides on, in his accustomed round, over the abodes of the silent 
 and mouldering, and hears his own dull footstep echoed through 
 the frequent dreary hoUowness beneath. But what has he gained 
 now, beyond the facility of earning his wretched crust for himself 
 and his crying infants ! We have seen and spoken with one who 
 seemed to have lost, in the struggle with conquered nature's espe- 
 cial antipathy, most of the other sympathies of his kind. He had a 
 heavy, ox-like expression of face ; he would scarce speak to his 
 neighbours when they passed him at his door, or in the village 
 street ; his own children feared or disliked him., and did not smile 
 nor whisper in his presence. We have watched him into the 
 church-yard, at his usual hour, after night-fall : when he began to 
 stalk about there, he appeared to be in closer fellowship with the 
 dead he watched, than with the f^ir existence which he scarce 
 more than nominally shared. It was said, indeed, that, upon his 
 
248 THE CHURCII-YARD WATCH. 
 
 initiation, at a tender age and under peculiar circumstances, into 
 his profession of church- yard watchman, temporary delirium had 
 prepared him for its regular and steady pursuit ever since. That, 
 although he showed no symptoms of distinct insanity, when ho 
 knew hira, tlte early visitation had left a gloom on his mind, and a 
 thick, nerveless insensibility in his heart, which at forty-five, forraetl 
 his character. In iact, we learned a good deal about him, for every 
 one talked of him — and, as has been hinted, much of that good deal 
 from himself, to say nothing of his wife, in his absence. If he did 
 not deliberately invent fables of his past trials, for the purpose of 
 gratifying a little mockery of our undisguised interest, as mad as 
 the maddest bedlamite he must have been upon the occasion alluded 
 to. Nay, to recount, v\ith a grave face (as he did) the particulars 
 of the delusions of his time of delirium, did not argue him a very 
 sound-minded man at the moment he gave us his confidence. We 
 are about to tell his story at length, in our own way, however : 
 that is, we shall try to model into our own language what his 
 neighbours, his spouse, and his own slow-moving and heavy lips 
 have, from time to time, supplied us with. 
 
 He was the only child of an affectionate find gentle-manneied 
 father, who died when he was little more than a boy, leaving V\m 
 sickly and piuing. His mother wept a month, mourned three 
 months more — and was no longer a widow. Her second hus- 
 band proved a surly fellow, who married her little fortune rather 
 than herself, as the means of keeping his quart-pot filled, almost 
 from morning to night, at the village Tap, where he played good- 
 fellow and politician to the expressed admiration of all his comr 
 panions. He had long been the parish sexton, and took up his post 
 night after night, in the church-yard. Little fear had he of what 
 lie might see there. He had out-grown his fears ; — or, if he thought 
 or felt of the matter, the lonely debauch which he was known to 
 make in that strange banquet-place, served to drug him into obli- 
 viousness. He deemed his duty — or he said and swore he- did — 
 only a tiresome and slavish one, and hated it just as he hated daily 
 labour. And — as he declared and harangued at the Tap — he hacJ 
 long ago forsworn it, only that it paid him well. But now that his 
 marriage made his circumstances easier, he was determined to 
 drink alone in the church-yard no longer. He fed an idle, useless 
 lad at home, who with his dog — as idle as he — roamed and loitered 
 about, here and there, and -lad never yet done a single thing to earn 
 his bread. But it was full time that both were taught the bless- 
 ings of industry ; and he woidd teach thum. Why should not Will 
 
THE CHURCH-YARD WATCH. 249 
 
 take his place in the watchbox, and so keep the shillings in the 
 family ? His friends praised his views, one and all, and he grew 
 thrice resolved. 
 
 Returned the next morning from his nocturnal charge, he reeled 
 to bed in solemn, drunken determination. He arose, towards 
 evening, only half reclaimed by sleep to ordinary sense, and set 
 about his work of reformation. He ate his meal in silence, turned 
 from the table to the fire without a word, looked at the blaze, 
 grimly contemplative. " Where is that truant now ?'* he asked 
 suddenly of his wife. " Down by the marshes with his eur, I 
 suppose ; or gone a-nutting, or lying stretched in the sun, the two 
 idlers together. What 1 — and must I work and work, and strive 
 and strive — I, I, for ever — and will he never lend me a hand ? Go 
 where he likes, do what he likes, and laugh and fatten on my labour?" 
 
 '' Master Hunks," said the wife, " Will is sickly, and won't fat- 
 ten on either your labour or mine — not to talk ot his own. You 
 know 'tis a puny lad, and wants some favour yet a-while. With 
 God's help, and ours, he may be stronger soon." 
 
 Will and his dog here came in. From w^hat followed, this even- 
 ing, it will be seen, that the ill-fated lad promised, in early youth, 
 to be of an open, kindly, intelligent character, very different indeed 
 from that in which we found him husked up, at five-and-forty. 
 
 He saluted his step-father, and sat down quietly near the fire. 
 His poor dumb companion — friend of his boyhood, and his father's 
 j;ift — coiled himself up before the blaze, and prepared so surrender 
 his senses to happy sleep, interspersed with dreams of all the 
 sports he had enjoyed with his master that day. Hunks, his eye 
 glancing from one object of dislike to the other, kicked the harm- 
 less brute, who jumped up, yelping in pain and bitter lamentation, 
 and ran for shelter under Will's chair. Will's pale cheek broke 
 out into colour, his weak eye sparkled. " Why is my poor dog 
 beaten ?" he cried shrilly. 
 
 '' The lazy cur !" said Hunks — " he was in my way, and only 
 got paid for idleness." 
 
 '' 'Twas ill done," resumed Will — " he was my father's dog, and 
 my father gave him to me. If my father were alive and well, he 
 would not hurt hiai, nor see him hurt 1" — Tears interrupted his 
 sudden fit of spirit. 
 
 '' Cur, as much as he is !" retorted Hunks — " do you put upon 
 me, here at my owni fire-side? Yoti are the idler — you — and he 
 only learns of jou — and I hadn't ought to have served him out, 
 and you so near me." 
 
SoO THE CHURCH- YARD WATCH. 
 
 " It lias been God's will," said the boy, " to keep my strength 
 from me." 
 
 " Be silent and hear me !" roared Hunks — " this is your life, I 
 say — playinoj truant for ever. And what is mine, and your own 
 good mother's here ?" 
 
 " Master Hunks," pleaded the wife — " God knows I don't 
 grudge nothing I can do for my poor Will's sake." 
 
 " And you — not a word from you either, Missis !" grunted 
 Hunks — " I am put upon by one and t'other of you — ye sleep in 
 comfort every night, and leave me to go a-watching, out o' doors, 
 there, in all weathers. But stop a bit, my man, it shan't be this 
 w\ay much longer. I'll have my natural rest in my bed, some time 
 or other, and soon. And you must earn it for me." 
 
 " How, father ? how can I earn it ?" asked Will — " I would if 
 I could — but how ? I hav'n't learnt no trade, and you know as 
 well as any one knows it, I am not able to work in the fields or 
 on the roads, or get my living any one way." 
 
 " Then you can sit still and watch — that's light work," mut- 
 tered Hunks. 
 
 " Watch !" cried mother and son together — " watch what ? and 
 where ? or whom ?" 
 
 " The dead folk in the church-yard." *t 
 
 " Heaven defend me from it 1" cried poor Will, clasping his 
 hands and falling back in his chair. 
 
 *' Ay, and this very night," continued the despot. "• This very 
 night you shall mount guard in my place, and I shall have my law- 
 ful sleep, what the whole parish cries shame on me for not having 
 months ago." 
 
 *' Master Hunks, 'twill kill the boy!" cried the mother, in agony. 
 
 " Missis — don't you go for to cross me so often 1" — remonstrated 
 her husband, with a fixed look, which, short as they had been one 
 flesh, she had reason to understand and shrink at. *' Come, my 
 man, stir yourself. 'Tis time you were at the gate ; the church ^ 
 clock has struck; they will expect us." He interrupted himself in ; 
 a great rage, and with a great oath. " But here I keep talking, 
 and the cur never minds a word I say ! — Come along 1" 
 
 *' Don't lay hands on him !" screamed the mother as he strode J 
 towards the boy. " What I have often told you, has come to passl 
 Master Hunks — you have killed him !" 
 
 Hunks scoffed at the notion, although, indeed. Will's hands ha 
 fallen helplessly at his side, and his chin rested on his breast, whil^ 
 his eyes were closed, and his lips apart. But he had only becomrf 
 
THE CHUPiCH-YlRD WATCH. 251 
 
 inreusible from terror acting on a weak frame. Sighs and groars 
 soon gave notice of returning animation. His mother earnestly b* - 
 sought their tyrant to go on his night's duty, and, at least till the 
 following night, leave her son to her care. Half in fear of having 
 to answer for a murder, incredulously as he affected to speak, 
 Hunks turned out of the house, growling and threatening. 
 
 " Is he gone ?" asked Will, when he regained his senses— ^" gone 
 not to come back ?" Having heard his mother's gentle assur- 
 ances, be let his head fall on her shoulder, weeping, while he con- 
 tinued : — 
 
 " Mother, mother, I could not bear it for an hour ! The dread 
 I am in of it was born with me ! When I was a child of four 
 years I had dreams of it, and I remember them to this day ; they 
 used to come in such crowds round my cradle ! As I grew up, you 
 saw and you know my weakness. I could never sit still in the 
 dark, nor even in the daylight out of doors in lonesome places. Now 
 in my youth — a lad— almost a man — I am ashamed to speak of 
 my inward troubles. Mother, you do not know me — I do not 
 know myself ! I walk out sometimes down by the river, and, lis- 
 tening to the noise of the water over the rocks, where it is shallow, 
 and to the rustling of the trees as they nod in the twilight, voices 
 and shrieks come round me. Sometimes they break in my ears — 
 and I have turned to see what thing it was that spoke, and thought 
 some grey tree at my side had only just changed and become mo- 
 tionless, and seemed as if, a moment before, it had been something 
 else, and had a tongue, and said the words that frightened me ! — 
 " Oh, it was but yesterday evening I ran home from the banks of 
 the river, and felt no heart within me till I had come in here to the 
 fire-side, and seen you moving near me ! 
 
 " You know the lone house all in ruins upon the hill — I fear it, 
 mother, more than my tongue can tell you I I have been taken 
 through it, in my dreams, in terrible company, and here I could 
 describe to you its bleak apartments, one by one — in vaults, pitch 
 dark, and half-filled with stones and rubbish, and choked up with 
 weeds, its winding, creeping staircases, and its flapping windows — 
 I know them all, though my feet never yet crossed its threshold ! 
 Xever, mother — though I have gone near it, to enter it, and see if 
 what I had dreamt of it was true — and I went in the first light of 
 the morning ; but when close by the old door-way, the rustle of 
 the shrubs and weeds startled me, and I thought — but sure that was 
 fancy — that some one called me in by name. Then I turned and 
 raced down the hill, never looking back till I came to the madow- 
 
252 THE CHURCH-YAKD WATCH. 
 
 ground where cows and sheep are always grazing, and heard the 
 4ogs barking in the town, and voices of the children at play 1" 
 
 " Will, my king," said his mother, soothingly, " this is all mere 
 childishness at your years. God is above us and around us ; and 
 even if evil and strange things are allowed to be on earth, he v/ill 
 shield us from all harm. Arouse up like a man ! for, indeed, yuur 
 time of boyhood is passing — nay, it has passed with other lads not 
 much older. Only you have been poorly and weakly from your 
 cradle, Will. Come, go to sleep ; and before you lie down, pray 
 for better health and strength to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow !" he repeated — '' and did my step-father say any- 
 thing of to-morrow ?" 
 
 His mother answered him evasively, and he resumed, — " Ofa, 
 how I fear to-morrow ! — oh, mother, you have loved me, and you 
 do love me — for my weakness, my ill-health, and my dutifulness. 
 And you loved my father. Oh ! for his sake as well as mine, mo- 
 ther keep me from what I am threatened with. Keep me from it, if 
 you would keep me alive another day !" 
 
 After spending a miserable night, he stole ont of the house next 
 morning, and wandered about the private walks adjacent to the 
 town, until he thought his father might have arisen and taken his 
 usual walk to the Tap. But as the lad was about to re-enter the 
 house. Hunks met him at the threshold. Will shrank back ; to 
 liis surprise and comfort, however, his fears now seemed ill-founded. 
 The man bade him good morrow in as cheerful and kind a tone as 
 ho could command, shook his hand, tapped him on the head, and 
 left the house. Delighted, though still agitated. Will sought his 
 mother within doors, told her his good omens, and spent a happy 
 day. At dinner, too, notwithstanding Hunks' presence, the mo- 
 ther and son enjoyed themselves, so amiable had the despot become, 
 at least in appearance. 
 
 When their meal was over. Hunks, as if to attain the utmost 
 civility, invited Will to go out with him for a walk by the river — 
 " and let's have Barker (Will's dog) for company," continued 
 Hunks. " He may show us sport with a rat, or such like. Will." 
 
 Accordingly the three strolled out together, Will leading the 
 way by many a well-known sedge or tuft of bushes, or undermined 
 bank, the resorts of the water-rat, and sometimes of the outlaw 
 otter ; and Barker upheld his character, by starting, hunting down, 
 and killing one of the first-mentioned animals. As twilight came 
 on, they turned their faces towards the little town. They entered 
 it. Its hum of life was now hushed ; its streets silent, and almost 
 
THE CHVRCH-YARD WATCH. 253 
 
 deserted ; its doors and windows barred and bolted, and the sounds 
 of the rushing river and the thumping mill were the only ones 
 which filled the air. The clock pealed ten as they continued their 
 way. Hunks had grown suddenly silent and reserved. Thej passed 
 the old Gothic church, and now were passing the gate which led 
 into its burial-ground. Hunks stopped short. His grey, cruel eye 
 fell on the lad — " Will," he said, " I be thinking we've walked 
 enough for this time." 
 
 "Enough, indeed — thank you for -your company — and good 
 night, father," answered Will, trying to smile, though he began to 
 tremble. 
 
 " Good night, then, my man — and here be your watch-light" — 
 and Hunks drew a dark lantern from his huge pocket. 
 
 " Nay, I want no light home," said Will ; *' 1 know the way so 
 well. 'Tis not very dark ; and you know you can't do without it 
 on your post." 
 
 " My post !" Hunks laughed villanously — " your post you mean, 
 Will, Take it ; I be thinking I shall sleep sound to- night without 
 a dead-light — as if I were a corpse to need it. Come along." 
 
 "You cannot have the heart to ask me !" cried Will, stepping 
 back. 
 
 " Pho, my man" — Hunks clutched him by the shoulder with one 
 hand, with the other unlocked the gate and flung it open — " In with 
 you ! You'll Hke it so in a few nights, you'll wish no better post. 
 The dead chaps be civil enough ; only treat them well, and let them 
 walk awhile, and they make very good company." He dragged 
 Will closer to the gate. 
 
 " Have mercy " shrieked the wretched lad, trying to kneel, " or 
 kill me first, father, to make me company for them, if that will 
 please you." 
 
 " Get in !" roared the savage — " get in ! — Ay, hollo out, and 
 twist about, so, and I'll pitch your shivering carcass half-way across 
 the church-yard !" He forced him in from the gate. Stop a bit, 
 now — there be your lantern," — He set it down on a tombstone — 
 " Good night — yonder 's your box — just another word — don't you 
 be caught strolling too near the murderer's corner^ over there, or 
 you may trip and fall among the things that turn and twine on the 
 ground, like roots of trees, to guard him." 
 
 With a new and piercing shriek, Will clung close to his tor- 
 mentor. Hunks, partially carrying into effect a threat he had ut- 
 tered, tore the lad's hands away, tossed him to some distance, 
 strode out at the gate, locked it, and Will was alone with horror. 
 
254 THE CHUKCH-YARD WATCH. 
 
 At first an aQguish of fear kept him stupified and stationary. 
 He had fallen on a freshly piled grave, to which mechaiiicaliy his 
 fingers clung and his face joined, in avoidance of the scene around. 
 But he soon recollected what clay it was he clung to, and at the 
 thought, he started up, and glanced shrinkingly about him. High 
 walls quite surrounded the church-yard, as if to part him from the 
 habitable world. His lamp was burning upon the tombstone where 
 Hunks had placed it — one dim red spot amid the thick darkncHr. 
 The church clock tolled eleven. It ceased ; his ears ached in uio 
 resumed silence : he listened and stared about him for what he 
 feared. Whispers seemed to arise near him ; he ran for his lamp, 
 snatched it up, and instinctively hurried to the watch-box. How 
 he wished it made of solid rock ! — for it was chiefly framed of 
 glass, useless as the common air to his terrors ! He shut his eyes, 
 and pressed his palms upon them — vain subterfuge ! The fevered 
 spirit within brought before his mind's vision worse things than the 
 church-yard could yawn up, were all that superstition has fancied of 
 it true. He looked out from his watch-box in refuge from himself. 
 
 That evening a half-moon had risen early, and, at this mo- 
 ment, was sinking in gathering clouds behind distant hills. As 
 he vaguely noticed the circumstance, he felt more and more deso- 
 late. Simultaneously with the disappearance of the planet, the 
 near clock began again to strike — he knew not what hour ! Each 
 stroke smote his ear as if it would crack the nerve ; at the last 
 sound he shrieked out, delirious ! He had a pause from agony, 
 then a struggle for departing reason, and then he was at rest. 
 
 At day-break his step-father found him asleep. He led him home. 
 Will sat down to breakfast, smiling, but did not speak a word. 
 Often, during the day, his feverish eye turned to the west ; why, 
 his mother could not tell, until, as the evening made up her couch 
 of clouds there, drawing around her the twilight for drapery, lie 
 left the house with an unusually vigorous step, and stood at the 
 gate of the church-yard. Again he took up his post. Again the 
 hour of twelve pealed from the old church, but now he did not 
 fear it. When it had fully sounded, he clapped his hands, 
 lauo^hed, and shouted. 
 
 The whispers he had heard the previous night — small, cautious 
 whispers — came round him again ; first from a distance, then 
 nearer and nearer. At last he shaped them into words. " Let 
 us walk," they said ; " though he watches us, he fears us." He! 
 'twas strange to hear the dim dead speak to a living man, of him- 
 self ! The boy laughed at the fancy, and replied to them : — 
 
THE CHURCH-YARD WATCH. 255 
 
 " Ay, come! appear! I give leave for it. Ye are about in 
 crowds, I know, uot yet daring to take up your old bodies till I 
 please. But up w^ith them ! Graves, split on, and yield me my 
 subjects ! Am I not King of the church- yard ? Olbey me ! ay, 
 now your mouths gape — and what a yawning ! Are ye musical, 
 too ? — a jubilee of groans ! Out with it, in the name of Death ! 
 Blast it about like giants carousing ! 
 
 " Well blown ! Now a thousand heads pop up at once — their 
 eyes fixed on mine, as if to ask my further leave for a resurrec- 
 tion. They know I am good-humoured now, and grow upward, 
 accordingly, like a grove of bare trees that have no sap in them. 
 And now they move — passing along in rows, like trees that glide ■ 
 by one on a bank, while one sails merrily down the river. Yet 
 all is still ! See others stand bolt upright against their own head- 
 stones to contemplate. I wonder what they think of ! Move! 
 move ! young, old, boys, men, pale girls, and palsied grand- 
 mothers — my church-yard can never hold 'em ! Yet, how they 
 pass each other from corner to corner ! I think they make way 
 through one another's bodies, as they do in the grave. They'll 
 dance anon. Minuets, at least. Why, they begin already ! And 
 what partners ! That tall, handsome young officer takes out our 
 village witch-of-the-wield — she that died at Christmas. Our last 
 rector smirks to a girl of fifteen — ha ! ha ! Yon tattered little 
 fellow is a radical, making a leg to the old duchess ! Music ! 
 music ! Go, some of you that look on there, and toll the dead- 
 bell ! Well done ! they tie the murderer to the bell-rope by the 
 neck (though he was hanged before), and the bell swings out mer- 
 lily ! But what face is here ?" 
 
 It was the vision of a child's face, which he caught staring at 
 him through the glass of his watch-box — the face of an only 
 brother who had died young. The wretch's laughter changed 
 into tears and low wailings. By the time that his mother came 
 to seek him^ just at day-break^ he was, however, again laughing; 
 but in such a state as to frighten mirih from her heart and lips 
 till the day she died. As has been said, symptoms of positive 
 insanity did not long continue to appear in his words or actions ; 
 jet, when he recovered, there was still a change in him — a dark 
 and disagreeable change, under the inveterate confirmation of 
 which, the curious student of human nature may, at this moment, 
 obierve him in his native village. 
 
 THE END OF THE CHURCH- YARD WATCH. 
 
 m 
 
i 
 
THE LAST OF TEE STORE 
 
 i 
 
THE LAST OF THE STOEM. 
 
 At a very early hcur of a July mornings an admirer of the pic- 
 turesque stood alone upon the top of a hill, on a spot best calcu- 
 lated to give him a bird's-eye view of the town in which he was 
 a temporary resident, together with its adjacent scenery. The 
 prospect he commanded was indeed most pleasing, notwithstanding 
 that some blotches occasionally offended the eye, and produced 
 disagreeable associations in the mind. 
 
 The extensive "haunt of men," containing twenty thousand 
 souls, peeped out, here and there, about a mile distant, through 
 groves, gardens, and orchards, mixed up with its out-skirts, and 
 through more rural foliage between him and them. The river that 
 ran under its bridges from a remote hill-source, widened as it ap- 
 proached the stranger; uplands sloped from behind it ; all around 
 to a great distance the countiy was spotted with villas and man- 
 sions, and relieved with masses of trees, rich and abundant for an 
 Irish landscape, though somewhat meagre if compared with a pa- 
 rallel scene in woody England. Beyond them, from twenty to forty 
 miles off, towered blue mountains — shapeless, excepting in the 
 general outline ; blank, pale ; the mere spectres of what, in reality, 
 they were. Upon their peaks alone the rising sun had begun to 
 shine, whilst all the rest of the picture remained untouched by his 
 beams, though visible in their promise ; — not vague in twilight, 
 but distinct and fresh, however cool. A white mist curled up at 
 different points of the wide-spread slopes, the river grey and dim, 
 showing only black wrinkles where at noon-tide it used to sport its 
 dimples, and interweave its maze of little lines of light. 
 
 The dark spots of this fair view remain now to be noticed. Part 
 of the suburbs of the town consisted of dingy ruins : cabins, and 
 small-farm houses beyond them appeared half-burned. No cattle 
 grazed or sauntered, or reclined in their trampled pasturages — few, 
 indeed, could be seen over the whole landscape. In other fields, 
 hay had rotted, and wheat and barley were going to decay for want 
 of the sickle. Many mills upon the brink of the river, or of its tri» 
 
 k 
 
260 THE LAST OF THE STORM. 
 
 butary streamlets, showed signs of recent and present idleness ; 
 before one of them, which the stranger knew had lately been con- 
 verted into a temporary barrack, a sentinel was pacing. These and 
 other things indicated that civil war, not yet quite subdued, had 
 recently visited, in its bitter wrath, one of the fairest districts of his 
 country. In fact, it was the end of July, 1 798. 
 
 " But the storm is about to pass away," said he, " never again, 
 I hope, to gather on our hills and desolate our plains. A few weeks 
 more, and in this town and county, at least, we shall be amenable to 
 our own civil magistrates, and not to the arbitrary administrators of 
 martial law. A few days more, and our sisters, wives, and daugh- 
 ters, need not tremble through the livelong night, cowering together 
 like wood-pigeons from the hawk. A few days more, and you, my 
 Bessie, now dreaming of me, I hope, in yonder garrisoned town, 
 may be permitted to accept of my protection.'* 
 
 Indulging the last feeling, he employed himself, lover-like, in 
 trying to make out, among the different groups of houses that broke 
 through the foliage in and beyond the town, the identical roof under 
 which he imagined his fair dreamer to slumber, when he heard 
 shrill cries from a bye-road that skirted the hill upon which he 
 stood, although its convex sweep was so abrupt as to hide that road 
 from his view. Suddenly the cries were hushed — then came a 
 clashing of weapons, from the same quarter. IndiflPerent to the 
 danger of interfering, in such times, in an unknown quarrel, he has- 
 tened to the road, not, indeed, by plunging directly downward from 
 the spot on which he had been standing, which was impracticable, 
 but by running along the hiirs ridge towards the town until he 
 gained a path which, winding obliquely over its bosom, would 
 tardily usher him upon the road, at a point considerably above the 
 spot he was so anxious to gain. 
 
 Before he had got half way down, the clashing ceased, as the cries 
 had previously done. He stopped to listen in the boreen ; — horse- 
 men approached him, yet hidden by a turn of the road. Prudence 
 now qualified his first chivalrous ardour, and he secreted himself 
 behind a fence. Presently, two Hessians, belonging to a regiment 
 quartered in the town, came slowly up to his hiding-place. They 
 were conversing in their own language, with which he was ac- 
 quainted ; and their first words strongly interested him. They came 
 close — he held his breath to catch every syllable they uttered, and 
 just as they passed, he ventured, for a reason drawn from their dis- 
 course, to glance observantly, though cautiously, at them. He be- 
 came satisfied, so far ; — the face of one bled profusely ; the right 
 
THE LAST OF THE STORM. 261 
 
 arm of the other was bound up, and hung disabled at his side. Sooa 
 after clearing his ambush, the Hessians trotted brisklj towards the 
 town. He jumped over the fence, and, greatly excited, ran along 
 the road in the direction they had come. He arrived at a stile, 
 leading into a pasture-field, which belonged, as he was aware, to a 
 farm-house, distant some fields more from it, and skirting a little 
 retired hamlet — almost the only one in the immediate district still 
 free from the visitations of civil war. The mark of horses' hoofs 
 on the dust near the fence, recently impressed, made him pause at 
 this spot. He vaulted over the stile, and remarked, even dming his 
 quick transit, that it was bloody. At' the end of a path running 
 from it, he saw two cows standing together holding down their 
 heads ; a pail, overturned, was near them ; and beyond them 
 were some men and women, with eyes bent upon the ground. A 
 few bounds brought him into the midst of the group, and he now 
 «aw what he had expected — the poor owner of the pail lying sense- 
 less, if not dead, on the grass; her head bruised, and a severe 
 wound in her neck. 
 
 He called on the bystanders for an explanation — one and all, 
 they professed complete ignorance of the accident. They had only 
 heard screams at some distance ; and when, after waiting for each 
 other to advance in a body, they arrived on the spot, they saw no 
 one — nothing, in short, but the poor girl lying there, her pail upset, 
 her milk spilled, and the two cows standing over her ; and ^' she 
 could not yet spake for herself, if it was the Lord's will that she 
 was ever to spake agin at all ;" but one of the women surmised 
 that " Brown Beck, the young cow wi* the sharp horns, that now 
 an' then was a giddy, cross-grained cow, might have done the mis- 
 chief, for as sorry as she now looked on the head of it." 
 
 The cateehist did not regret the ignorance of the peasants, and 
 with praiseworthy caution, resolved not to make them wiser on the 
 subject. He only assisted in conveying the wounded milk-maid to 
 th« farm-house, having first dispatched a messenger for a surgeon. 
 The girl moaned when they stirred her, but gave no sign of con- 
 sciousness. Her new friend saw her laid on a bed, and taking the 
 dame of the bouse aside, soon convinced the good woman's under- 
 standing that, till the arrival of a surgeon, she alone ought to sit 
 by the sufferer's couch, and hear her explanation ; if, indeed, she 
 should be able to give one by that time. The next instant he was 
 on the road to the town. 
 
 In the suburbs he met the surgeon proceeding to visit his pa- 
 tient. It was most advisable to make a confidant of this gentle- 
 
ie2 T^HE LAST OF THE STORM. 
 
 man, also ; accordinglj, our young acquaintance stopped hina, re- 
 peated much of what he had said to the farmer's wife, obtained 
 the assurances he wished, and walked quietly forward. 
 
 It did not surprise him to observe, at the entrance of the town, 
 groups of people looking around, as they conversed in a low tone, 
 and turned their heads and eyes in the direction which the two 
 bleeding Hessians must so very recently have taken. But, he was 
 startled^though expecting something of the kind, too — when, as 
 he gained the main-street, drums beat to arms, trumpets sounded 
 to the field, and soldiers of every description, regulars, militia, and 
 the local yeomen, hurried, obeying the summons, to a well-known 
 place of rendezvous. 
 
 He was received at the friend's house in which, for many 
 months, he had been a visitor, with a welcome that suggested that 
 his family had expected his return, in some alarm. His host, and 
 his host's son, stood at the back of the servant who opened the 
 door, and shook his hand warmly. A voice yet gentler than theira 
 whispered his name through a half-open door in the hall, and he 
 disappeared into the apartment to answer the summons as became 
 him. He did not lead Bessie Gordon to the breakfast-parlour until 
 he had made her the exclusive confidante of his morning's adven- 
 ture, detailing every circumstance very minutely, for her satisfac- 
 tion and assurance. 
 
 Breakfast was nearly over, when he asked — " And now, my 
 good friends, what is the meaning of the excitement in which I find 
 you all ?" 
 
 ** No one has told you, as you came along, Harry," said Mr, 
 Gordon. 
 
 '' No !" 
 
 " Then you have yet to hear disagreeable news. Two of the 
 Hessians of our garrison, on their way to General Sir A. D. with 
 despatches, this morning, have been attacked by a body of rebels, 
 who, unfortunately for me, seem to be composed of my tenantry 
 about Killane." 
 
 '• Ay !" cried Harry, drily. 
 
 " Ay, indeed, and the two poor fellows are badly hurt ; and 
 Sir A. D. is going to march out almost the whole garrison, to burn , 
 every cabin of the hamlet, if he cannot meet with the treacherous j 
 rascals." 
 
 " Ay !" repeated Harry, his brow knitting and his cheek red- ^ 
 dening, to the surprise of his host ; *' and have the poor fellows ! 
 described the appearance of the rebels, sir ? Were there any women j 
 among them ?" 
 
JHE LAST OF THE STORM. 263 
 
 " Why, yes, as is almost always the case : one of whom, the 
 men think, they have wounded." 
 
 " Ay !" again cried Harry, rising sternly. Here a party of horse 
 trotted up to the hall door, and a loud knocking resounded through 
 the house. 
 
 " The General," resumed Mr. Gordon — " following up his inti- 
 mation to me, even sooner than I expected." 
 
 *' What intimation, sir ?" 
 
 " That, before he proceeded to Killane, he would require my 
 opinion as to those of my tenantry there, most likely, from symp- 
 toms of previous disaffection, to have headed the insurrection this 
 morning." 
 
 " Mr. Gordon," resumed Henry, while they heard the General 
 and his party ushered into an adjoining room, " there is now no 
 time to inform you why I am very anxious to stand by your side 
 during this interview, but I particularly request you to afford me 
 that privilege." 
 
 " Henry Lane," answered his host, " your expression, when 
 you came home just now — the preference I know you have for that 
 morning walk towards Killane — ^your manner at breakfast — your 
 present request — all convince me you can say something about the 
 matter in question — is it so ?" 
 
 " It is, Mr. Gordon." 
 
 *' And you do not fear to stand by my side ?" 
 
 His young guest scouted the notion. 
 
 '* Although your old enemy. Kirk, is at the General's elbow ?" 
 
 " Although the devil, instead of a dear friend of his, were there, 
 Mr. Gordon." 
 
 They entered the GeneraFs presence together. He was a sharp 
 featured man ; having a military air certainly — but one of an in- 
 ferior kind. A scar through his lips, and down his chin, argued, 
 indeed, effective service ; but it also added to the ungentle expres- 
 sion of his countenance, and did not combat the presumption that 
 fitness of natural character, rather than high achievement in the 
 field, had recommended him to his late and present situation of de- 
 spotic chief, judge, and all but hangman, at a terrible and merciless 
 crisis. 
 
 At his right hand stood Mr. Sheriff Kirk — also Captain Kirk; 
 the second title having been conferred by a command in one of 
 the yeomanry corps of the town. He wore, of course, his military 
 uniform, and did not lack the air of a soldier. Nor were his cool 
 gre^y eyes, his yellow cheeks, and his steady mouth, evidences of 
 
2G4 THE LAST OF THE STORM, 
 
 a merely civil energy of official character.. A few words more, 
 glancing at his previous history, are required, for the knowledge 
 we need to have of this individual. 
 
 Ten years before he had kept a very humble shop in the town. 
 A large reward was offered for the apprehension of a notorious 
 robber. Mr. Kirk courageously issued into the country — returned 
 with the highwayman — got the reward — and never afterwards 
 knew a poor day. Under the patronage of the noble person who 
 dispensed corporate honours, he rose rapidly in the world. At the 
 breaking out of the Eebellion, no man could be more active in dis« 
 covering bidden traitors, and dragging them to justice ; some said, 
 indeed, that on the principle of " sure hide, sure find," he might 
 be supposed to be peculiarly adapted for the service. In the field, 
 as a yeomanry officer, his zeal was equally conspicuous. For in- 
 stance, after a skirmish with a band of United Irish, in a village 
 iome miles distant, two of the retreating peasants ran for shelter 
 into a thatched chapel on the road-side, and Mr, Kirk pursued 
 them, sword in hand, and dispatched the superstitious rebels on the 
 steps of their little altar. 
 
 Henry Lane, when his host presented him to Sir A. D., wondered 
 at the coldness of the General's bow. The undisguised sneer of 
 Mr. Kirk did not surprise him. Upon his arrival, as the visitor 
 of his father's oldest friend, Bessie Gordon was from home, and, 
 amid the mixed society of the town, a daughter of the Captain- 
 sheriff received at his hands more passing gallantry than perhaps 
 fell to the lot of the young ladies around her. Buc Bessie came — 
 looked — and conquered ; and, in consequence, Mr. Kirk and his 
 " darling child" chose to consider themselves ill-used people. Bud 
 we dare say the gentleman felt even more keenly a second injury, 
 Henry Lane had snatched from his gripe an innocent man, from 
 whose condemnation as a rebel, Mr. Kirk had expected to reap 
 peculiar advantages. 
 
 Mr. Gordon preferred his own and his young friend's request 
 that Harry might be permitted to remain during the interview 
 about to commence. The General and Mr. Kirk exchanged very 
 expressive glances : and while to Henry's increased amazement, 
 the former said — " Certainly ; though we could not suppose the 
 young gentleman would be so anxious about it,"— the latter, almost 
 to his consternation, smiled. 
 
 " In fact, sir," resumed Sir A. D., " our principal business here 
 is — ^making as little noise as possible — to desire you to consider 
 yourself a prisoner,'* 
 
THE LAST OF THE STORM. 265 
 
 " On what account ?*' asked Henry, 
 
 " Why, sir, we hope you may be able to tell us something of 
 the insurrection of this morning ; — you were observed on the road 
 to Killane, hiding behind a fence, when, as is presumed, you found 
 yourself likely to be overtaken by the retreating Hessians. 
 
 Henry Lane now asked another, and a very impolitic question ; 
 one that seemed almost to imply guilt ; instead of at once com- 
 municating the information it was his duty to submit. But his 
 curiosity to ascertain who had observed him, when he felt convinced 
 the Hessians had not, threw him off his guard. 
 
 " Observed ! by whom ?" — he demanded. 
 
 " I regret to say, by me, Mr. Lane," continued Captain Kirk ; 
 *' I happened to be in the fields, at your back." 
 
 " Then you dogged me, like the spy and informer you are, sir," 
 said the accused, giving way to youthful passion. He was severely 
 checked by the General, and advised to speak more to the point. 
 Much grieved and alarmed, his old host whispered him to be cool 
 and collected : this, as is sometimes the case with persons in his 
 situation, only made him less tractable. He vociferated ; — he ges- 
 ticulated ; — he unbuttoned his coat, violently ; — and there was an 
 exclamation from the General and his prime-minister, as both 
 pointed to a large blood stain on his waistcoat. Henry had re- 
 ceived it while assisting the unfortunate young woman to the farm- 
 house ; had buttoned his coat over it, as he returned to the town ;. 
 had almost forgotten it, since ; and had now unconsciously disclosed 
 it. Feeling aware how much it must tell against him, he became 
 silent and confused, and, to the scrutinizing eyes w^hich observed 
 him, appeared really guilty. 
 
 " Pray, Mr. Lane," continued Sir A. D., " inform us, at least if 
 you please, why you concealed yourself from the Hessians, and ia 
 what manner your waistcoat became soiled." 
 
 Courageously rallying, Henry said frankly what he had to say. 
 The General and Mr. Kirk again glanced at each other ; and the 
 former, shaking his head, expressed his regret that, in the very 
 improbable story submitted — and so tardily submitted — he saw 
 little that ought to keep the matter from the ordinary test of a 
 court-martial. 
 
 " Very well, sir," said Henry, " only send for the poor girl and 
 if she is able to attend" — (and his blood grew chill at the thought 
 that she might be dead, without having uttered a word !) " I can 
 laugh with scorn at the result." 
 
 The General believed that, whether she could attend or not, Mr. 
 
266 THE LAST OF THE STORM. 
 
 Lane would hardly be benefited ; it was already in evidence from 
 the two Hessians, that they had wounded one — and only one — of 
 the motly rabble ; that one a woman, and, necessarily, the witness 
 appealed to; and any convenient story she might tell, was scarcely 
 worth the trouble of sending for ; particularly as a dispatch to Kil- 
 lane must pnt the rebels on their guard against the intended attack. 
 * And," continued Sir A. D., " as we only await the closing of the 
 present case to march for their position." 
 
 AYell aware of the prompt manner in which the General had 
 hitherto deemed himself compelled to " close" such " cases" as 
 " the present," Henry again began to exclaim against his mode of 
 proceeding. " What ! is an innocent man to be destroyed by the 
 very villains he seeks to bring to justice ?" 
 
 Mr. Gordon, quite terrified, raised his voice in entreaties for 
 time and cool investigation. A whisper from the Captain- sheriff 
 disposed of his appeal ; and that gentleman then stepped out, and 
 retm-ned with two dragoons, who placed themselves at either side of 
 the prisoner. 
 
 " In the name of common sense !" still conjured Henry, " how 
 can I be supposed capable of the absurdity laid to my charge ? My 
 father's loyalty — as well known as are his rank and high character — 
 my friends here — the first in your town — free from all taint — • 
 how can suspicion fall on me ? /a rebel ! / join with rebels in 
 the fields !" 
 
 "Mr. Lane may recollect that his late zeal onbehalf of aknown 
 and marked rebel, might not have left motives quite unsuspected," 
 said Mr. Kirk. 
 
 " Silence, paltry fellow !" cried the accused. " Sir A. D., I have 
 but one remaining appeal to make from your court-martial — from 
 even your order for a court-martial — from even yourself, person- 
 ally — It is to the distinguished man who has been publicly ap- 
 pointed to succeed you in your command over us all ; understand, 
 therefore, distinctly, that I protest, in his name against your au- 
 thority, and demand to be left — a prisoner, if necessary — for his 
 disposal." 
 
 *' You will understand, in return, sir, that although the gallant 
 individual to whom you allude has, indeed, been nominated to relieve 
 me of my painful responsibilities, I retain, even with his assent, the 
 full powers they confer, until he personally requires a transfer of 
 them at my hands," answered Sir A. D. 
 
 " But accountable to him, surely, for the use of what can be but 
 delegated power, since his appointment," urged Mr. Gordon. 
 
THE LAST OF THE STORM. 267 
 
 " You mistake, sir," said the General. 
 
 " He is expected this very day," resumed Henry. 
 
 " He was ; but he is not, Mr. Lane. Two men of our garrison — 
 of whom you know something — brought me a despatch from him a 
 few hours ago, stating that, from a great anxiety to cultivate anew 
 
 an old friendship, he will stop and sleep at Lord N 's, on 
 
 the road to us. And so I have answered all your demands at 
 length, and, out of respect to your host, perhaps without consider- 
 ing the situation in which I am placed. Now, please to attend us 
 to the Court-house." 
 
 " Come, then !" cried the prisoner. " How could I have hoped 
 better from a man, whose cruelty, and not whose honourable ser- 
 vices, procured him his present butchering commission ; and who 
 dare not stand an appeal to the dignified commander, at length 
 selected to rescue us from his despotism of blood ? — " 
 
 " My old friend's son !" exclaimed Mr. Gordon, extending his 
 arms, as Henry was led out after the General and Mr. Kirk. A 
 shriek reached them ; and ere he could embrace the father, the 
 daughter was clinging to his neck. 
 
 " Fear nothing, Bessie — I am innocent." 
 
 " I know you are," answered the poor girl ; *' but is that a rea- 
 son why I should fear nothing ? Is that a reason why I should 
 forget the sights we have unwillingly seen. Oh ! Harry, remember 
 the horrible day, when, in less than an hour after he was dragged 
 
 from our table, we beheld poor young S led to their rooted 
 
 gibbet, opposite their court-house ! But you must be saved !— 
 how — how — what is to be done ?" 
 
 *' I will go to General K— — ," stammered Mr. Gordon, 
 who, since Bessie's appearance, had stood with his back against 
 the waU. Even while he spoke, he fell. His daughter, scream- 
 ing again, flung herself down by his side. The dragoons gained 
 the hall with their prisoner ; — she flew to him ; — they forced 
 her back. A second time she was at her father's side, now as in- 
 sensible as he ; and Henry, accompanied by her brother, proceeded 
 to the Court-house. 
 
 Lord N -'s mansion, at which General K was 
 
 spending the day, was about twelve miles distant from the town. 
 An hour and a half after the occurrences related, he stood with his 
 old friends before the steps of their hall-door, his hands behind his 
 back, his grey head bent towards his breast. The urbanity of a 
 gentleman, and the light of a good heart, cast a dignity over his 
 massive hard-marked features. A lady, followed by a servant, 
 
268 THE LAST OF THE STORM. 
 
 galloped up the avenue, seated on a spirited little steed, as was 
 evident from the animal's fiery though graceful motions. She wore 
 a riding-habit, but her head was bare — her hat had fallen from her 
 unheeded on the road ; and when she swept nearer, her golden hair 
 appeared flowing down her shoulders and around her face, young 
 and fair as the morning ; but like morning when its hues are 
 washed out by tears. She must have caught a view of the persons 
 she wished to see, at some distance, for she waved her light whip 
 before they could hear her voice. When the words she had long 
 been uttering grew at last distinct, she pronounced the General's 
 name. — He stepped forward. 
 
 '' For life and death. General K ! for life and death !" she 
 
 continued ; " and not a moment — and not a word to spare. Order 
 your horses, sir ! — you are deputed to act for Heaven, this day — 
 you alone ! — Come, sir, come !" 
 
 Amazed, admiring, sympathizing, and much excited, he prayed 
 an explanation. 
 
 " Not if you mean to act! not if you will discharge your duty ! 
 not if you shrink from murder done in your name ! — Your horses, 
 sir !" the girl cried wildly. 
 
 Overpowered by her contagions vehemence, he gave the orders 
 required. 
 
 '' The carriage !" said Lady N , whose pale cheeks and 
 
 streaming eyes bespoke the excitement in which she also observed 
 and listened — The carriage was in waiting, to take the party 
 through the grounds. 
 
 " Thanks," said the General ; " and it is better, if this young 
 lady must" — 
 
 " Must and will go back with you !" interrupted Bessie Gordon, 
 jumping from her saddle. Though almost stumbling, she was at 
 the carriage door before he could offer his arm. The next moment 
 they were whirled off, attended by the aides-de-camp, who had 
 been ready mounted to accompany him on a very different excur- 
 sion. 
 
 In broken sentences, Bessie now gave an explanation of her 
 hasty summons. Henry's confidential communication to her, before 
 breakfast, enabled her to detail the whole of his case. Her com- 
 panion listened most attentively. He inquired her lover's name. 
 Bessie at last burst into tears as she gave it. 
 
 " Why, I know him," said General K ; " at least, I know 
 
 his father ; and may have seen him, when a child, at his father's 
 table. He must be saved, even if he were guilty ; — but we shall see.** 
 
THE LAST OF THE STORM. 269 
 
 ** The time, sir ! the time !" sobbed Bessie ; *' and we go so 
 slow 1" — The horses were proceeding at full gallop. 
 
 The General spoke out of the window to an aide-de-camp, de- 
 siring him to push forward at the utmost speed of his charger, and 
 announce his approach to the court-martial. The young man, 
 stimulated by his interest for the beautiful and wretched Bessie 
 Gordon, as well as by zeal in the service of his beloved com- 
 mander, soon seemed to substantiate Bessie's charge against the 
 very best gallop the carriage horses could assume. They lost sight 
 of him in a few minutes." 
 
 " Is it over ?" was her question, addressed to the first stranger 
 she saw, as, an hour afterwards, the carriage rattled into the town ; 
 and twenty times she repeated it, although, either that it was not 
 understood or heard, or that the people feared to answer her, no 
 one replied. Approaching the Court-house, she leaned out of the 
 window, to look at the hideous gibbet ; — its rope wavered in the 
 breeze ; — no more. 
 
 " Look ! sir," she said, catching the General's arm, as she sank 
 into her seat ; '' what do you think — are we too late ?" 
 
 The carriage stopped ; — the door was instantly opened, and an 
 officer of the garrison appeared at it, saluting the General. 
 
 " My aide-de-camp, sir ?" asked the new commander, getting 
 down. 
 
 '^ I have the honour to await you here with a verbal despatch 
 from him," replied the officer. 
 
 '' Where is he, sir ?" asked Bessie, jumping to her old protector's 
 side, who repeated her question. 
 
 " He is gone forward to Killane, sir, fresh mounted." 
 
 " Then the court-martial has decided ?" continued Bessie. 
 
 " It has, madam." 
 
 " And Mr. Lane ?" 
 
 " Has been marched out with the troops, to undergo his sen- 
 tence, upon the spot where" — 
 
 The officer ceased speaking, as Bessie dropped at his feet. He 
 and the General raised her, and she was placed in her brother's 
 arms, who came running down the street. 
 
 " Fresh horses for us also, sir," said General K , addressing 
 
 the officer, as he pointed to his remaining aides-de-camp. While 
 his commands were being obeyed, he walked up and down an open 
 space before the court-house, his hands joined at his back, and his 
 head bent, as was customary with him. Other officers of the re- 
 fiidue of the garrison left in town, and several of the persons who, 
 
270 THE LAST OF THE STORM. 
 
 before the proclamation of martial law, had wielded civil autho- 
 rity, approached to pay their respects. Suddenly he stopped, and 
 glancing up at the gallows, said to the group generally, *' take that 
 down ; its day is over." Then he resumed his short walk, and 
 again stopping, and scowling at the triangle which appeared in a 
 corner of the space, added : " And down with that, too ; its day 
 had passed even before it was put up." 
 
 His horses were led out, and he and his aides-de-camp proceeded 
 towards Killane, by the narrow hill-road upon which Henry Lane 
 had seen the Hessians in the morning ; the officer of the garrison 
 riding in advance to show them the way. Approaching the ham- 
 let, they met the second officer, who had gone forward before them, 
 standing over the soiTy steed with which he had been supplied at 
 the town : the animal had fallen under him. After a i^w words 
 they passed him. 
 
 " Shall we come up with them, ?" asked General K of the 
 
 officer. 
 
 ** I should hope so, sir, unless they have marched at almost 
 double-quick time. Yet see there, sir! and hear that !" a wreathe 
 of smoke burst up into the sunshine, beyond a quick turn in the 
 road, and a cheer simultaneously reached the party ; — " that must 
 be the first firing of the enemy's cabins. The execution of Mr. 
 Lane's sentence must have preceded it." 
 
 General K spurred forward, passing his guide, so as to be 
 
 the first at the turn of the road ; here he said—" You are wrong, 
 the troops are still in motion towards their point." 
 
 It was so. Sir A. D., with his force, had not yet gained the 
 thatched hamlet of Killane ; and the smoke that had been ob- 
 served, arose only from a solitary cabin on the road side, which, 
 having been found deserted by the terrified inmates, was fired by 
 Mr. Kirk's zealous yeomen. Now, within hearing of the rear-guard 
 
 of the column. General K cried " Halt ! halt !" and desired his 
 
 aide-de-camp to advance, who, obeying his command, repeated the 
 magical word " halt !" and added, in still louder tone, his com- 
 mander's name. A halt quickly ensued, and the General galloped 
 forward. Gaining the head of the line, he saw a young man, sit- 
 ting on a horse led by a dragoon, his arms pinioned. Their eyes 
 met; — the General touched his old-fashioned cocked hat, and 
 smiled. Henry Lane, who, till that moment, had worn a firm 
 brow and a flushed cheek, turned sickly pale, and would have 
 fallen from his saddle, but for the assistance of his guards. 
 
 The veteran joined Sir A. D. and his staff, still more in front. 
 
THE LAST OF THE STORM. 271 
 
 The two Generals exchanged bows, and stood uncovered, as also 
 did their attendant, while the whole line presented arms, and the 
 trumpets and kettle-dmms of the horse, and the bands of the in- 
 fantry plajed a salute. Now the little hamlet appeared in view, 
 and from it came a wild and alarmed cry, in answer to the startling 
 though cheery burst of martial music. Presently, groups of men , 
 women, and children, of every age, were seen running before th e 
 cabins, in great terror and disorder. 
 
 " The enemy, I suppose," said General K , smiling ; " not 
 
 in arms, though, and, therefore, scarce worth our attention. Let 
 us send out to reconnoitre, however, in hopes that they deem us 
 entitled to a better reception. Meantime, Sir A. D., I go towards 
 the cabins." 
 
 Attended only by an aide-de-camp, he arrived at the farm-house 
 to which the wounded milk-maid had been carried. The surgeon, 
 stiFi in attendance, pronounced her out of danger, and at last able 
 
 to speak. General K heard, at her bed-side, the commuuica- 
 
 tions she had already made to her mistress and to the surgeon. Of 
 the latter, he enquired whether she could safely be removed to the 
 town, travelling in an open litter, only as fast as the troops should 
 march. The surgeon said she could ; then, giving the necessary 
 orders, he left the farm-house. 
 
 In a contiguous field, he summoned back the reconnoitering 
 parties, and learned from their report, that no enemy of any kind 
 appeared in view. After this he rode to the nearest group of pea- 
 sants, who, with much entreaty, awaited his approach ; told the 
 terrified people to go home and keep quiet. Lastly, he returned to 
 the troops on the road, and ordered them to march back the way 
 they had come. 
 
 At the entrance to the town he whispered to his aide-de-camp, 
 who trotted briskly forward. Arrived at the public parade, he 
 halted the soldiers and dismissed them to their barracks. He then 
 desired Sir A. D., the officers who generally formed his court-mar- 
 tial, and the prisoner, Henry Lane, to attend him to the court- 
 house. As they proceeded up the steps of the building, Mr. Kirk, 
 and many of his friends, exchanged eloquent glances at the disap- 
 pearance of the gallows and the triangle. 
 
 " The aid-de-camp who had gone forward, met his General in 
 the court, and pointed out the two wounded Hessians, one in the 
 dock, the other at a side-bar. 
 
 " Have you kept them separate, sir?" he asked. 
 
 '^ Strictly so, sir," answered the aide-de-camp. 
 
272 THE LAST OF THE STORM. 
 
 '' Gentlemen," he resumed, " we require some additional infor- 
 anation touching the vebel movement of this morning ; and without 
 yet sitting as a court-martial, I wish to examine, in succession, 
 these wounded men. Let one of them be led quite out of hear- 
 ing. Let the other come on the table." 
 
 He was quickly obeyed. The Hessian selected as a first witness, 
 again affirmed that he and his comrade had been surprised by a 
 band of rebels, at Killane, that morning ; and after wounding one 
 only of the assailants — a woman — barely escaped with their lives. 
 
 General K • put questions, requiring minute accounts of the 
 
 details of the affair, and received certain answers which he desired 
 should be carefully written down. He then seemed casually to in- 
 quire what conversation had passed between the witness and his 
 comrade upon the route home, after their escape ; the man hesi- 
 tated. He raised his voice, knit his brow, and desired instantly a 
 report of their whole conversation along the hill-road, whatever it 
 was. The Hessian now gave answers, which were also committed 
 to writing. 
 
 " Let him withdraw, and bring up the other — still keeping them 
 
 apart," resumed General K . 
 
 The second Hessian appeared in the evidence -chair. His general 
 statement of the attack corroborated that of the first ; but his ac- 
 count of the specific details, already described by his comrade, was 
 a new story altogether. And when asked to recollect and repeat 
 their discourse on the road homewards, he made it consist of topics, 
 which did not remotely resemble, even in matter, those sworn to by 
 liis friend. 
 
 '' Let them come face to face," was the General's next command. 
 Accordingly, they confronted each other ; heard read the extraordi- 
 nary clashings of their separate testimony, and were called on to 
 reconcile them, if they could. The men were silent. 
 
 " Has the prisoner, Mr. Lane, any questions to propose to the 
 
 witnesses T' asked General K . 
 
 Henry said he would prefer to have them ask questions of one 
 another, at his dictation. This was agreed to ; and he proceeded 
 <fiuently, in their own tongue — 
 
 " The man whose sword-arm is disabled, shall say to his com- 
 rade, ' Hans, bad work you have done for me, and I for you, all 
 about a silly girl.' '* 
 
 The Hessians started at these words — exchanged glances — - 
 looked consciously around — and then bent their eyes on the table. 
 *' If he does not speak, shall I give him the answer Hans gav$ 
 Mm .*" continued Henry. 
 
THE LAST OF THE STORM. 273 
 
 " Do so, prisoner." 
 
 '* Listen, then, Hans. 'Ay, Quinton ; but blame your own gree- 
 diness of the girl's smiles, by the side of an old friend.' " 
 
 Again the Hessians showed agitation. 
 
 " [ continue, sir, speaking for Hans and Quinton, alternately." 
 
 Still the General assented. 
 
 " ' Well, Hans, here we ride back to head-quarters, without a 
 smile of her's to boast of, between us.' " 
 
 *' ' Ay, and in a plight we must account for, too, Quinton.' " 
 
 " * Oh ! the rebels have surprised us,' " 
 
 " ' Der dey vil ! good ! — but the girl may prate, unless her mouth 
 is stopped.' " 
 
 " 'And I think I've stopped it, Hans. Or, no matter. She was 
 one of the ambuscade — half wild Irishmen, half wild Irishwomen. 
 So, let her tell her story — who will believe it ?' " 
 
 " Such is the conversation," resumed Henry Lane, speaking for 
 himself, " which I overheard between these two men, upon the hill- 
 road from Killane, early this morning." 
 
 In answer to questions from General K , he ended by de- 
 scribing his proceedings, after the Hessians passed him, down to 
 the moment at which he left the farm-house. 
 
 " Place them at the bar," said the General ; " and now we form 
 our court-martial." 
 
 The Hessians were formally arraigned, and the contradictions 
 of their own testimony, coupled with Henry Lane's story, were 
 taken as evidence against them. 
 
 '' I have yet another witness," resumed General K , glancing 
 
 at his aide-de-camp. The young officer withdrew, and speedily re- 
 turned, ushering to the table a litter, borne by soldiers, on which 
 lay the wounded milk-maid. Her cruel assaulters stared in stupid 
 terror upon her reclining form. The surgeon stood beside her, as in 
 feeble and hoarse accents, she deposed to the following facts ; 
 
 While employed in milking her cows, two troopers, " with beard 
 on their lips," stopped at the side of the pasture-field, looking to- 
 wards her. It was " just the grey of the morning." Presently, 
 they dismounted, and separately crossed the stile ; one walking fast 
 before the other, and both speaking loudly and angrily in " a fur'n 
 speech. She screamed, attempted to run, and fell from terror. 
 Nearly at the same moment they broke into open quarrel, drew 
 their swords, and cut at each other. She fainted ; — on regaining 
 her senses, she saw them standing, exhausted and bleeding. In a 
 frenzy, she called out the names of her friends, and spoke as if many 
 
 T 
 
274 THE LAST OF THE STOKM. 
 
 people were speeding to help her ; the troopers looked around ; 
 again exchanged words, in a more friendly tone ; came close to 
 her, desired her to cease screaming ; finally, beat her about the 
 head, and stabbed her in the neck. Further, she could tell nothing. 
 
 " The prisoner. Lane, has had an opportunity to arrange this 
 improbable story with the cunning girl," said Mr. Kirk. 
 
 " Impossible," answered the surgeon ; " when I reached the poor 
 creature, she was unable to utter a word ; and she must have been 
 still more unable to do so before my arrival." 
 
 *' She does not identify the men," resumed the sheriff. 
 
 "The men confess their guilt," said the aid-de-camp, who stood 
 near them. 
 
 " Let them die before the sun sets, notwithstanding," said Genearl 
 K , " and release Mr. Lane." 
 
 *' Come home, Hal," cried young Gordon, grasping Henry Lane's 
 hand. 
 
 " How is Bessie ?" asked the liberated prisoner, on their way 
 through the streets. 
 
 " In good hopes, since your return with old K ; and her 
 
 father still able to congratulate yoa upon your escape from The 
 Last of the Storm." 
 
 THE END OF THE LAST OF THE STORM. 
 
THE RIYAL DEEAIERS. 
 
 *^te 
 
THE EIVAL DEEAMEKS. 
 
 ► 
 
 Mr. Washington Irving has already given to the public a ver- 
 sion of an American legend, which, in a principal feature, bears 
 some likeness to the following transcript of a popular Irish one. 
 It may, however, be interesting to show this very coincidence be- 
 tween the descendants of a Dutch Transatlantic colony, and the 
 native peasantry of Ireland, in the superstitious annals of both. 
 Our tale, moreover, will be found original in all its circumstances, 
 that alluded to only excepted. 
 
 Shamus Dempsey returned a silent, plodding, sorrowful man, 
 though a young one, to his poor home, after seeing laid in the grave 
 his aged, decrepid father. The last rays of the setting sun were 
 glorious, shooting through the folds of their pavilion of scarlet 
 clouds; the last song of the thrush, chaunted from the bough 
 nearest to his nest, was gladdening ; the abundant, though but half 
 matured, crops around breathed of hope for the future. But Sha- 
 mus's bosom was covered with the darkness that inward sunshine 
 alone can illumine. The chord that should respond to song and 
 melody had snapt in it ; for him the softly-undulating fields of 
 light-green wheat, or the silken-surfaced patches of barley, made a 
 promise in vain. He was poor, penniless, friendless, and yet 
 groaning under responsibilities ; worn out by past and present suf- 
 fering, and without a consoling prospect. His father's corpse had 
 been just buried by a subscription among his neighbours, collected 
 in an old glove, a penny or a half-penny from each, by the most 
 active of the humble community to whom his sad state was a sub- 
 ject of pity. In the wretched shed, which he called " home," a 
 young wife lay on a truss of straw, listening to the hungry cries of 
 two little children, and awaiting her hour to become the weeping 
 mother of a third. And the recollection that, but for an act of 
 demestic treachery experienced by his father and himself, both 
 would have been comfortable and respectable in the world, aggra- 
 vated the bitterness of the feeling in which Shamus contemplated 
 this lot. He could himself faintly call to mind a time of early 
 childhood, when he lived with his parents in a roomy house, eating, 
 
278 THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
 and sleeping, and dressing well, and surrounded by servants and 
 workmen ; he further remembered that a day of great affliction 
 came, upon which strange and rude persons forced their way into 
 the house, and for some cause his infant observation did not reach, 
 father, servants, and workmen, (his mother had just died,) were all 
 turned out upon the road, and doomed to seek the shelter of a mean 
 roof. But his father's discourse, since he gained the years of man- 
 hood, supplied Shamus with an explanation of all these circum- 
 stances as follows* 
 
 Old Dempsy had been the youngest son of a large farmer, who 
 divided his lands between two elder children, and destined Shamus's 
 father to the Church, sending him abroad for education, and, during 
 its course, supplying him with liberal allowances. Upon the eve of 
 ordination, the young student returned home to visit his friends ; 
 was much noticed by neighbouring small gentry of each religion ; 
 at the house of one of the opposite persuasion from his, met a 
 sister of the proprietor, who had a fortune in her own right ; aban- 
 doned his clerical views for her smiles ; eloped with her ; married 
 her privately ; incurred thereby the irremoveable hostility of his own 
 family ; but, after a short time, was received, along with his wife, 
 by his generous brother-in-law, under whose guidance both became 
 reputably settled in the house to which Shamus's early recollections 
 pointed, and where, till he was about six years old, he passed in- 
 deed a happy childhood* 
 
 But a little previous to this time his mother's good brother died 
 unmarried, and was succeeded by another of her brothers, who had 
 unsuccessfully spent half his life as a lawyer in Dublin, and who, 
 inheriting little of his predecessor's amiable character, soon showed 
 himself a foe to her and her husband, professedly on account of her 
 marriage with a Eoman Catholic. He did not appear to their visit, 
 shortly after his arrival in their neighbourhood, and he never con- 
 descended to return it. The affliction experienced by his sensitive 
 sister, from his conduct, entailed upon her a premature accouche- 
 ment, in which, giving birth to a lifeless babe, she unexpectedly 
 died. The event was matter of triumph, rather than of sorrow, to 
 her unnatural brother. For, in the first place, totally unguarded 
 against the sudden result, she had died intestate ; in the next place, 
 he discovered that her private marriage had been celebrated by a 
 Roman Catholic priest, consequently could not, according to law, 
 hold good ; and again, could not give to her nominal husband any 
 right to her property, upon which both had hitherto lived, and 
 which was now the sole means of existence to Shamus's father. 
 
THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 279 
 
 The lawyer speedily set to work upon these points, and with 
 little difficulty succeeded in supplying for Shamus's recoUe'^tions a 
 day of trouble, already noticed. In fact, his father and he, now 
 without a shilling, took refuge in a distant cabin, where, by the 
 sweat of his parent's brow, as a labourer in the fields, the ill-fated 
 hero of this story was scantily fed and clothed, until maturer years 
 enabled him to relieve the old man's hand of the spade and sickle, 
 and in turn labour for their common wants. 
 
 Shamus, becoming a little prosperous in the world, rented a few 
 acres adjacent to his cabin, and — married. The increase of his 
 fields did not quite keep pace with the increase of his cares, in the 
 persons of new comers, for whose well-being he was bound to pro- 
 vide. His ray of success in life soon became overclouded, by the 
 calls of the landlord, and the tithe-proctor. In truth, three years 
 after his marriage, he received a notice; which it were vain to op- 
 pose, to quit both his farm and his cabin, and leave his few articles 
 of furniture behind. 
 
 At this juncture his father was bedridden, and his wife advanced 
 in her third pregnancy. He put on his hat, walked to the door, 
 fixed his eyes upon the ruins of an old abbey, which stood on the 
 slope of an opposite hill, and formed his plan for present measures. 
 By the next evening he had constructed a wattled shed, covered 
 with rushes and leaves, against a gable in the interior of the ruin. 
 Clearing away the nettles and other rank weeds, enclosed by his 
 new house, he discovered a long slab on which was carved a cross 
 and letters illegible to his eye — this he made his hearth- stone. To 
 furnish the abode, he fetched two large stones, as seats for his wife 
 and himself, shook straw in either corner, and laid in a bundle of 
 twigs. Then he went to the cabin that was no longer his, sent on 
 his wife and two children to the abbey, followed with his father 
 on his back, and laid him upon one of the straw couches. Two 
 days afterwards the old man was a corpse. From his pauper fune- 
 ral we now see Shamus returning, and to such a home does he bend 
 his heavy steps. 
 
 If to know that the enemy of his father and mother did not thrive 
 on the spoils of his oppression, could have yielded Shamus any con- 
 solation in his lot, he had long ago become aware of circumstances 
 calculated to give this negative comfort. His maternal uncle en- 
 joyed, indeed, his newly acquired property, only a few years after 
 it came into his possession. Partly on account of his cruelty to his 
 relations, partly from a meanness and vulgarity of character, which 
 soon displayed itself in his novel situation, and which, it was be- 
 
280 THE RIVAL DREAMEES. 
 
 ]ieved, bad previously kept him in the lowest walks of bis profes- 
 sion as a Dublin attorney, he found himself neglected and shunned 
 by the gentry of his neighbourhood. To grow richer than any w^ho 
 thus insulted him, to blazon abroad reports of his wealth, and to 
 watch opportunities of using it to their injury, became the means 
 of revenge adopted by the parvenu. His legitimate income not 
 promising a rapid accomplishment of this plan, he ventured, using 
 precautions that seemingly set suspicion at defiance, to engage Ih 
 smuggling adventures on a large scale, for which his proximity to 
 the coast afforded the local opportunity. Notwithstanding all his 
 pettifogging cleaverness, the ex-attorney was detected, however^ 
 in his illegal traffic, and fined to an amount which swept away half 
 liis real property. Driven to desperation by the publicity of his 
 failure, as well as by the failure itself, he tried another grand effort 
 to retrieve his fortune ; was again surprised by the revenue officers ; 
 in a personal struggle with them, at the head of his band, killed 
 one of their body ; immediately absconded from Ireland ; for the 
 last twenty years had not been authentically heard of; but, it was 
 believed, lived under an assumed name in London, deriving an ob- 
 scure existence from some mean pursuit, of which the very natui-e 
 enabled him to gratify propensities to drunkenness and other vices, 
 learned during his first career in life. 
 
 All this Shamus kne>v, though only from report, inasmuch as 
 his uncle hag| exiled himself while he was yet a child, and without 
 previously having become known to the eyes of the nephew he had 
 so much injured. But if Shamus occasionally drew a bitter and 
 almost savage gratification from the downfal of his inhuman per- 
 secutor, no recurrence to the past could alleviate the misery of his 
 present situation. He passed under one of the capacious open 
 arches of the old abbey, and then entered his squalid shed, reared 
 against its wall, his heart as shattered and as trodden down as the 
 ruins around him. No words of greeting ensued between him and 
 his equally hopeless wife, as she sat on the straw of her bed, rock- 
 ing to sleep, with feeble and mournful cries, her youngest infant. 
 He silently lighted a fire of withered twigs on his ready-furnished 
 hearth-stone ; put to roast among their embers a few potatoes which 
 he had begged during the day ; divided them between her and her 
 crying children ; and as the moon, risen high in the heavens, warned 
 him that night asserted her full empire over the departed day, 
 Shamus sunk down upon the couch from which his father's mortal 
 remains had lately been borne, supperless himself, and dinnerless too, 
 but not hungry ; at least, not conscious, or recollecting that he was. 
 
THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 281 
 
 His wife and little ones soon slept soundly, but Shamus lay for 
 hours inaccessible to nature's claims for sleep as well as for food. 
 From where he lay he could see, through the open front of his shed, 
 out into the ruina abroad. After much abstraction in his own 
 thoughts, the silence, the extent, and the peculiar desolation of the 
 scene, almost spiritualized by the magic effect of alternate moon- 
 shine and darkness, of objects and of their parts, at last diverted 
 his mind, though not to relieve it. He remembered distinctly, for 
 the first time, where he was ; an intruder among the dwellings of 
 the dead ; he called to mind, too, that the present was their hour 
 for revealing themselves among the remote loneliness and obscurity 
 of their crumbling and intricate abode. As his eye fixed upon a 
 distant stream of cold light, or of blank shadow, either the waver- 
 ing of some feathery herbage from the walls, or the flitting of some 
 night bird over the roofeless aisle, made motion which went and 
 came during the instant of his alarmed start, or else some disem- 
 bodied sleeper around had challenged and evaded his vision, so 
 rapidly as to baffle even the accompanyment of thought. Shamus 
 would, however, recur, during these entrancing aberrations, to his 
 more real causes for terror ; and he knew not, and to this day can- 
 not distinctly tell, whether he waked or slept, when a new circum- 
 stance absorbed his attention. The moon struck fully, under his 
 propped roof, upon the carved slab he had appropriated as a hearth- 
 stone, and turning his eye to the spot, he saw the semblance of a 
 man advanced in years, though not very old, standing motionless, 
 and very stedfastly regarding him ; the still face of the figure shone 
 like marble in the night-beam, without giving any idea of the so- 
 lidity of that material ; the long and deep shadows thrown by the 
 forehead over the eyes, left those usually expressive features vague 
 and uncertain. Upon the head was a close-fitting black cap, the 
 dress was a loose-sleeved, plaited garment of white, descending to 
 the ground, and faced and otherwise chequered with black, and girded 
 round the loins ; exactly the costume which Shamus had often 
 studied in a little framed and glazed print, hung up in the sacristy 
 of the humble chapel recently built in the neighbourhood of the 
 ruin, by a few descendants of the great rehgious fraternity to whom, 
 in its day of pride, the abbey had belonged. As he returned very 
 inquisitively, though, as he avers, not now in alarm, the fixed gaze 
 of his midnight visitor, a voice reached him, and he heard these 
 strange words : 
 
 " Shamus Dempsy, go to London Bridge, and you will be a rich 
 man." 
 
282 THE RIVAL DKEAMERS. 
 
 *' How will that come about, your Reverence ?" cried Shamus, 
 jumping up from his straw. But the figure was gone ; and stum- 
 bling among the black embers on the remarkable place where it 
 had stood, he fell prostrate, experiencing a change of sensation, and 
 of observance of objects around, which might be explained by sup- 
 posing a transition from a sleeping to a waking state of mind. 
 
 The rest of the night he slept little, thinking of the advice he 
 had received, and of the mysterious personage who gave it. But 
 he resolved to say nothing about his vision, particularly to his wife, 
 lest, in her present state of health, the frightful story might dis- 
 tress her ; and as to his own conduct respecting it, he determined 
 to be guided by the future, — in fact, he would wait to see if his 
 counsellor came again. He did come again, appearing in the same 
 spot at the same hour of the night, and wearing the same dress, 
 though not the same expression of feature : for the shadowy brows 
 now slightly frowned, and a little severity mingled wiih the for- 
 mer stedfastness of look. 
 
 " Shamus Dempsy, why have you not gone to London Bridge, 
 and your wife so near the time when she will want what you are 
 to get by going there ? Remember this is my second warnini;. 
 
 "Musha, your Reverence, an' what am I to do on Lunnon Bridge ?" 
 
 Again he rose to approach the figure ; again it eluded him. 
 Again a change occurred in the quality of the interest with which 
 he regarded the admonition of his visitor. Again he passed a day of 
 doubt as to the propriety of undertaking what seemed to him Utile 
 less than a journey to the world's end, without a penny in his pocket, 
 and upon the eve of his wife's accouchement, merely in obedience to 
 a recommendation which, according to his creed, was not yet suffi- 
 ciently strongly given, even were it under any circumstances to be 
 adopted. For Shamus had often heard, and firmly belived, that a 
 dream or a vision, instructing one how to procure riches, ought to 
 be experienced three times before it became entitled to attention. 
 
 He lay down, however, half hoping that his vision might thus 
 recommend itself to his notice : it did so. 
 
 " Shamus Dempsy," said the figure, looking more angry than 
 ever, " you have not yet gone to London Bridge, although I hear 
 your wife crying out to bid you go. And, remember, this is my 
 third warning." 
 
 "Why, then, tundher-an-ouns, your Reverence, just stop and 
 tell me " 
 
 Ere he could utter another word the holy visitant disappeared, 
 in a real passion at Shamus's qualified curse ; and, at the same 
 
THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 283 
 
 moment, his confused senses recognised the voice of his wife, send- 
 ing up from her straw pallet the cries that betoken a mother's des- 
 tined travail. Exchanging a few words with her, he hurried away, 
 professedly to call up, at her cabin window, an old crone who some- 
 times attended the very poorest women in Nance Dempsy's situation. 
 
 " Hurry lo her, Noreen, a-cuishla, and do the best it's the will 
 
 of God to let you do. And tell her from me, Noreen, " he 
 
 stopped, drawhig in his lip, and clutching his cudgel hard. 
 
 " Sharaus, what ails you, avich ?" asked old Noreen ; '' what 
 ails you, to make the tears run down in the grey o' the morning ?" 
 
 " Tell her from me," continued Shamus, " that it's from the bot- 
 tom o' the heart I'll pray, morning and evening, and fresh and 
 fasting, maybe, to give her a good time of it ; and to show her a 
 face on the poor child that's coming, likelier than the two that 
 God sent afore it. And that I'll be thinking o' picturin' it to my 
 own mind, though I'll never see it far away." 
 
 " Musha, Shamus, what are you speaking of ?" 
 
 *' No matter, Noreen, only God be widyou, and wid her, and wid 
 the weenocks ; and tell her what I bid you. More-be-token, tell 
 her that poor Shamus quits her in her throuble, with more love 
 from the heart out, than he had for her the first day we came to- 
 gether : and I'll come back to her, at any rate, sooner or later, 
 richer or poorer, or as bare as I went — and may be not so bare 
 either. But God only knows. The top o' the morning to you, 
 Noreen, and don't let her want the mouthful o' praties while I'm on 
 my thravels. For this," added Shamus, as he bounded off to the 
 consternation of old Noreen — " this is the very morning, and the 
 very minute that, if I mind the dhrame at all at all, I ought to 
 mind it ; — ay, without ever turning back to get a look from her, 
 that 'ud kill the heart in my body entirely." 
 
 Without much previous knowledge of the road he was to take, 
 Shamus walked and begged his way along the coast to the town 
 where he might hope to embark for England. Here the captain 
 of a merchantman agreed to let him work his passage to Bristol, 
 whence he again walked and begged into London. 
 
 "Without taking rest or food Shamus proceeded to London Bridge, 
 often put out of bis course by wrong directions, and as often by 
 forgetting or misconceiving true ones. It was with old London 
 Bridge that Shamus had to do — (not the old one last pulled down, 
 but its more reverend predecessor,) — which, at that time, was lined 
 at ei her side by quaintly-fashioned houses, mostly occupied by 
 shop-keepers, so that the space between presented, perhaps, the 
 
284 THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
 greatest thoroughfare then known in the Qaeen of Cities. And at 
 about two o'clock in the afternoon, barefooted, ragged, fevered and 
 agitated, Shamus mingled with the turbid human stream, that 
 roared and chafed over the as restless and as evanescent stream 
 which buffeted the arches of old London Bridge. In a situation 
 so novel to him, so much more extraordinary in the reality than his 
 anticipation could have fancied, the poor and friendless stranger 
 felt overwhelmed. A sense of forlornness, of insignificance, and 
 of terror, seized upon his faculties. From the stare, or the sneers, 
 or the jostles of the iron-nerved crowd, he shrank with glances of 
 wild timidity, and with a heart as wildly timid as were his looks. 
 For some time he stood or staggered about, unable to collect his 
 thoughts, or to bring to mind what was his business there. But 
 when Shamus became able to refer to the motive of his pauper 
 journey, from his native solitudes into the thick of such a scene, it 
 was no wonder that the zeal of superstition totally subsided amid 
 the astounding truths he witnessed. In fact, the bewildered sim- 
 pleton now regarded his dream as the merest chimera. Hastily 
 escaping from the thoroughfare, he sought out some wretched place 
 of repose suited to his wretched condition, and there moaned him- 
 self asleep, in self-accusations at the thought of poor Nance at 
 home, and in utter despair of all his future prospects. 
 
 At day break the next morning he awoke, a little less agitated, 
 but still with no hope. He was able, however, to resolve upon 
 the best course of conduct now left open to him ; and he arranged 
 immediately to retrace his steps to Ireland, as soon as he should 
 have begged sufficient alms to speed him a mile on the road. With 
 this intent he hastily issued forth, preferring to challenge the no- 
 tice of chance passengers, even at the early hour of dawn, than to 
 venture again, in the middle of the day, amongst the dreaded 
 crowds of the vast city. Very few, indeed, were the passers-by 
 whom Shamus met during his straggling and stealthy walk through 
 the streets, and those of a description little able or willing to afford 
 a halfpenny to his humbled, whining suit, and to his spasmed lip 
 and watery eye. In what direction he went Shamus did not know ; 
 but, at last, he found himself entering upon the scene of his yester- 
 day's terror. Now, however, it presented nothing to renew its for- 
 mer impression. The shops at the sides of the bridge were closed, 
 and the occasional stragglers of either sex who came along in- 
 spired Shamus, little as he knew of a great city, with aversion 
 rather than with dread. In the quietness and security of his pre- 
 8£nt position. Shamus was both courageous and weak enough agaio^ 
 
THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 285 
 
 (0 summon up his dream : " Come," he said, *^ since I am on 
 Lunnon Bridge, I'll walk over every stone of it, and see what good 
 that will do." 
 
 He valiantly gained the far end. Here one house, of all that 
 stood upon the bridge, began to be opened : it was a public house, 
 and, by a sidelong glance as he passed, Shamus thought that, in 
 the person of a red-cheeked, red-nosed, sunk-eyed, elderly man, 
 who took down the window-shutters, he recognised the proprietor. 
 This person looked at Shamus, in return, with peculiar scrutiny. 
 The wanderer liked neither his regards nor the expression of his 
 countenance, and quickened his steps onward until he cleared the 
 bridge. *' But I'll walk it over at the other side, now," he be- 
 thought, aft€r allowing the publican time to finish opening his house, 
 and retire out of view. 
 
 But repassing the house, the man still appeared, leaning against 
 his door-jamb, and as if waiting for Shamus's return, whom, upon 
 this second occasion, he eyed more attentively than before. 
 
 '' Sorrow's in him," thought Shamus ; *' have I two heads on 
 me, that I'm such a sight to him ? But who cares about his pair 
 of ferret-eyes ? I'll thrudge down the middle stone of it, at any 
 rate." Accordingly he again walked towards the public-house, 
 keeping the middle of the bridge. 
 
 " Good-morrow, friend," said the publican, as Shamus a third 
 time passed his door. 
 
 " Sarvant kindly, sir," answered Shamus, respectfully pulling 
 down the brim of his hat, and increasing his pace. 
 
 " An early hour you choose for a morning w^alk," continued his 
 new acquaintance. 
 
 *' Brave and early, faix, sir," said Shamus, still hurrying off. 
 
 " Stop a bit," resumed the publican. Shamus stood still. " I 
 see you're a countryman of mine — an Irishman ; I'd know one of 
 you at a look, though I'm a long time out of the country. And 
 you're not very well off on London Bridge this morning, either." 
 
 " No, indeed, sir," replied Shamus, beginning to doubt his skill 
 in physiognomy, at the stranger's kind address ; " but as badly off 
 as a body 'd wish to be." 
 
 " Come over to look for the work ?" 
 
 " Nien, Sir ; but come out this morning to beg a ha'penny, to 
 send me a bit of the road home.'^ 
 
 " Well, here's a silver sixpence without asking. And you'd 
 better sit on the bench by the door here, and eat a crust and a cut 
 of cheese, and drink a drop of good ale, to break your fast." 
 
286 THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
 With profuse thanks, Sharaiis accepted this kind invitation; 
 blaming himself at heart for having allowed his opinion of the 
 charitable publican to be guided by the expression of the man's 
 features. " Handsome is that handsome does/' was Shamus's 
 self-correcting reflection. 
 
 While eating his bread and cheese, and drinking his strong ale, 
 they conversed freely together, and Shamus's heart opened more 
 and more to his benefactor. The publican repeatedl}? asked him 
 what had brought him to London : and though — half out of pru- 
 dence, and half out of shame — the dreamer at first evaded the 
 question, he felt it at last impossible to refuse a candid answer to 
 his generous friend. " VVhy, then, sir, only I am such a big fool, 
 for telling it to you, it's what brought me to Lunnon Bridge was a 
 quare dhrame I had at home in Ireland, that tould me just to 
 come here, and Td find a pot of goold :" for such was the inter- 
 pretation given by Shamus to the vague admonition of his visionary 
 counsellor. 
 
 His companion burst into a loud laugh, saying after it, " Pho, 
 pho, man, don't be so silly as to put faith in nonsensical dreams of 
 of that kind. Many a one like it I have had, if I would bother 
 my head with them. Why, within the last ten days, while you 
 were dreaming of finding a pot of gold on London Bridge, I was 
 dreaming of finding a pot of gold in Ireland." 
 
 " Ullaloo, and were you, sir?" asked Shamus, laying down his 
 empty pint. 
 
 "Ay, indeed; night after night, an old friar, with a pale face, 
 and dressed all in white and black, and a black scull-cap on his 
 head, came to me in a dream, and bid me go to Ireland, to a cer- 
 tain spot in a certain county, that I know very well, and under the 
 slab of his tomb, that has a cross and some old Romish letters on 
 it, in an old abbey I often saw before now, I'd find a treasure that 
 would make me a rich man all the days of my life." 
 
 " Musha, sir," asked Shamus, scarce able prudently to control his 
 agitation, " and did he tell you that the treasure lay buried there 
 ever so long under the open sky and the ould walls ?" 
 
 " No ; but he told me I was to find the slab covered in by a shed, 
 that a poor man had lately built inside the abbey for himself and 
 his family." 
 
 " Whoo, by the powers !" shouted Shamus, at last thrown off 
 his guard by the surpassing joy derived from this intelligence, as 
 well as by the effects of the ale ; and, at the same time, he jumped 
 up, cutting a caper with his legs, and flourishing his shilelagh. 
 
THE RIYAL DREAMERS. 287 
 
 " Why, what's the matter "with you ?" asked his friend, glanc- 
 ing at him a frowning and misgiving look. 
 
 " We ax pardon, sir." Shamus rallied his prudence. " An* 
 sure, sorrow a thing is the matter wid me, only the dhrop, I be- 
 lieve, made me do it, as it ever and always does, good luck to it 
 for the same. An' isn't what we were spaking about the biggest 
 rawnansh* iindhev the sun, sir? Only it's the laste bit in the 
 world quare to me, how you'd have the dhrame about your own 
 country, that you didn't see for so many years, sir, — for twenty 
 long years, I think you said, Sir? Shamus had now a new object 
 in putting his sly question." 
 
 " If I said so, I forgot," answered the publican, his suspicions of 
 Shamus at an end. " But it is about twenty years, indeed, since 
 I left Ireland." 
 
 " And by your speech, sir, and your dacency, I'll engage you 
 were in a good way in the poor place, afore you left it ?" 
 
 " You guess correctly, friend. (The publican gave way to 
 vanity.) Before misfortune came over me, I possessed, along with 
 a good hundred acres besides, the very ground that the old ruin, I 
 saw, in the foolish dream I told you, stands upon." 
 
 " An' so did my curse-o'-God-uncle," thought Shamus, his 
 heart's blood beginning to boil, though, with a great effort, he 
 kept himself seemingly cool. " And this is the man foment me, 
 if he answers another word I'll ax him. — Faix, sir, and sure that 
 makes your dhrame quarer than ever ; and the ground the ould 
 abbey is on, sir, and the good acres round it, did you say they lay 
 somewhere in the poor country myself came from?" 
 
 *' What country is that, friend ?" demanded the publican again, 
 with a studious frown. 
 
 " The ould county Monaghan, sure, sir," replied Shamus, very 
 deliberately. 
 
 '' No, but the county of Clare," answered his companion. 
 
 " Was it ?" screamed Shamus, again springing up. The cherished 
 hatred of twenty years imprudently bursting out, his uncle lay 
 stretched at his feet, after a renewed flourish of his cudgel. " And 
 do you know who you are telling it to this morning ? Did you 
 ever hear that the sisther you kilt, left a bit of a gorsoon behind 
 her, that one day or other might overhear you ? Ay," he continued, 
 keeping down the struggling man, " it 25 poor Shamus Dempsy that's 
 kneeling by you ; ay — and that has more to tell you. The shed 
 
 * Nonsente. 
 
288 THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
 built over the old friar's tomb-stone was built by the hands you feel 
 
 on your throttle, and that tomb-stone is his hearth- stone : and " 
 
 continued Shamus, beginning to bind the prostrate man with a rope, 
 snatched from the bench near them — " while you lie here a while, 
 an' no one to help you, in the cool of the morning, Pll just take a 
 start of you on the road home, to lift the flag and get the threasure 
 — and follow me, if you dare ! You know there's good money bid 
 for your head in Ireland — so here goes. Yes, faith and wid this — 
 this to help me on the way !" He snatched up a heavy purse, 
 which had fallen from his uncle's pocket in the struggle. " And 
 sure, there's neither hurt nor harm in getting back a little of 
 a body's own from you. A bright good morning, uncle, dear !" 
 
 Shamus dragged his manacled relative into the shop, quickly 
 shut to and locked the door, flung the key over the house into the 
 Thames, and the next instant was running at headlong speed. 
 
 He was not so deficient in the calculations of common sense, as 
 to think himself yet out of his uncle's power. It appeared, indeed, 
 pretty certain, that neither for the violence done to his person, nor 
 for the purse appropriated by his nephew, the outlawed murderer 
 would raise a hue and cry after one, who, aware of his indentity, 
 could deliver him up to the laws of his country. But Shamus felt 
 certain that it would be a race, between him and his uncle, for the 
 treasure that lay under the friar's tomb-stone : — his simple nature 
 supplied no stronger motive for a pursuit, on the part of a man 
 whose life now lay in the breath of his mouth. Full of his convic- 
 tion, however, Shamus saw he had not a moment to lose, until the 
 roof of his shed in the old abbey again sheltered him. So, freely 
 making use of his uncle's guineas, he purchased a strong horse in 
 the outskirts of London, and to the suprise, if not under the heavy 
 suspicions of the vender, set off at a gallop upon the road by which 
 he had, the day before, gained the great metropolis. 
 
 A ship was ready to sail at Bristol for Ireland ; but, to Shamus's 
 discomfiture, she waited for a wind. He got aboard, however, and 
 in the darksome and squalid hold often knelt down, and with clasped 
 hands, and panting breast, petitioned heaven for a favourable 
 breeze. But from morning until evening the wind remained as he 
 had found it, and Shamus despaired. His uncle, meantime, might 
 have reached some other port, and embarked for their country. la 
 .the depth of his anguish he heard a brisk bustle upon deck, clam- 
 bered up to investigate its cause, and found the ship's sails already 
 half unfurled io a wind that promised to bear him to his native 
 chores by the next morning. The last light of day yet lingered in 
 
THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 289 
 
 the heavens : he glanced, now under way, to the quay of Bristol. 
 A group, who had been watching the departure of the vessel, turned 
 round to note the approach to them of a man, who ran furiously 
 towards the place where they stood, pointing after her, and 
 evidently speaking with vehemence, although no words reached 
 ♦Shamus's ear. Neither was his eye sure of this person's features, 
 but his heart read them distinctly. A boat shot from the quay ; 
 the man stood up in it, and its rowers made a signal, 
 
 Shamus stepped to the gangway, as if preparing to hurl his pur- 
 suer into the sea. The captain took a speaking-trumpet, and, in- 
 forming the boat that he could not stop an instant, advised her to 
 wait for another merchantman, which would sail in an hour. And, 
 during and after his speech, his vessel ploughed cheerily on, mak- 
 ing as much way as she was adapted to accomplish. 
 
 Shamus's bosom felt lightened of its immediate terror, but not 
 freed of apprehension for the future. The ship that was to sail in 
 an hour haunted his thoughts : he did not leave the deck, and, 
 although the night proved very dark, his anxious eyes were never 
 turned from the English coast. Unusual fatigjiie and want of sleep 
 now and then overpowered him, and his senses swam in a wild and 
 snatching slumber ; but from this he would start, crying out and 
 clinging to the cordage, as the feverish dream of an instant pre- 
 sented him with the swelling canvass of a fast- sailing ship, which 
 came suddenly bursting through the gloom of midnight, alongside 
 of his own. Morning dawned, really to unveil to him the object of 
 his fears, following almost in the wake of her rival. He glanced 
 in the opposite direction, and beheld the shores of Ireland ; in an- 
 other hour he jumped upon them ; but his enemy's face watched 
 him from the deck of the companion vessel, now not more than a 
 fiiw ropes' lengths distant. 
 
 Shamus mounted a second good horse, and spurred towards 
 home. Often did he look back, but without seeing any cause for 
 increased alarm. As yet, however, the road had been level and 
 winding, and, therefore, could not allow him to span much of it at 
 a glance. After noon, it ascended a high and lengthened hill, 
 surrounded by wastes of bog. As he gained the summit of this 
 hill, and again looked back, a horseman appeared, sweeping to its 
 foot. Shamus galloped at full speed down the now quickly-fall- 
 ing road ; then along its level continuation for about a mile ; and 
 then up another eminence, more lengthened, though not so steep as 
 the former ; and from it still he looked back, and caught the figure 
 of the horseman breaking over the line of the hill he had passed. 
 
 u 
 
290 THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
 For hours such was the character of the chase ; until the road 
 narrowed, and began to wind amid an uncuhivated and uninhabited 
 mountain wilderness. Here Shamus's horse tripped and fell ; the 
 rider, little injured, assisted him to his legs, and, with lash and 
 spur, re-urged him to pursue his course. The animal went forward 
 in a last effort, and, for still another span of time, well befriended 
 his rider. A rocky valley, through which both had been gallop- 
 ing, now opened at its further end, presenting to Shamus's eye, 
 in the distance, the sloping ground, and the ruin which, with its 
 mouldering walls, encircled his poor home ; and the setting sun 
 streamed golden rays through the windows and rents of the old 
 abbey. 
 
 The fugitive gave a weak cry of joy, and lashed his beast again. 
 The cry seemed to be answered by a shout ; and a second time, 
 after a wild plunge, the horse fell, now throwing Shamus off with 
 a force that left him stunned. And yet he heard the hoofs of an- 
 other horse come thundering down the rocky way ; and, while he 
 made i faint effort to rise on bis bands, and look at his pursuer, 
 the horse and horseman were very near, and the voice of his uncle 
 cried " Stand !" at the same time that the speaker fired a pistol, of 
 which the ball struck a stone at Shamus's foot. The next moment 
 his uncle, having left his saddle, stood over him, presenting a 
 second pistol, and he spoke in a low but distinct voice. 
 
 " Spawn of a beggar ! This is not merely for the chance of riches 
 given by our dreams, though it seems, in the teeth of all I ever 
 thought, that the devil tells truth at last. No, nor it is not quite 
 for the blow ; but it is to close the lips that, with a single word, 
 can kill me. You die, to let me live !" 
 
 " Help !' — aspirated Shamus's heart, turning itself to Heaven— • 
 " help me, but now, not for the sake of the goold either — but for 
 the sake of them that will be left on the wild world without me-— 
 for them help me, great God 1" 
 
 Hitherto his weakness and confusion had left him passive. Be- 
 fore his uncle spoke the last words, his silent prayer was offered, 
 and Shamus had jumped upon his assailant. They struggled, and 
 dragged each other down. Shamus felt the muzzle of the pistol at 
 his breast ; heard it snap — but only snap ; he seized and mastered 
 it, and once more the uncle was at the mercy of his nephew. 
 Shamus's hand was raised to deal a good blow ; but he checked 
 himself, and addressed the almost senseless ears of his captive. 
 
 " No ; you're my mother's blood, and a son of her's will never 
 
THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 291 
 
 draw It from your heart ; but I can make sure of you again — stop 
 a bit." 
 
 He ran to his own prostrate horse, took off its bridle and its 
 saddle-girth, and with both secured his uncle's limbs, beyond all 
 possibility of the struggler being able to escape from their control. 
 
 " There," resumed Shamus, " lie there till we have time to send 
 an ould friend to see you, that, I'll go bail, will take good care 
 of your four bones. And do you know where Vm going now ? 
 You tould me, on Lunnon Bridge, that you knew that, at least," — 
 (pointing to the abbey,) — " ay, and the quare ould hearthstone 
 that's to be found in it. And so, look at this, uncle, honey," — 
 (he vaulted upon his relation's horse,) " I'm just goin' to lift it 
 off o' the barrel-pot full of good ould goold, and you have only to 
 cry halves, and you'll get it as sure as that the big divvle is in the 
 town you came from." 
 
 Nance Dempsy was nursing her new-born babe, sitting up in her 
 straw, and doing very well after her late illness, when old^tSToreen 
 tottered in from the front of the ruin, to tell her that " the body 
 they were just speaking about was driving up the hill, mad, like 
 as if 'twas his own sperit in great throuble." And the listener had 
 not recovered from her surprise, when Shamus ran into the shed, 
 flung himself, kneeling, by her side, caught her in his arms, then 
 seized her infant, covered it with kisses, and then, roughly throw- 
 ing it into her lap, turned to the fire-place, raised one of the rocky 
 seats lying near it, poised the ponderous mass over the hearth-stone, 
 and shivered into pieces, with one crash, that solid barrier between 
 him and his visionary world of wealth. 
 
 <' It's cracked he is, out an' out, of a certainty," said Nance, look- 
 ing terrified at her husband. 
 
 "Nothing else am I !" shouted Shamus, after groping under the 
 broken slab ; " An', for a token, get along with yourself out of this, 
 owld gran !" 
 
 He started up, and seized her by the shoulder: Noreen remon- 
 strated. He stooped for a stone ; she ran ; he pursued her to the 
 arches of the ruin ; she stopped half way down the descent. He 
 pelted her with clods to the bottom, and along a good piece of her 
 road homeward ; and then, dancing back into his wife's presence. 
 
 " Now, Nance," he cried, " now that we're by ourselves, what 
 noise is this like !" 
 
 " And he took out han'fuls after han'fuls of the ould goold afore 
 
 her face, my dear," added the original narrator of this story. " An' 
 
 ^ after the gangers, and their crony, Ould Nick, ran off wid the 
 
292 NOTE TO THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
 uncle of him, Nance and he, and the childer, lived together in their 
 father's and mother's house, and if they didn't live and die happy, 
 I wish that you and I may." 
 
 NOTE TO THE KIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
 \ than a century ago, as we learn from tradition, deposits of trea- 
 sure were frequently exhumed from interment, in Ireland, by lucky 
 dreamers — the spot where such lay concealed being invariably revealed 
 in a dream — that is, a dream three times dreamt. Those deposits being 
 made,^t was supposed, during the almost continuous change of inhabit- 
 ants, when civil wars, and transplantations, and confiscations were the 
 order of the day. 
 
 Now- a- days, however, such good fortune is scarcely heard of. People 
 grow rich, to be sure ; and often unaccountably fill their granaries ; 
 that is, unaccountable to the gleaners in the stubble fields ; but '* crocks 
 of goold" are neither dreamt of or dug up, that I can hear of. 
 
 An occurrence took place, somewhat beyond seventy years ago, which 
 even now it would be heterodoxy to disbelieve, and which I give on the 
 authority of the principal actor concerned in the adventure. 
 
 Phelim Bryan, a broguemaker, residing in Kilkenny, dreamed three 
 dreams, that in a corner of the mouldering priory of Kells, within seven 
 miles of him, a ** power of gold" lay concealed. Phelim Bryan placed im- 
 plicit faith in his three dreams. But the place was so distant from his 
 residence, so lonely, and so thickly tenanted by the dead, that, being of 
 a timid natiu-e, he shrank from the idea of going alone to disinter the 
 treasure. If the exhumation were to be made while there was daylight, 
 he might have ventured, and without entrusting his secret to any one. 
 But his good sense told him, that if the " crock of goold" were brought 
 to the surface, under the eye of day, he could expect nothing less than 
 a general scramble for it by the inhabitants of the entire neighbourhood, 
 and he was of opinion that he might be the " Paddy-last" in the scuffle, 
 and so his three dreams and all his labour go for nothing. 
 
 Phelim Bryan could not screw up his courage to the resolution of 
 wending by himself at night to the priory of Kells, particularly, as the 
 whole world knew, that hidden gold was always watched over by a 
 supernatural guardian, whether such watcher might be the troubled 
 spirit of the Eider, or a dangerous fiend, had not been satisfactorily 
 ascertained. 
 
 In his embarrassment Phelim Bryan took to his confidence two 
 brethren of his craft— three is admittedly a lucky number. The three 
 held council together, and they agreed to go in company ; they set out 
 from Kilkenny, well provided with tools and with a lantern, and at the 
 
NOTE TO THE RIVAL DREAMERS. S93 
 
 hour when labour, the veritable Morpheus, bestows the blessing of pro- 
 found slumber on his disciples, the three expectant brogucmakers stole 
 quietly into the gloomy ruin at Kells, a fitful moon throwing mysterious 
 gleams of white ghastly light occasionally through the roofless building. 
 
 Phelim Bryan, during a more than usual moon -glinting, pointed out 
 without hesitation, the precise spot thrice iudicated to him in his dream, 
 and lighting the candle in his lantern, by means of his tinder box and 
 matches, he and Andrew Treahy fell to work to delve amongst the 
 graves ; while the third broguemaker, Paddy Dullard, kept watch for 
 them. This duty was assigned to Paddy Dullard, inasmuch as he was 
 known to be a stout-hearted fellow, not easily daunted, either by flesh 
 or blood, or by less tangible interference. 
 
 Phelim Bryan and his co-labourer had shovelled away might and 
 main for more than an hour, and during the progress of their task had 
 pitched up more than one skull, with other human relics, to be glanced 
 at by the moon, during her capricious inspection of what was going on. 
 
 " By the life, we are on it," whispered Andrew Treahy to Phelim 
 Bryan ; ** there's something hard under the spade." 
 
 '* Good fellow, good fellow," Phelim Bryan whispered in return. 
 
 While Phelim Bryan was whispering his approval of Andrew Treahy's 
 welcome intelligence, both the whisperers withdrew spade and shovel 
 hastily from their work, and endeavoured to read each other's faces, 
 which the moon shining brightly for an instant enabled them to do. 
 
 Phelim Bryan saw that Andrew Treahy was frightened. And Andrew 
 Treahy ascertained, during the hasty view he was enabled to take of 
 Phelim Bryan, that Phelim Bryan's eyes were starting from their sockets 
 as their glances met. And no wonder that the resurrectionists should 
 be terrified — immediately following the interchange of whispers between 
 them — a deep, melancholy groan, or, more properly, a sound, partly 
 groan, partly angry bellow, partly discordant wail — such an indescrib- 
 able minglement of. pain, grief, and fury, as could not possibly emanate 
 from living human breast, travelled round and round through the 
 mouldering archways and crevices of the ruin. ^ 
 
 The two coldly- perspiring broguemakers ceased their work, and leaned 
 on their shovels listening to the unnaturally prolonged lamentation, when 
 Paddy Dullard, the watch-man, stumbled over the graves and other im- 
 pediments until he reached them. The cool nonchalance of Paddy Dullard 
 on the occasion was afterwards honourably mentioned as a proof of the 
 unflinching bravery of his nature ; there was no sign of trepidation or 
 apprehension in the tone of his voice as he addressed his colleagues ; on 
 the contrary, he spoke in the accents of a triumphant adventurer ; he 
 spoke as an Australian minor would speak when turning up nuggets : — 
 " Work away, my hearties," he said, cheerily — " work away, body and 
 soul, my hearties. By the piper that played before Moses, you'll be on 
 the crock o' goold in no time — didn't you hear that wicked shout ? — 
 and. look, look, standing by the tall headstone near you, the thieving 
 spirit of the fellow that hid the goold is watching you. Work, work, 
 my men, and to the devil with broguemaking while grass grows and 
 wather runs." 
 
 The moon, that had been playing fast and loose all the night, favoured 
 the explorers so far as to enable the diggers to discern a tall unearthly 
 figure, standing on a headstone not more than three feet from them, and 
 the same terrible lamentation they had heard before was repeated. 
 
394 NOTE TO THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
 Phelim Bryan snatched up his lantern, but he did not pause to secure 
 his spade and shovel — he scrambled away as fast as the inequalities of 
 the graves would permit ; and Andrew Treahy ran or stumbled close at 
 the heels of Phelim Bryan. As for Paddy Dullard, when he found him- 
 self left alone with the " spirit'' of the fellow who had hidden the 
 " crock o' goold," he slowly and unwillingly withdrew, shaking his head 
 at the fruitlessness of the night's adventure. 
 
 Next market-day, when all the broguemakers of Kilkenny had as- 
 sembled in the portion of the street where their bog-defying foot gear 
 was exposed for sale in their large baskets, (brogues and broguemakers 
 were then forty to one more numerous than they are now,) a certain 
 Luke Shortall enquired, in a jeering kind of way, of his neighbour 
 Phelim Bryan, as to the value of the " crock of goold" that he Phelim 
 had dug up in the ruins of Kells. Phelim Eryan was somewhat taken 
 aback by having this inquiry made — how could Luke Shortall have got 
 his knowledge ? He had not told his secret to any one, barring Andrew 
 Treahy and Paddy Dullard. 
 
 THE END OF THE RIVAL DREAMERS. 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 Napoleon wanted a fresh supply of " food for powder," and so 
 urgently, that the time usually allowed, even during the war, be 
 tween the choice of a conscript and his departure for actual service 
 became limited upon this occasion to a few days. 
 
 In many a village through France, the winter's morning which 
 ushered in the day upon which the peasant lads were to " tirer leur 
 sort" in the different adjacent towns, presented scenes of trem- 
 bling bustk. We are upon the high road outside one little hamlet. 
 Two young fellows pass us arm in arm, talking earnestly, though 
 in a low tone. They are brothers, the only support of an aged and 
 feeble mother. The elder being chef de famille, since his father's 
 death, is not called upon to attend the mayor and sub-prefect, in 
 the town towards which they walk ; he only conveys the younger 
 lad a little way on the road, to bid GJod bless him, and deliver him 
 from a ^^ mauvais numero,^^ You may guess, indeed, from the 
 patched working-dress of the one, that it is not his intention to ac- 
 couipany his (unwillingly) holiday-clad brother far out of the vil- 
 lage ; and you may infer that the necessity of not missing a single 
 day of agricultural labour sends him back to the farmer's team or 
 barn. — He must retrace his steps already. The brothers stop at 
 the bottom of the first little hill, speak a moment to each other, 
 doff their caps, kiss cheeks, and part. The cadet bounds up the 
 road bravely, at once to disguise his feelings and make a little show 
 of response to the call of '' glory and country." As the aine re- 
 passes you, his step is heavy, his head drooped, his hands clenched, 
 as they swing at his sides, and his eyes — but he will not let you 
 see them. 
 
 Another pair approach — a lad and a girl. He is laughing, or 
 doing his best to laugh ; she is shedding tears, though sometimes 
 she smiles too. Are they brother and sister? — Hardly. Their arms 
 happen to be interlaced at one another's backs — and observe how 
 expressively he — or she — or both kiss. Let them go their ways 
 
296 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 in peace, and without arousing excessive sympathy. He is the 
 youngest of five stout sons, whose fiither and mother are living 
 and thriving, and may pretty well be spared as a contribution from 
 his native village to national honour and glory. And though 'tis 
 interesting and pleasing to witness the romantic distress of the 
 young couple, — lovers according to the rules, that is, with the con- 
 sent of both their families — yet they are too young to be married 
 yet a-while ; and Arriette will be constant — if she can ; and he may 
 come home an officer, or a corporal at least ; or if he never come 
 home — why then, Arriette will be very, very much afflicted. They 
 disappear from us over the hill together, and it seems she has got 
 leave to accompany him to the town, that she may the sooner learn 
 whether he is to " tomher'* or not. 
 
 A middle-aged man and his wife, leaning at either side upon 
 their son, now attract our notice. " Still, one should always live 
 in good hopes, my child," says the mother, while passing by us ; 
 but even her voice does not support the recommendation of her 
 words. In fact, her hopes of Clovis drawing a good number,'* 
 are very slight, and a kind of superstition augments her apprehen- 
 sions for his lot. . Among the peasantry of France it goes as a rule 
 that if one of a family of many sons is cast as a conscript, the 
 others, from time to time, are sure to share his fate : and she has 
 some reason for putting vague faith in the infiuence of the supposed 
 fatality. About seven years before, her eldest boy, after drawing 
 a " bad number," joined the army, and fell in his first battle-field. 
 Another conscription was ordered, and her second fared as his 
 brother had done. Another, and her third, left her, and soon re- 
 turned, badly wounded ; and now creeps about her cottage droop- 
 ing, pale, and unable to work» The fourth is on his way to try 
 his fortune — and he is her last, too — that is, the last able to help 
 her and his father, for little Pierre is only ten. — God speed theni, 
 the old couple this day, — and may they march home, Clovis be- 
 tween them to supper, a happy pair. 
 
 Standing by the road-side to witness the departure of these and 
 many other villagers, for the town, .our position was at one of the 
 piers of an avenue of elm trees, which lead up to a chateau o-f some 
 respectability. Presently voices sounded, coming down the avenue, 
 and many humble groups on the high road stopped to take off their 
 caps, and bow, or else to simper and curtsey, and give their '' ban 
 jour^^ to the speakers, who soon joined them. 
 
 " Good day, Mademoiselle Hortense — good day. Monsieur 
 Francois," said many kind and respectful voiceSj accompanied by 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 29^7 
 
 the smiles and looks and action which peasants out of France know 
 nothing of. 
 
 Mademoiselle Hortense was a young lady of about twenty, her 
 height good, her figure straight as a poplar, her carriage free» 
 noble — all but haughty — and yet it was simple, too. No one called 
 her beautiful ; but every one spoke of the spirit and expression of 
 her face — and indeed it could not be seen once, and soon forgotten. 
 Its complexion was almost Moorish ; perhaps her ancestors had not 
 escaped, in times gone, some contact with Oriental blood, when the 
 south of France was partially inhabited by swarthy children of th& 
 sun — and from the south, we have heard, her family first came inta 
 the almost extreme northern province which is now country to her. 
 Hortense's eye, too — her round, powerful fascinating black eye, 
 shaded by her intensely black hair, had a fitfully firm glance, suchj. 
 it is said, (though softened in her,) as struck with astonishment,, if 
 with nothing else, the good citizens of Paris, when the bold and 
 brave Marseillais suddenly appeared in their streets, chaunting their 
 tremendous hymn, and glaring upon the new objects around them^ 
 with an expression traced to their mixed descent from infidel and 
 Christian. But let not an illustration unfeminize, in the slightest 
 degree, our Hortense. If nature gave her a feature which truly 
 revealed spirit and power, another was conferred abounding with 
 softness and goodness — her mouth — beautiful mouth ! narrow, f ull^ 
 richly-coloured, out-breathing, and constantly putting in play two 
 dimples. Nay, a particular individual has averred that Hortense's 
 eyes, when they met his, were, of all features af her face, the 
 gentlest, softest, tenderest, kindest, best. 
 
 However, this is a little too much of Hortense, devotedly as we 
 love her. Her companion, whom the peasants have called Mon- 
 sieur Fran9ois, is to be introduced. He was a young man of two- 
 and-twenty, it was said — -nay, insisted on — eise he would not have 
 appeared in the avenue this morning. Yet, from his slight figure, 
 a little stooped and not strongly knit, and from his boyish, pale, 
 unbearded and unwliiskered face, he did not appear to be as old as 
 the girl who leaned on his arm. 
 
 *' And is no one to be spared, in these times. Mademoiselle 
 Hortense," continued an old man, after he had saluted her, " not 
 even the best among us ? And must Monsieur Fran9ois take his 
 chance with the poorest?'* 
 
 " My brother," answered Hortense, " is proud to take his chanco 
 for serving his country and his Emperor, at the side of the other 
 brave youths — no matter how poor — of our district*'^ 
 
298 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 *^ The call to war, Oudard," added Francois, smiling at his old 
 neighbour," " has never yet been neglected by one of my family." 
 
 The old man with his parting compliment, bowed, put on his 
 battered old hat, and left them. The brother and sister stood still 
 at the bottom of the avenue, both looking in the same diiection. 
 
 " 'Tis time Eugene were here, if he is to accompany me to the 
 town," resumed Fran9ois. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," replied Hortense, " and he is not generally so 
 nopunctual : — but, my brother, you must feel the morning air very 
 cold, for you tremble a little ?" 
 
 " Do I ? — 'tis nothing, Hortense ; — ten minutes' brisk walking 
 towards the town will cure it, if our friend would only come as he 
 promised." 
 
 " Here he is, then," said Hortense, as the young man they ex- 
 pected jumped over a stile at the other side of the road, nearly 
 opposite to them. 
 
 Eugene was twenty-five ; well-formed, well-featured, manly- 
 looking, but rustic. He wanted something of the elevated cha- 
 racter Avhich stamped the appearance of Hortense and P'ran^ois, 
 though in such different ways. Hortense, however, did not seem 
 to think contemptuously of his agricultural mannerism, as he walked 
 across the road, bowing, and smiling to her. She blushed, to be 
 sure — that is, her deep brunette cheeks became, of a suddm, of a 
 rich, red colour. But we are .certain it was not because she was 
 ashamed of him that Hortense blushed. 
 
 After greetings, a few words served to make Francois and Eu- 
 gene ready to start for the town. " God bless you, my Brother !" 
 said Hortense, offering her cheek, while her noble eyes were now 
 moist and half closed — " God bless you — and though, as you have 
 yourself just said, no man of our ancient family ever yet turned an 
 indifferent ear to the call of country and of honour, still, my 
 brother" — her voice failed her, and the tears would not keep 
 bounds — " still I will pray, all this day, that for the prescn% you 
 may be spared to those who love you. — Eugene, good morning!" 
 She turned quickly up the avenue, drawing round her her little 
 brown cloak, and pulling forward her coarse straw bonnet. 
 
 " For glory and country !" cried Francois, taking his friend's 
 arm to lead him off. 
 
 " Stop one moment — I've forgotten just to ask Hortense one 
 word" — said Eugene — and he ran after his mistress. 
 
 *^ Folly !'* cried Francois, — " soft nonsense at the moment we 
 have hard blows to think of ! — you may overtake me if you can, 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 299 
 
 Eugene !"— He spoke in a brave, shouting tone, and disappeared 
 from the avenue. 
 
 ** I will catch you in two jumps/' shouted Eugene in return. 
 " Hortense," he continued, joining her, " there will be no one at 
 home with you in the house to-day, except your poor sick mother 
 and the servants." 
 
 " Well, Eugene, and what of (hat?— 'I thank you for your anx- 
 iety about me — but can I not take care of the house and servants, 
 and of my dear mother, too, for a few hours ? — Besides, Antoine** 
 (her elder brother, and chef de famille,) "may be home from his 
 long journey before evening : — ^}'ou know he has been many days 
 expected." 
 
 " Well, Hortense, good-bye — you know you have not bid me 
 
 good-bye yet " (a moment's break here in the dialogue) — " and 
 
 Hortense — " 
 
 " What, Eugene ?" as he paused. 
 
 " This day, of all days, would not be the day to — " 
 
 He stopt short again, but Hortense knew what he meant, and 
 went on for him. 
 
 " To receive a visit from your rich rival, Eugene ? he — " she 
 continued, contemptuously, " who has the chateau hard-by, with a 
 window for every day in the year in it ? — you are right, my friend. 
 If ever his company was disagreeable to me, it must be till I see 
 you again — you and Francois, together, I mean. — Eugene — " she 
 paused, in her turn, looked most wistfully into her lover's face, laid 
 her hand on his arm, and beginning with the word " Fran9ois," 
 was about to make an important request ; but she suddenly checked 
 herself — and saying — ''but no — time enough for that — for even a 
 breath of it, — when I shall see you both again — " she again turned 
 from Eugene, and he bounded d -wn the avenue to overtake his friend. 
 
 Hortense gained the open space before the enclosed cour of the 
 chateau. It had originally been covered with soft grass, but the 
 constant irruptions of the poultry, pigs, horses, and cows, from the 
 farm, which bounded it on one side at right angles with the chateau, 
 left it at present little appearance of verdure, or even of uniformity 
 or cleanliness. — We have, indeed, often been outraged in taste and 
 patience, in France, by observing how frequently the immediate 
 vicinity of a respectable and comfortable house is thus littered by 
 fixing the abode of the small faimer, with its almost endless ap- 
 pendages of stables, cow-sheds, sheep-sheds, pigstyes, &c., close 
 within view and contact. But that is scarcely to our present 
 purpose. 
 
300 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 As Hortense, treading her way cautiously between beasts, 
 brutes, and fowls of many kinds, (to speak of nothing else,) ap- 
 proached the farmer's thatched house, she saw his stalwart, though 
 comely daughter, holding out a flat basket of breakfast-mess for 
 the poultry, while she screamed an invitation to them, on their 
 predatory wanderings far and near, in a succession of shrill and 
 nearly diabolical cadences. 
 
 " Good day, Mademoiselle," said the maiden, interrupting her 
 summons to the cocks and hens, and turkeys, the ducks, and their 
 offspring of low degree — ^yet she bawled to her young mistress 
 almost as loud as she had to them — " Good day. Mademoiselle — 
 and may God make this day end happily for you." 
 
 *' The eggs, Madeline, for breakfast," said Hortense, distantly, 
 for she did not like the prayer put up by Madeline, for certain rea- 
 sons — " since I am abroad so early, I may as well take them home 
 myself." 
 
 " Ay, ay, — abroad so early indeed," resumed Madeline — " and 
 too early, for any good is to come of it, I am sure. Mademoi- 
 selle, — if Monsieur Francois should/a// to-day, what is to be done?" 
 
 " Done ? What do you mean, my child ]" asked Hortense, in 
 real or feigned surprise. 
 
 "Oh, I have heard my father and my mother talk it over, 
 Mademoiselle — and they say it will be quite impossible to get a 
 substitute, this time, the drain of men is so great everywhere, and 
 the price so very high." 
 
 *' And who told thee, Madeline, or thy father and mother, either, 
 that we — my brother and his family — are so poor as not to be able 
 to purchase a substitute — high as the price may be ?" asked Hor- 
 tense, now putting Madeline at her distance, as she used the iu-toi 
 or, suppose Monsieur Francois does draw a bad number, who told 
 thee he may not prefer to serve his country personally, rather than 
 by a substitute ?" 
 
 " Helas, poor Monsieur Fran9ois!" — sighed Madeline, with a 
 knowing shake of the head. 
 
 " Girl !" — cried Hortense — '* what dare you say of my brother ?" 
 
 " Nothing, Mademoiselle — nothing, upon my honor — it is not I 
 that say it " 
 
 '* Say what?" 
 
 " Nothing, indeed — nothing, Mademoiselle — only that he has 
 often been sickly and weakly, and might not have health or strength 
 enouf^h for a soldier." 
 
 "Bah! — the eggs, girl — and the freshest." Hortense soon had 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 801 
 
 them in the little basket, and crossed over to the chateau, seemingly 
 unconcerned and unmoved by Madeline's chatter, but really and 
 deeply agitated by it. 
 
 Slie did not, however, allow any one in the house to notice her 
 feelings, by her manner. To prepare for the old and feeble mothesr' 
 descent to breakfast, she closely watched, as was her wont, the 
 labours of the rustic servant, whose business it Avas to pile up the 
 logs on the hearth in the salle ct, manger, to wheel round the im- 
 mense, old-fashioned, half-decayed srm-chair, to their blaze, and 
 sweep, and dust, and arrange, and, in a word, do the best to make 
 the spacious apartment not have the air of being badly and poorly 
 furnished. When, with the assistance of the same attendant, 
 Hortense had placed her mother in her usual seat, the earnest, fond, 
 coaxing devotion with which she induced the half-doting invalid to 
 take her morning's meal, showed nothing of a reserved care prey- 
 ing upon her very heart. They spoke little together of FranQois, or 
 of the interests of the day connected with him — for, in fact, the 
 old woman's mind was so decayed nothing distinctly affected her. 
 
 After breakfast, Hortense left her mother to the care of a young 
 girl, and ascended to her brother Antoine's chamber, with the pro- 
 feped purpose of seeing that it was in order for his expected return 
 to his family. *' I must keep myself employed, except when I 
 kneel down to pray," was Hortense's mental resolve. •' God, 
 grant that Antoine may come back with the money he has gone to 
 borrow of our rich uncle — God, grant it !" she continued, entering 
 his chamber. A look around informed her that little was wanted 
 in the arrangement of the apartment. Before she turned out of it, 
 she could not help remarking how like her elder brother's mind and 
 character were many of the appendages of the place, added to it 
 by himself ; — the fowling pieces, the pistols ; an antique sword once 
 wielded by a distinguished warlike ancestor ; a wolf-spear; roots of 
 flowers, preserved on rough shelves from the frosts of winter : paper 
 bags of seeds, hung against the wall; ponderous country-made shoes, 
 calling to mind the manful, almost rude, tread and stride of their 
 owner, in all weathers, here and there, over the few acres which 
 misfortune had left to tiie descendants of a once wealthy and power- 
 ful family. And for the private library of Antoine, his sister 
 smiled to think how easily its volumes could be numbered ; they 
 were in fact but two ; one an odd tome of an old fabulous history 
 of France ; the other, a great folio quite as old, entitled La Maison 
 Eustique ; containing loquacious and quaint instructions how to 
 make and keep in order gardens of various kinds^ shrubberies, vine- 
 
302 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 yards, pleasnre-gronnds ; how to make all descriptions of wines, 
 and how to brew, and how to bake within doors. 
 
 But Hortense did not smile when, by association, her mind, and 
 with it her steps, turned to her younger brother's study, contrived 
 next his sleeping apartment. Heie, as she paused at its door, nono 
 of the indications of a rongh masculine mind, like Antoine^s, were 
 vis le ; no weapons nor implements of country sport ; no spear for 
 the wolf, who was occasionally, though not often, to be met with 
 in the adjacent forests ; — no relic of family heroism ; no arms of 
 defence ; even no symptoms of attention to the garden or the farm. 
 Of books, indeed, there were enough, but all, whether poetical or 
 prosaic, of a soft, or dreamy, or gentle cast ; and a guitar lay on a 
 chair beside the student's table ; and landscape sketches, mostly 
 unfinished, were pinned to the walls. 
 
 "Amiable and beloved Fran9ois P' sighed Hortense, as she sat 
 to the table — " My brother, my friend, my tutor ; — you to whom 
 I owe almost a mind, and whose goodness and gentleness have 
 improved my heart — woman's as it is ! — my brother ! my bro- 
 ther ! — a merciful Providence grant I may be deceived in my fears 
 for you !*' She fell on her knees, and the prayers of Hortense 
 were long and fervid. 
 
 The wind entering through a half-opened window, wafted to her 
 side a piece of torn paper, written upon, but blotted and scratched 
 over here and there. Its rustle disturbed her devotions ; her eye 
 fixed upon it ; she knew her younger brother's hand ; and the first 
 words of it, unconsciously perused by Hortense, made her hurry, 
 in spite of herself, through the whole. It was but a fragment of 
 seemingly an aspiration to Heaven, torn in pieces by its writer ; 
 and, doubtless, he had never meant it for any eye, but his own. 
 " But even this is like him," thought Hortense, " the want of pre- 
 sense of mind which, in the nervous bustle of leaving the house 
 this morning, could make him overlook an evidence so tremendous!^ 
 
 Hortense could decipher only a few sentences of the paper ; but 
 she read enough to make her start to her feet from her knees in 
 consternation, anger, and horror ; enough to make her mutter, and 
 (so soon after her prayers) almost imprecate ; enough to make her 
 tear the scrawl into a thousand little bits, and stamp them under 
 her feet, as if she would annihilate them, and with them the sense 
 of the written words within the breast of her brother. And thea 
 she rushed out of the room, her uttermost feeling being that of de- 
 testation of it, and almost of him. 
 
 But love and pity soon re -asserted themselves over her ; and after 
 
. THE SUBSTITUTE. 303 
 
 them came, upon confirmation of her worst fears long indulged, in- 
 tense, agonizing solicitude, and dread of her own and her family's 
 honour as much as for her brother's. She flung herself on her knees 
 again in her own room, and her only prayer now was, either that 
 Fran9ois might not draw a bad number that day, or else that Antoine 
 might come back with money to purchase a substitute for him. 
 
 The .^tt p of a horse in the paved court-yard drew her to a win- 
 dow. It was Antoine come back : but, after flying to embrace him, 
 Hortense soon knew that half of her prayer was denied. Their 
 rich relaiive would not lend him a sous^ although the necessities of 
 the family, accumulating for years, now seemed to threaten them 
 with literal ruin. 
 
 After thi>, Hortense rested but upon one slight and tremulous 
 hope ; to prove which vain or true, she must still wait many 
 hours. For the rest of the day, she scarce opened her lips ; and, 
 mostly sitting alone in her chamber, the anguish of suspense was 
 fearful to her. Eugene's rich rival came a wooing, as he often did : 
 she would not descend to him. He loitered in the house and in 
 the gardens : she was inexorable. 
 
 At length the winter evening fell — the hour for the return of her 
 brother and her lover. Hortense stole out of the house unobserved, 
 down the avenue, and so posted herself within the fences of the 
 road near its termination, that she could observe every one who 
 came by. One after the other, the groups who had passed the 
 avenue in the morning, or the greater part of them, appeared re- 
 turning to the little village, some silent, or only speaking in sad 
 tones, others talking loud and laughing : and now and then was 
 heard the smothered sob, or the repressed lament, of a woman or 
 a girl. The poor chef de famille strode by with his only brother 
 (the first group we have noticed in the morning), whom, after his 
 day's labour, he had gone to meet on his way home ; his Herculean 
 arm encircled the lad's neck, but his head was bent to his chest, 
 and he moaned to himself. Arriette appeared by her lover's side, 
 weeping so determinedly, that his false spirits, the good things he 
 said, and the better things he did, could not make her give over. 
 But Clovis was marched home to supper between his father and 
 mother, a delivered youth ; and it seemed, from the occasional 
 difficulty he found in keeping the old man steady by his side, and 
 hindering him from singing in a very loud and very cracked voice, 
 that some good beer or eau-de-vie had celebrated, in the town, or 
 on the road, the triumph of the family. 
 
 Horteuse looked close as each group passed by : her brother came 
 
S04 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 not. Bnt she heard him named, now and then, ia whispers, and 
 caught disjointed words and tones which entered into her brain like 
 adders' fangs. She could comprehend that something had ah-eady 
 happened, disgraceful — and destroying, because so — to him, to her, 
 to their family — to their ancient honour and name — the idols of her 
 worship since childhood, and now the only good left to them all. 
 A daring determination already began to dawn in her mind. The 
 sound of carriage- wheels diverted her and broke it up. She came 
 upon the moonlit road. The heads of Francois and Eugene ap- 
 peared, alternately, from the window of the vehicle, as if looking 
 to note if their return was watched for. It Avas singular to see 
 them come home in a carriage. No matter : — now, at least, she 
 could learn what the whispers of the passing villagers had not yet 
 told her, though they alluded to other things — namely, was 
 Fran9ois, or was he not, a conscript ? 
 
 She hurried to meet the carriage. The driver knew her, and 
 pulled up. 
 
 "Ah, my sister I" shouted Fran9ois, from the window, "I have 
 fallen — I am a soldier !" 
 
 Along with the shrinking of her feelings from this announcement, 
 her reason and understanding recoiled upon their own " foregone 
 conclusions." Could Fran9ois greet her in so laughing and brave 
 a tone, if she had done him justice in her former thoughts of him ? 
 
 Scarcely noticing Eugene, she tenderly and weepingly embraced 
 her brother in the carriage, which now conveyed all up the avenue. 
 Fran9ois supposed she must be surprised that they had returned not 
 a- foot ; but, in fact, as Eugene could tell her, what with getting up 
 so unusually early that morning, and taking a long walk fasting, 
 and then the crowd of the place where they had assembled to draw 
 their lots, he had been put out of sorts, and could scarce muster 
 strength enough to get home without a cariiage. 
 
 "Were you ill before or after you drew?" asked Hortense. 
 
 " Before — no, after, I thiuk — was it, Eugene ? — I forget," an* 
 awered the conscript. 
 
 *• After," said Eugene, solemnly and sadly. 
 
 Hortense spoke not another word, although her brother continued 
 to talk, in a bantering and hearty voice, of the suddenness with 
 which he must enter upon his new trade, and the full practice which 
 the new conscripts were promised just as suddenly ; and how glad 
 he w( uld be to acquire, by the habits of a soldier's life, sufficient 
 hardiness of frame to keep off such absurd fits of faintness as that 
 morning had shown him subject to. 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 305 
 
 Arrived at the chateau, Hortense, instead of asking Eugene 
 in, bade him good night in so abstracted a manner that the lover 
 thought her indifferent, and remarked that if his friend Antoine 
 were at home he mi^ht not be treated so inhospitably. 
 
 " He is at home, Eugene," repUed Hortense, (and she felt Fran- 
 cois start at her side :) " but, even for that reason, you will not 
 ask to &it down among us to-night." 
 
 " And why not, Hortense ? — has Le Chevalier been visiting here 
 to-day!" 
 
 <* 1 do not know — good night — Mon frere I wait to have you 
 hand me down : — in fact, Hortense scarcely knew or cared what 
 she said. 
 
 " Good night, then," said Eugene, quickly, as he jumped from 
 the carriage before Fran9ois moved : then he hastened home. 
 
 " Stop one moment, dear Hortense," resumed Fran9ois yet in the 
 carnage, now speaking in a low and constrained voice — " Antoine 
 returned, you say ? — and with the money ?" 
 
 " With not as much as would purchase a substitute for you, my 
 Brother, were substitutes to be had at a franc a-piece." 
 
 Her brother sat a moment silently ; but she could hear the hiss- 
 ings of his breath between his teeth. At last, at her repeated 
 urging, he descended from the vehicle, and offered her his arm. 
 
 '•The evening cold affects you as keenly as that of the morning 
 did," she observed, while she leaned on him into the house. 
 
 But to her surprise, Francois appeared in high spirits before her 
 brother and her at supper. She watched him close, however, and 
 now and then noted within his eye, or upon his suddenly changing 
 cheek, or upon his moist forehead, or in his fitful, smothering sigh, 
 that which she shuddered to interpret. She noted, too, the ex- 
 pression of his earnest embrace of his brother and herself at part- 
 ing for the night : and her heart sank within her. 
 
 " I will watch him still," resolved Hortense. And she did so, 
 as closely as circumstances permitted, for hours after he retired 
 to his chamber. Fran9ois bolted himself in ; but she heard his un- 
 even steps about the apartment, his groans, his wretched weeping, 
 his mutterings, after intervals of silence, when she imagined he had 
 cast himself in a chair or across his bed. It must have been towards 
 the dawn of the winter's morning that, after a long pause of in- 
 action, during which no sounds escaped his lip3, she caught these 
 sudden words, as once more he started from his chair — "Ay ! — 
 that will end it — and for that cowardice itself at last gives me 
 courage. Then he walked to the door at which she was listeaing. 
 
 X 
 
306 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 Hortense had scarce time to escape out of his view, and yet keep 
 her eye upon him, when she saw him steal, with a faltering foot, 
 and a haggard face, towards his brother Antoine's chamber. S he 
 followed him. The fatigued traveller had left his door open, and 
 now slept profoundly. Francois, continuing his stealthy pace, ap- 
 proached the table where his brother had put down, freshly charged, 
 the pistols he had carried with him on his journey. Hortense 
 waited to see no more, but noiselessly flew to act upon a strange 
 though powerful thought which some moments before had possessed 
 her mind. Her paralysed mother never slept in her bed, but passed 
 the nights in an arm-chair, well wrapped up from the cold. AVith 
 a suddenly-acquired strength, the girl caught up the old woman, 
 ran with her out of the chamber, placed her in her chair inside the 
 threshold of that of Fran9ois, before he had time to re-enter it, and, 
 standing at her back, waited for him. 
 
 The faint screams of the vaguely terrified invalid sounded on 
 his ear, as he staggered, almost blind from agitation, along the cor- 
 ridor, with the pistol in one hand and his night-lamp in the other. 
 Had his mother been dead, and had her ghost confronted him, Fran- 
 cois could not have felt more consternation than at her sight he did. 
 " What — what's this, Hortense r" he stammered, his distended 
 eyes wandering to his sister. 
 
 " Your mother and I have come to ask you, Francois, what you 
 are going to do with that pistol ?" answered Hortense ; — it was 
 still in his hand. — " Give it me, my Brother !" she continued, ad- 
 vancing to him : " give it !" she repeated, in a loud tone, as he re- 
 ceded, and, unconscious of the act, hid it behind his back. 
 
 " Give it !" echoed his mother, her attention roused by the force 
 of the circumstances — " give it, son Francois, or I will kneel down 
 and curse you !" — Her shrill and scarcely human voice rang through 
 the chateau. 
 
 He mechanically extended his hand to Hortense : she put the 
 pistol in her bosom. 
 
 " Now help me to bear our mother to her own room, and then 
 I will speak with you,'' resumed Hortense. He again obeyed her. 
 An attendant remained with the old woman, and the brother and 
 sister walked back to his apartment. 
 
 " I know it all, my brother," said Hortense. 
 [ " All — what ?" demanded Francois. 
 
 "0 Francois, Francois, do not ask me to give it a name ! — and 
 you know I speak not of what has just happened, but rather what 
 it is that put the evil thought into your mind ! — my brother, my 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 307 
 
 brother, I do knpw it all ! — Fran9ois, I could have preferred, much 
 as 1 love you, to have seen jou in your early grave, and to have 
 taken my place at your side. — 0, mercies ! mercies ! I could have 
 perished with you, and with all — mother, brother, and every one 
 of our own name and blood — in utter ruin of worldly prospects — 
 in poverty — in insulted and trampled-down poverty — ay, and in 
 the depths of a common prison. Fran9ois — all that, and more — 
 anything lips can name, or fancy shadow out, I could have smiled 
 at, my brother. But this — this ! — Fran9ois ! Fran9ois !" — She 
 wept bitterly, and wrung her hands. 
 
 With scarcely power to pronounce the poor equivocation, he con- 
 tinued to ask what she meant. 
 
 " Oh, never !" she resumed, not attending to him — " never, 
 from generation to generation, has a woman of our house been 
 called a wanton — and, merciful Heaven! never, never before ^ from 
 generation to generation, has a man of our house been called" — 
 
 " A what ? he interrupted, in false vivacity. 
 
 " I was wrong," she answered, changing her tone ; " I was 
 wrong to approach so nearly giving it a name, when I said I 
 would not. I do not want to hurt you, Fran9ois." 
 
 " Tush !" he cried, assuming a higher tone, though still a false 
 one ; " I will not bear such vague insult even from you, my sister. 
 Tell me, or retire this moment ! tell me what it is that no man 
 of my family has ever before been called, but which you would 
 now dare to call me .?" 
 
 " No, no, no — I will not," muttered Hortense. 
 
 " Hortense, / will call you rude and insolent, and false, too, if 
 you do not." 
 
 Her tears ceased — her brow grew stern — she rose from her seat, 
 fixed her eyes on him, and advancing slowly, while he stept back, 
 said — 
 
 " Listen, then — a coward !" 
 
 He started and shivered as if she had discharged at his head 
 the pistol she bore in her bosom. 
 
 "Yes, wretched brother! you /ear, yon fear/ Your heart 
 chills in your body. Your brain burns like lire — -at the thought 
 of the lot you have drawn this day! You would shriek 
 like a whipt infant to face the noble dangers of a battle- 
 field ! A score of strong men, did they bind you with thongs, 
 and urge you with base lashes, could not drag you, drag 
 you upright, standing on your limbs, to face it! Deny not 
 my words — try not to talk me down ! So mighty is the fear 
 
308 .THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 at your heart, that, but a moment ago, you would have done 
 self-murder to escape its tortures ! And what else would the act 
 have proclaimed ? Proclaimed to the world, and to men and 
 women yet unborn, of you and of your name- — your ancient, your 
 glorious name ! What would have been the comment of mankind 
 upon you, miserable brother? — upon you^ found a corpse this 
 morning, because chance made you a soldier yesterday !" 
 
 He had been swaying from side to side, his head hanging 
 down ; now he fell without a word. His sister, all her momentary 
 passion gone, flew to him, knelt at his side, and put her arms 
 around him. He had swooned. She started up for water, put it 
 to his lips, and chafed his temples with it. As he recovered, he 
 heard her plaintive and soft murmurs at his ear, asking his for- 
 giveness, and he felt her caresses. 
 
 " No, no, my brother — my beloved brother!" she continued, 
 'tis no fault of yours — however great, however terrible a misfor- 
 tune — no fault of yours ! 'tis the will of God — with, perhaps, my 
 own act. 0, how often have I thought so, and wept to think it was 
 my own act to provoke so dark a judgment ! Yes, dear Fran9ois, 
 until the day when running up to you, of a sudden, I fired An- 
 toine's pistol, only charged with powder, so close to you — until 
 that day you were a brave and reckless boy — infant almost — and 
 then, I fear, some nianful nerve or other gave way! But if 'tis 
 even so, a change may again come over you ; and till that hap- 
 pens, let us guard jealously the secret of our honour." 
 
 With groans and tears, sitting on the floor, he turned his face 
 from her, covering it with his hands. 
 
 *^ P'or the present occasion," resumed Hortense, '' something 
 must be done." 
 
 The action of his figure and attitude showed him more attentive. 
 
 " We must find you a substitute." 
 
 " How ?" he asked, not yet uncovering his face, though he 
 turned anxiously towards her. 
 
 " Leave it to me to think of, my brother. True, there is no 
 money in the house, even for our immediate and great wants, 
 much less for the purchase of a substitute ; and the only friends 
 we have, Eugene and his family, are almost as poor as we arCj 
 and with more claims on them. Yet leave it to me; by to-morrow 
 morning — indeed, this morning at breakfast — you shall know 
 more. Return to your bed ; I will go to my own chamber. Fare- 
 well, my brother. Only promise that you will wait patiently till 
 breakfast, and all may yet be well." 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 309 
 
 He gave the promise required. She left him with renewed 
 embraces ; recollecting, however, the betraying expression of his 
 own farewell to her and Antoine the previous night, she allowed 
 nothing particular to mark her adieus. 
 
 Our story may be ended in not many more words. Noble and 
 strange things are true of women in France, calm Enghsh reader, 
 particularly since the old Revolution. 
 
 Left alone, Fran9ois did not obey his sister's exhortation to 
 seek repose in bed. Her engagement to procure a substitute took 
 absorbing possession of his soul. What did she mean to do ? 
 How, in fact, could she raise the purchase-money ! Vague fears 
 of inconvenience, perhaps of humiliation and suffering to her, 
 crowded upon his mind ; and, wrought upon by his great love for 
 his sister, Francois paced the room, his kindling resolves almost 
 verifying Hortense's half prophecy, that " a change might again 
 come over him." 
 
 He watched the progress of the winter morning through his 
 windows. He descended to the breakfast-room. A note from 
 his sister awaited him upon the table : — 
 
 " I am quite sure of obtaining a substitute, only I must be ab- 
 sent some days from home. When you read this I shall be already 
 miles distant from you. As you wish me to succeed, makeuo in- 
 quiries about me till we meet. Adieu, dear brother. — Hortense." 
 
 Agitated with he knew not what terrors, Fran9oi3 soon dis- 
 obeyed the injunction of the last lines. He hastened to question 
 the servants about Hortense's departure from the house. No one 
 had seen her leave it. He spoke uith his brother Antoine, who 
 rode off to make inquiries in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Fran9oi3 himself walked to Eugene's house. The young man 
 had just gone, galloping hard, and in no amiable humour, towards 
 a distant point, on pretended business, and Avould not return for 
 three days. Francois walked home again, and in the course of 
 the day saw Antoine come back without obtaining the slightest 
 information of their sister. 
 
 Inquiries and searches were continued for the better part of 
 three days, in the adjacent town as well as in the country, but 
 without effect. Eugene appeared at the chateau, agitated with 
 the news of Hortense's elopement. At first, even he could make 
 nothing of it : but, after a moody pause, he smote his thigh, and 
 asked Fran9ois to accompany him to the house of his rich rival. 
 
 They accordingly went thither together. Eugene prophesied 
 either that Hortense would be found under the chevalier's roof, 
 
310 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 after obtaining money from him to purchase a substitute ; or, that 
 the chevalier would be reported absent, no one knew where. Al- 
 though Francois indignantly flouted his vile suspicions, yet the jea- 
 lous lover desired him to call to mind how coldly Hortense had 
 ti-eated her old friend the very last evening they had all been to- 
 gether ; and he added, that, although upon that occasion she had 
 told him, Eugene, that she know nothing of the chevalier's visit in 
 the course of the day, yet he had since had good reason to think 
 that they had spent many hours together in the garden. 
 
 Neither of Eugene's prognostics proved true. They saw the 
 chevalier, and his assurances of total ignorance of the present fate 
 of Hortense could not be doubted. 
 
 It was the day, and near the hour, when, according to notice re- 
 ceived, Fran9ois was to repair to the town to learn the exact time 
 fixed for his march, as a conscript towards the frontier. Eugent; 
 accompanied his friend. In the town, having presented themselves 
 before the proper authorities, they were told that Fran9ois was now 
 a free man, a substitute having taken his place three days before. 
 It was added, that the young person, from some pressing motive 
 not explained, had urgently required, and eventually obtained, 
 written permission to hasten, as soon as he wished, to the head 
 town of the department, where all the conscripts were to assemble by 
 a certain day. 
 
 A dreadful though true misgiving seized upon FrauQois. He 
 asked to have the features of the substitute described to him. 
 Eugene and he glared, thunderstruck, at each other, while his re- 
 quest was complied with. Francois, after a moment's pause, re- 
 quested to know how the substitute had been dressed : — in the de- 
 tails given, he recognised a suit of his own clothes. The name was 
 the last request ; and then the friends mounted two good horses. 
 The next day they gained the chief town of the department. A 
 substitute of the name given had set out the day before, with many 
 others freshly come in and classed together at random, to join a corps 
 actually in the field, only a few miles beyond the near frontier. 
 Then FranQois and Eugene put their stout horses to their best. 
 
 It was the next morning, just after day-break, that the noise of 
 musketry and cannon reached them on their rapid journey. A 
 short time after, they gained from a height a view of a smart 
 skirmish. French soldiers were in quick retreat over the plain 
 below them. — It would be superfluous to go through all the little 
 events which, in rapid succession, brought the brother and sister 
 togethei^ Enough to say, that Fran9ois outstripped even Hor- 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 311 
 
 tense's lover, when he saw her in immediate danger — ^brought down 
 with a pistol-shot the whiskered and moustached Prussian whose 
 sabre was descending on her head — and, after delivering her into 
 Eugene's arms, stood his ground in her place, doing his work like 
 a man and a soldier. The change did come over him, from that 
 moment. He served many campaigns with honour, and returned to 
 his family, holding some rank a» an officer. 
 
 For Hortense, we repeat, kind English reader, that she yet lives 
 in the brave country in which we now write ; and more, that she 
 wears (whenever she likes) a military decortition, presented to her, 
 soon after the facts of her lofty and yet tender heroism had become 
 known to her Imperial Sovereign. 
 
 THE END OF THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 W.rji 
 
A TALE OF 
 
 THE WHITE BRISTOL 
 
 The Defiance, a Bristol stage, or as its numerons officials along 
 the road called it^ " The White Bristol," rolled up to town at the? 
 rate of nine miles an hour, having four " insides," and fourteen 
 " outsides," — including a livery servant, rather smuggled, we ap- 
 prehend, upon the flat of the roof, where he lay at his length, com- 
 fortably bedded on a couch of cloaks, great coats, and empty sacks. 
 
 It is known to all travellers on the tops of stages, (now a large 
 and diversified portion of the English community, embracing every 
 class, from the nobleman to the old- clothes-man,) that, be the? 
 load of " outsides" full or deficient, or overcharged, it invariably 
 divides itself into three companies, each of which can hold little or 
 no intercourse with the other, although the individuals of each may, 
 if they like, (and they seldom do,) become good friends among them- 
 selves. The coachman and the knowing young gentleman, who, 
 before any one else thought of the advantage, " engaged the box- 
 seat," may be regarded as the first of these sets. Detached from 
 their fellow-travellers, they beguile the time with confidential dis- 
 cussions upon *' the whip," the turf, the ring, the dog that, at any 
 odds, kills two hundred rats in a minute, or the great cricket match 
 of " Kent against all England." And, whether from their foremost 
 place upon one of the high roads of this world, or from a sense of 
 exclusiveness worthy of Willis's dancing-rooms, or that they dis- 
 like the considerable trouble of half-turning their heads to answer 
 an occasional question from some one behind them, most commonly 
 they gain their journey's end without doing much more than 
 making one another's acquaintance* The close-packed row, oc- 
 cupying the front edge of the roof, from whom now and then arise 
 those questions which, good-naturedly or satisfactorily at least, are 
 
314 THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 
 seldom resolved, form the second company. But the most numer- 
 ous party is to be found at the rear of the coach, where a second 
 row of four slip on and off, and off and on the roof, confronting yet 
 three more human beings, who are half caged up in semicircular 
 iron bars, which, the morning after a journey, leave a yellow and 
 green mark, and not a comfortable sensation towards the termina- 
 tion of the lumbar vertebrae. 
 
 Elevated above the common sublunary level, our little tale begins, 
 then, upon the top of the White Bristol, and among a full circle of 
 its back outsides. With its first two sets, cut off from us by the 
 length of the roof, or with the isolated lounger stretched along the 
 flat of that roof, we have nothing to do. But our chosen com- 
 pany— --some of them at least — shall be severally presented to the 
 reader. 
 
 In the right of the iron-railed basket-seat, which jutted beyond 
 all other appurtenances of the manifold machine, sat a smart-dressed, 
 smart-faced young man, who, from the certain kind of leering smile 
 that constantly played in his large grey eyes, and round his gaping 
 mouth, seemed to think himself much better than his circle, yet 
 willing to be inwardly amused at their expense. He had a town 
 air, and might be an emissary from some " London house" to a 
 Bristol correspondent, now returning to his desk, after transacting 
 his employer's business. 
 
 Next to him was a young woman of about twenty, holding on 
 her lap a lively infant just beginning to gabble in its own occult 
 (though for that reason not vague) language, and to kiss its little 
 hand, and to nod its little head, and to point to novel objects, in 
 admiration or inquiry ; in fact, to go through its first charming 
 intercourse with its kind, and its first observance of the mute 
 creation, which it had been sent here to comprehend, to use, and 
 to enjoy. 
 
 At the left of the young woman and her fairy charge sat a man, 
 perhaps upwards of thirty ; but the rich,' embrowned hue of his 
 countenance, betokening long exposure to foreign suns and weather, 
 would probably induce an over- calculation of his age. There was 
 a buoyancy of expression in his rather handsome features, which, 
 according to the world, belonged certainly to early youth ; if indeed 
 one did not account for its attendance upon maturer years, by sup- 
 posing (what his complexion hinted) that he had passed much of 
 his previous life in the camp or on the wave, cut off frgm worldly 
 mannerism, and preserving almost untainted, one of the most bounti- 
 ful gifts of a good Providence — a cheery and hearty disposition. 
 
THE WHITE BRISTOL. 215 
 
 His observers, upon the present occasion, could not decide, how- 
 ever, in which of the capacities alluded to he might have served 
 his country, for he was as free of military or of naval as he was 
 of social technicality. His plain, peaceful dress, also left curi- 
 osity at fault. Indeed, considering that the Peninsular contest 
 still went on, and that few who had a right to exhibit warlike cos- 
 tume usually travelled without it, it was highly probable, after all, 
 that he had acquired his foreign complexion without facing peril 
 either of flood or of field. And the rank which, previous to his as- 
 cent to the basket of the White Bristol, he might have held in 
 general society, further appeared doubtful. Awkward or vulgar he 
 could not be called in anything he said or did ; yet, in his way of 
 saying or doing anything, polished he as surely was not. He was 
 polite. But it was not the politeness of a coterie, nor of a particular 
 country — it was his own ; or else, he had picked it up, here and there, 
 in many countries. 
 
 Such were the three passengers who, tightly wedged together, 
 filled the basket of the stage. The first of the four who clung to 
 the confronting roof seemed a very young gentleman. He held his 
 head averted from his opposite companions of the road, looking out 
 upon the fields or the sky : he almost turned his back upon his own 
 row ; he dangled one leg over the iron of his perch. His colourless, 
 thin, rigid face, kept itself as imperturbed as if he had been dead, 
 and his lips as compressed as if they had been settled after death. 
 He was obviously an eminent being. And inasmuch as, during the 
 whole journey, he continued to evince his own sense of this supe- 
 riority in the manner described, he shall henceforward be passed 
 by, just as if, indeed, he had not that day sat on the White 
 Bristol at all, but was really one of the dead-and-gone world he 
 seemed so studious of counterfeiting amid the summer sunshine of 
 our living one. 
 
 By his side appeared a man almost as young as he ; like him, 
 pointedly averting his eyes from his vis-cb-vis friends in the bas- 
 ket, and, particularly from the young woman who held the infant ; 
 like him, serious and silent as the grave. But he was only a de- 
 cent-clad, respectable-looking young person ; and deep-seated sor- 
 row, or suppressed agitation, instead of stolid assumption, or well- 
 managed superciliousness, characterised his taciturnity. 
 
 We need say but little of the personage who sat at his left hand. 
 She was a middle-aged, and very fat woman. Stie held a wicker 
 reticule, of proportions corresponding to herself, in her hand, from 
 under the hd of which peeped the neck of a small green bottle, 
 
316 THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 
 often applied, with a care-fraught sigh, to her lips. After it had 
 been so applied she always slumbered, or only started into waking 
 existence, shrieking faintly, and clinging to her neighbours, as her 
 dreams vividly pictured the coach in the act of breaking down under 
 her. And of the last passenger of our set, whom she crushed against 
 the barred irons of the roof, we can say but little. Owing to the 
 point of sight from which we observed the group, we can only avow 
 that a spare-limbed little man ivas there, who now and then ven- 
 tured an expostulating look close into the face of the unconscious 
 heap of fat, flesh, and clothes — the noontide incubus — the day- 
 mare that oppressed him ; or timidly dared to address his opposite 
 nieghbour, the supposed ^ traveller to a house ;' and, in both cases, 
 had nothing for his trouble. 
 
 The first indivual of our company who, long before the coach 
 started that morning, had mounted behind, was the young woman 
 with the infant. She came quite alone into the inn-yard at Bris- 
 tol ; and after standing at the wheels some time, and looking tim- 
 idly and anxiously around her, was at last assisted up by an hostler. 
 The fat woman soon followed, attended by a crowd of friends ; she 
 and they looked bitterly disappointed when the middle seat in the 
 basket appeared already occupied : but a place on the roof, far 
 away from the irons at either hand, was, after much qualification 
 with a great many soft things, deemed a tolerably good substitute. 
 Up sprang, next, the tropical-faced young man, and flung himself 
 into the first vacancy which caught his eye, — namely, that at the 
 young woman*s left hand. The moment he was seated he began to 
 chirp and talk to her charge, and to praise its beauty and its liveli- 
 ness, and to ask its age ; and, when he had been answered, to wonder 
 that there could be so fine and so intelligent a creature of only 
 thirteen months. Shortly^ he had it in his arms, and he and it 
 were very good friends, as also, indeed, were he and its young nurse 
 or nursery-maid, although few words or even looks of hers assured 
 him of the fact. While the helpers put the horses to, the dapper 
 youth, mentioned as sitting at the young woman's right hand, clam- 
 bered up : the little sufferer under the stout lady then crept into his 
 infelicitous nook — he might have chosen better, but he seemed too 
 nervous for the effort ; and the White Bristol rattled out of the inn- 
 yard, yet wanting, among its rear-outsides, two of the party already 
 enumerated. 
 
 But, at the corner of an outlet street, standing alone, with a bundle 
 in his hand, soon appeared the grave or afilicted young man, who 
 afterwards sat between the stout lady and the stupid^ affected young 
 man : and now there was a succession of little incidents. 
 
THE WHITE BRISTOL. 317 
 
 As the coach stopped to pick him up, the young woman glanced 
 down, and immediately started, trembled, and grew pale ; then she 
 quickly turned her head, dre^ a shawl, like an awning, over the 
 baby, and let down a thick green veil over her own face. An in- 
 stant after, she half rose up and looked around her, as if impulsively 
 anxious to descend and abandon the stage. But a doleful sigh seemed 
 to intimate that, on second thoughts, she must of necessity resign 
 herself to her situation, however disagreeable it might be. As her 
 sole resource, she held her head steadily turned away from the side 
 of the coach at which she had seen the young man standing, and up 
 which she, no doubt, concluded he would cUmb to the top. 
 
 Evidently, the cause of her uneasiness had not yet caught a sight 
 of her. But this was soon to happen, notwithstanding her precau- 
 tions. Instead of ascending the vehicle at the side which it was 
 natural to think he would prefer, he must have gone round to the 
 other, for some sufficient reason ; for she had scarce averted her face 
 to that other side, when his closely confronted it, emerging in the 
 space left open for gaining the roof. No one except himself could 
 now see her look, on account of the depth and closeness of her bon- 
 net ; but excessive surprise first worked in his features : immediately 
 €ame a fiery blush, and a dropping of his eye, not so intelligible ; 
 then, in his turn, he grew very pale, then wavered in his insecure 
 position, and the White Bristol again rolling oif, after Mr. Coachee's 
 mere warning of ' hold fast ' — he must have dropped under its 
 wheels, but that his future companions grappled him by the arms 
 and the collar, and dragged him into his seat. Even the youthful 
 nurse, with a loud catching of breath, stretched out one of her hands, 
 unconsciously it would seem, when she witnessed his emotion, and 
 foresaw his danger. The moment he was in safety, her repelling 
 manner returned : and after many useless glances, he too assumed 
 the grave estrangement of the eye which has before been noticed. 
 This difference there was, however, between their avoidance of one 
 another ; hers seemed prompted by dislike, or at least by anger ; 
 his, self-imposed by necessity, whatever that necessity might be. 
 
 In a short time their unknown feelings towards each other were 
 again called into play. 
 
 The coach had proceeded some miles beyond Bristol, when the 
 automaton young gentleman, doomed to fill the now sole vacant place 
 on the roof, hailed it from the avenue-gate of an elegant mansion, a 
 Fhort distance off the road. While the White Bristol pulled up for 
 him, and while he mounted it, our sunburnt friend, the early ad- 
 mirer of the engaging infant, suddenly asked the protectress of his 
 a vourite, ** Is the dear little soul asleep ?" 
 
318 THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 
 This question revealed the baby's father at once. We have yet 
 no name for him — but, at the sound of the words, he jerked round 
 on his seat and fixed his eyes uponlhe shawl-awning, which com- 
 pletely hid even the shape of the child, and which, it became ob- 
 vious, he had not — from his first agitation, and his averted glances 
 afterwards — suspected, until this moment, of covering the little 
 creature whose intimated presence now so much absorbed him. 
 
 The young woman answered " Yes,' to her companion at her left, 
 in a low voice, and without moving. The father had been about 
 to speak ; his lips were shaping the words, his hands were stirring 
 at his sides ; but when he caught her monosyllable, his straining 
 and glowing eyes grew dim and watery, and his person^and fea- 
 tures became stilled — all except his under lip, and that he drew in 
 to check its spasm. The child's nurse would not yet look in the 
 direction where he sat. In some time he also resumed, with a 
 low, long sigh, the part he, perhaps, thought himself compelled 
 to adopt from the mute dictation of her conduct. 
 
 About two hours elapsed, and all our party were silent, and in- 
 deed motionless. Except that the young exclusive swung his ram- 
 rod leg over the iron of the roof, and that the young woman's 
 sun- tanned neighbour felt her shrink, once or twice, as if to re- 
 lieve herself of some bodily inconvenience. He looked back to 
 ascertain whether or no the iron of the basket chafed her : but 
 she sat forward from it, and he only detected the left arm of the 
 " commercial traveller" (may we be forgiven if we pertinaciously 
 assign to this young gentleman an unworthy rank and calling ?) 
 quickly snatched home from his observation. The White Bristol 
 stopped to change horses, and with a little cry the infant awoke. A 
 second time the father's eyes flashed upon the shawl. The nurse 
 partially uncovered her baby, and evidently would have kept it 
 quiet on her knee. But up it popped its face, now more rosy 
 than ever after a refreshing sleep, and, swinging round, and catch- 
 ing the eye of its late play-fellow, crowed in glee, held out its arms, 
 and writhed, nay kicked, to come to him. He put his hands round 
 it, and petitioned to have it ; the young woman let it go, silently 
 and passively — and the next instant it was clasped on his father's 
 breast. " For the first time 1" mentally remarked our pleasant- 
 faced friend, who, indeed, had willingly allowed his new pet to 
 be snatched from him. Then, humming a tune, he glanced at the 
 mother — for such he at length would have her be. Still she had 
 not turned her head ; but it was bent on her hands. Though her 
 bonnet screened her emotion, he felt from his unavoidable proxi- 
 
THE WHITE BRISTOL. 819 
 
 mity to her, a convulsive shaking of her frame, which intimated 
 that she wept profuse, though suppressed, tears. 
 
 The infant did not like its new acquaintance : his sobs, his ar- 
 dent kisses and embraces, had not the charm of the chirping, the 
 smiles, and the playful fondlings of its first patron : and it strug- 
 gled, and at last cried, to get free. Obviously chagrined, he tried 
 in vain to conciliate it, calling it twenty pretty names, and often 
 looking towards its mother as if he hoped she would at last ask 
 it of him. But even yet she avoided his eye. The father, with 
 another heavy sigh, passed it to the arm of his opposite fellow- 
 traveller, and quietness once more reigned among our circle. 
 
 The White Bristol had left the city (which has immortalized it- 
 self by rejecting, after having chosen, Edmund Burke as its par- 
 liamentary representative) — at ten o'clock. At two, a fierce July 
 sun played fully upon our travellers. The young woman grew fain t 
 from the heat, and^ taking off her shawl, exhibited a charmin g 
 figure, and a fair, delicate^ taper neck. To protect the latter from 
 being assimilated with his own complexion, her left hand neigh- 
 bour put up an umbrella over her. In this situation he again fe It 
 her shrink and even start, and, glancing across her shoulders, saw 
 the arm he had before noticed stealing round her waist. 
 
 " You wish the gentleman to keep his arm where it ought to be ?' ' 
 he asked, loud enough to be heard by the whole party. 
 
 "What arm? what gentleman?" seconded the infant's father , 
 fiercely. 
 
 " Nothing incommodes me now, sir, thank you," she said, reply- 
 ing only to the first speaker. The impertinent arm had been with- 
 drawn. 
 
 " And you would rather not be incommoded, in future ?" 
 *' Certainly, sir." 
 
 " Then I am sure the gentleman will remember"-^speaking ove r 
 to him. 
 
 " He had better, or I will make him remember !" added his ally , 
 bending a hostile glance on (still we hope he is) the commercia i 
 scout. At last, the young woman quickly looked up into the 
 speaker's face, plainly, though mutely, remonstrating against any 
 quarrel on her account ; and, had he as promptly responded, they 
 would probably have been better friends for the rest of their jour- 
 ney. Though he must have been aware of this decision in his fa- 
 vour, he chose, however, to keep his eyes frowningly fixed on the 
 object of his wrath, perhaps somewhat ostentatious of his zea 1 in 
 her cause, and inclined to make the most of it while she so closely 
 
320 THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 
 observed him. But the chidden youth, after one of his leering 
 stares, began to study the beauties of the landscape ; and all this 
 being rapidly comprehended by the young woman, she bent her 
 head towards her chest, and allowed her too-chivah'ous champion 
 to seek her eye, without finding it, at his own convenience. 
 
 After day-break, at about half-past two, next morning, the 
 White Bristol, now within some fourteen miles of the metropolis, 
 approached a spot where our brown-faced friend had told the coach- 
 man to set him down. The party, shaking off the slumber, or the 
 stupor of the short night, engaged themselves in restoring their ne- 
 glected dress to some degree of good order, suited to the inqusitive- 
 ness of '' the garish eye of day." The stage stopped at the bot- 
 tom of a hill, in order that the drag might be taken off its wheel. 
 *' Coachman," said the person we would seem inclined to be most 
 friendly with — "• over the next hill, about a mile on, you will see 
 a stile among some trees — put me down there ; I have to walk 
 across the fields to the village yonder." 
 
 The young woman turned fully round, and gazed into his face. 
 
 *' Yes' my little queen," he continued, catching up the infant 
 from her knee and kissing it — " good-bye — nearest and dearest 
 must part — so, good-bye. God bless you, your life-long — ay, 
 with every blessing !" (his eyes glistened) — " Look — look at yon 
 pretty, taper, little spire, coming up over the green trees — that's 
 my landmark — and 'tis many a long year since I saw it last, 
 Look ! is it not a pretty thing ?" 
 
 The infant crowed, and jumped on his lap, and looked and 
 pointed as he looked and pointed, just as if it understood him, or 
 even could discern an object at such a distance. 
 
 " Ay is it. Do you know, fairy, I have seen none half as 
 pretty ever since I parted with it, though I've seen a good many ?" 
 
 The child looked down upon the road, and directed his atten- 
 tion to another object. This was a man who sat on. a stone by 
 the road-side, his knees widely parted, his elbows resting on them, 
 and his head drooping forward so as to hide his features. A 
 small bundle, having a stick thrust through its knot, lay beside 
 him. Had he appeared standing, his stature must have approached 
 the gigantic, although his limbs were gaunt and spare. He wore 
 ii low-crowned, narrow-brimmed glazed hat, much battered and 
 bruised ; coarse linen trowsers, tarred, rent, and patched ; a bluish - 
 shirt-frock, also of some linen or cotton quality, and also soiled, 
 and torn, and here and there clumsily patched ; the collar of his 
 check shirt was open ; and his bare, brown, bony ankles ap- 
 
THE WHITE BRISTOL. 321 
 
 peared above very old shoes. He seemed excessively weary, per- 
 haps after walking all night, for the dust of the road covered 
 him from head to foot ; or, if he had slept since the sun went 
 down, it might have been in some field by the road, as was inti- 
 mated by the blades of new hay which adhered to different parts 
 of his person. 
 
 " So tired, brother?" asked the infant's friend. The way- 
 worn, or else dogged man, made no answer. At that instant the 
 White Bristol, freed of its drag, resumed its speed, cutting short 
 further efforts to draw him into conversation. But the querist 
 noted that, as the coach whisked by, he arose from the stone, 
 took up his stick and bundle, and seemed to turn his face in the 
 direction opposite to its course. 
 
 Shortly after, the infant's mother a third time started more 
 vehemently than she had done before. The two champions, look- 
 ing at her former persecutor, seemed strongly disposed to be 
 -angry, but she interrupted them, saying, in great alarm, . " No, 
 no — here, behind !" Looking over the back of her seat, she almost 
 screamed at the vision of a great bony hand — from which tar, 
 and other stains, had been but half washed off — perhaps worn 
 off — that appeared grasping the iron rail of the basket, close at 
 her elbow, A louder scream escaped her, when, in reply to her 
 first, a man's face — wasted, though youthful, pale, or rather 
 dingy-yellow, though weather-beaten, clouded in coal-black hair, 
 that hung, like ropes, down the cheeks, and surmounted by the 
 old glazed hat just seen upon the road-side — turned upward, and 
 at only the distance of two or three feet glared its large black eyes 
 into hers. It was, indeed, the tired pedestrian, who, standing 
 upon a trunk that had been swung in chains at the back of the 
 coach, underneath^ supported himself by holding the basket-rail 
 with one hand, and some lower stay with the other ; thus hoping, 
 unnoticed by coachman or passengers, to get himself conveyed a 
 mile or two on his journey. 
 
 The infant echoed its mother's scream ; and our party were 
 thrown into some confusion. 
 
 " You had better get down, friend," said the sun-burnt traveller. 
 His former seconder more violently interfered. The owner of the 
 raw-boned, gigantic hand took no notice. 
 
 ** It seems captious to insist with you," resumed the first peace- 
 maker; " and only that you frighten the young woman and the 
 child, we would not do so ; but come — you really must leave us 
 more to ourselves." 
 
S22 THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 
 Still the pertinacious hand showed no sign of relaxing its gristly 
 gripe, and still no answer was vouchsafed. 
 
 ** Strike him to the road I" cried the infant's father. 
 
 *^ Hush, Tom, hush !" said the young woman, in a low Toice 
 half kind^ half commanding. 
 
 i^ Stop," resumed her less boisterous champion, as Tom (thanks 
 ■ for bis name, at last) started up as if to carry into effect his own 
 adv ice — " stop, coachman !" rid us of a fellow who has got up 
 behind here." 
 
 " T,ke off his castor, sir, and show it the road ; we finds that 
 alwaysafits them rum uns best/' answered Ooachee, lashing his 
 horses. 
 
 " A nd a very good way I believe it is — so I'll try it." 
 
 Stooping over the seat, he accordingly took off the intruder's 
 hat, and let it fall on the road. What followed was not to have 
 been expected. The man's face had been turned downward ; now 
 he again turned it up, and darted at our friend a very extraordi- 
 nary look — or rather, a succession of looks. The first was hasty, 
 blighting rage ; the next — while his gaunt fist worked on the 
 iron — was wild revenge ; then he snatched away his hand — it 
 was the right — and, clinging to the coach only by the other, 
 allowed his body to swing back, and it and its arm to knit into 
 full strength for a destroying blow. A second after, either recol- 
 lecting that his foe was beyond his reach, or that his own preca- 
 rious position did not admit of success in his attempt, his features 
 and attitude changed into a baleful expression of resolved future 
 vengeance ; his eye flared less, but it burned deeper ; his high- 
 boned sunken cheeks grew horribly colourless ; his blue lips parted, 
 showing his set teeth ; his shoulders fell, and his back-drawn arm 
 and hand dropped at his side. Some of the spectators laughed, 
 doubtless at the absurdity of such extravagant and impotent anger 
 from such a mean person, and for a provocation so slight, and in- 
 deed merited ; but the spectator most concerned did not laugh. 
 He thrilled, as their eyes communed together, if not with alarm, 
 certainly with astonishment ; nay, with interest, too ; finally, with 
 admiration. He had often seen the human countenance worked 
 with human passion ; but the intense animal ferocity of that youth- 
 ful, wasted, and yet finely featured face ; its distinctness ; the 
 deadly frown of those shaggy eyebrows over those beautiful, dis- 
 torted, devouring eyes ; the mental character that heightened, 
 ennobled the whole — he called it in his own mind, wonderful and 
 magnificent. 
 
THE WHITE BRISTOL. 323 
 
 And the tone in which the man at last got out words to syl- 
 )a\)le his enorihous passion, well suited the previous eloquence of 
 his countenaT::ice ; it mastered the noise of the clattering, grinding 
 coach, and the tramping horses — and yet it was not shrill. 
 
 "Rascal!" he said — '^coward! dog! I have marked you, till 
 we meet again ! You could not know that, in insulting me, you 
 outraged a man above his present appearance ; but you saw me — 
 you saw me ragged, jaded, hungry, and yet a man. And when 
 I would only give my blistered feet a little rest — taking me at a 
 cowardly disadvantage — in every way cowardly — you — you — but 
 no matter ! I shall know you another time ! I have looked well 
 at you — ay — marked you, I say, for that other time ! Think of 
 me till it comes !" He recklessly let go his hold of the coach, 
 and was flung by its motion prostrate upon the road. 
 
 " Strange, very strange !'' mused our friend, his feelings di- 
 vided between the ludicrousness of the scene — so swelling a result 
 from such a silly cause — and sympathy with the hidden character, 
 the perhaps trampled heart, if not shattered mind, he had roused 
 into morbid fury. Then he recollected that the language addressed 
 to him could not have come from a vulgar man : and here his own 
 heart smote him, and he anxiously looked back, grieving for the 
 poor fellow's fall. But the coach had gained, and was descend- 
 ing, at the opposite side, the second hill pointed out by himself to 
 the coachman, and the wayfarer could not be seen. " Poor 
 wretch ! perhaps I have, indeed, treated with indignity a spirit 
 not created for its present situation." 
 
 His reverie was interrupted by the coach stopping " at the stile 
 among the trees." He snatched a parting kiss from the baby, 
 wished its mother many blessings, bowed to his other fellow- 
 travellers, got down, and vaulted over the stile. It had been ar- 
 ranged that his luggage should go on to the next town. 
 
 In a few moments he only saw the broad, well-beaten path he 
 had trod so often in childhood, sweeping before him, through 
 meadows of new hay, down to the umbrageous hollow, in which 
 rose his beloved spire. '^ 'Tis still the same," he said — " the very 
 smell of the new-mown hay, and all ; see — the stepping-stones over 
 this little bourne — one, two, three — the identical ones, only a little 
 worn — and very little, either — not half as much as I am — ay ! the 
 mute, inert things remain the same, while our generations pass 
 away." 
 
 On he bounded ; the stile which he had just crossed having now 
 sunk below the steep, though pleasant, declivity he was descend- 
 
/ 
 
 / 
 
 324: THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 
 ing. The spire, too, seemed to subside gi-adually in'o its rich trees, 
 as he first gained a level with it, and then walkev^ o^er g.^:<:iund 
 lower than that upon which it was based. But its t^ip- ?,Vill seen, 
 grew more distinct — with its old, well-known features, its weather 
 slating, its ventilation apertures — its very minute differences of co- 
 lour : and houses of the little clustering village it commanded also 
 began to peep out, here and there, through their embowering foliage. 
 
 Tears started to his eyes. He quickened his already quick pace, 
 and hummed an old song of boyhood to divert them back again. 
 A w^ild shout reached him. He turned ; and along a narrow path, 
 meeting his at an angle, raced the wayfarer. 
 
 Our friend now felt some real alarm, but only such as a brave 
 man experiences at the prospect of unnatural contest with a maniac, 
 for such he deemed this frantic person to be. It was a very early 
 hour, scarce past three o'clock in the morning : the place was lonely, 
 too : and the humble inhabitants of the village were beyond hail, 
 ev^n if any of them had yet left their beds. He was unarmed, and 
 though muscular and active, as well as thoroughly brave, doubted 
 the result of a struggle with the excited strength of the gaunt giant 
 who sought to cope with hioi. Kot altering his pace, he again 
 looked behind. His enemy was twice as far from him as he was 
 from the village. He would walk quicker, and perhaps gain the 
 neighbourhood of human beings before they could come in contact. 
 It had occurred to his mind to imitate his pursuer, and run ; but, 
 whatever might be the consequences, his spirit disdainfully rejected 
 the idea. 
 
 " Stop !" — he heard ejaculated at a distance behind him — " stop, 
 and face me ! Coward 1" — (when he paid no attention to this com- 
 mand) — " you fear to stop ! — ^you have insulted me, and you fear 
 me !" At these words he did stop, however, and turned round ; 
 and then walked cooly to meet his challenger. 
 
 The furious man ran forward at great speed ; but he often 
 staggered, as if his strength was failing him ; and his broken de- 
 livery — for still he spoke — also denoted exhaustion. 
 
 " You thought the time I warned you of was not so near at 
 hand — thought, perhaps, that I used idle threats, and that it would 
 never come — but you mistook ! And though now — now — it does 
 come sooner than I myself hoped — be sure I would have tracked 
 you, mile by mile, day by day — ay, till I fell dead on the road be- 
 tween us, or it shou/dhsLve come ! — satisfaction for your insult !" — 
 he continued, now ending his wild race a few yards from Ihis foe. 
 ** Many outrages I have been obliged to bear, but this I will not ! — 
 
/ 
 
 THE WHITE BRISTOL. 325 
 
 You ought to have pistols about you — or else near you. Give me 
 one and take another !" 
 
 " I have no such things about me or near me — you are mad to 
 talk such nonsense," he was answered. 
 
 " Liar ! — I should be — I wish I was — mad. But I am not ! and 
 you scoff me, because in these rags I demand satisfaction for your 
 ignominious insult ? — Come, you have something like this^ at least : 
 hold it in your hand, then !'* — he drew forth a large pocket-knife. 
 
 " Stand off, fellow ! — I carry no such weapons ; nor will I enter 
 into conflict with a maniac. Stand off, I say, at your peril. You 
 vile murderer — you assassin ! — would you thus attack an unarmed 
 traveller with a butcherly knife! — " 
 
 " No !" replied the assailant, " I am no cowardly assassin — 
 there goes my weapon" — flinging it far over the hedge. " And 
 now I meet you on equal terms — it is to grapple for life, villain I" 
 
 With these words he rushed furiously upon him. But, avoiding 
 his perilous grasp, our friend sprang aside. Clenching his fist, and 
 cooly summoning his strength, he felled him on the grass — where 
 he lay, overcome by exhaustion, as much as stunned by the blow, 
 although it was, indeed, a home one. 
 
 The victor, pity and interest still his predominant feelings, re- 
 solved to send some friendly aid to the vanquished, and pursued 
 his way to the village. Entering its narrow and straggling street, 
 he found greater changes in objects framed by man's hands than he 
 had seen in the features of nature along the meadow path. In one 
 place appeared a new house, where he had expected the familiar 
 face of an old one ; in another arose a human dwelling, where, six- 
 teen years ago, the period of his absence from home, bushes had 
 been growing ; and on many of the little sign-boards above the 
 humble village shops new names were substituted for those to which 
 his boyish eye had been familiar. 
 
 His heart fell, as, glancing around, now musing, he walked 
 slowly forward. The echoing of his solitary footsteps through the 
 slumbering village, heightened the sadness of his mood into a feel- 
 ing of desolation. " I have thought of it by day, and dreamt of 
 it by night, and it is not old home to me after all," he said. 
 
 Yielding to a heavy foreboding, he now almost feared to place 
 himself before the one well-remembered house, which he had tra- 
 velled far to enter. He leaned on the swinging stile of the church- 
 yard, that stood between him and it (and how emphatically between 
 him and it he thrilled to think) and gazed up at the old church 
 steeple. A sudden fancy took him, which he evasively expressed 
 
326 THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 
 to his own mind — " I will turn in here, and read the headstones to 
 see how many old friends are gone." And on the headstones, he 
 found, indeed, most of the names he had missed from the sign- 
 boards. But, at a veiy humble one he stopped and trembled. It 
 was not higher than his knee, and only bore the inscription — 
 " M. H. 1809, aged 56.'' They were, however, the initials of 
 his mother's name — and such might be her age, too, four years 
 previously, that is, in 1809. He ran out of the church-yard 
 towards the once decent cottage in which that good mother had-— 
 (until he last kissed her, and left her to brave the world for their 
 common advantage) — been the tutoress of his heart and mind. It 
 was a roofless ruin. He leaned his arm and head against its door- 
 jamb and he wept. 
 
 A noise in the street aroused him, and, looking up, he saw a 
 little lame old man wheeling a wheel-barrow, in which were a 
 shovel and a broom. At a glance he recognised " Old Master 
 Martin," who, as long as he could remember, used to rise every 
 morning, hours before any one else in the village, to scrape the 
 streets, that he might sell the produce — and live ; and he alone, 
 this decrepid, age-stricken, solitary being, the despised of his own 
 humble community — he, alone, seemed, to the eye of our friend, 
 unchanged in feature, nay, in garb, after the wear and tear of 
 sixteen years. He resolved to speak with Martin ; for still he 
 cherished a doubt of the headstone. 
 
 The old man had rested his wheel-barrow, and stood leaning 
 on his broom-handle, attentively eyeing the stranger. They ex- 
 changed salutations, and entered into conversation. Recollecting 
 the names he had seen in the church yard, the traveller — thus in- 
 troducing his real topic — severally inquired after the persons whom 
 they had once designated, and got an account of their several 
 deaths, and the manner of their deaths. " There was a widow of 
 the name of Martha Hall, too?" continued the querist. 
 
 " And so there was,'' replied old Martin, dropping his chin on 
 his breast ; our friend's doubt subsided. " Her removal happened 
 just four years ago, come harvest ; and it come about by reason 
 of the first letter she had from her son Dick, as went after her 
 eldest son to the Hindees, while her daughter Jane was in sarvice 
 in Lon'on, and old Martha herself in the work'se." 
 
 '^ The workhouse ? — and her little girl in service ? — how could 
 that be? I have reason to know that her son George regularly 
 sent her remittances, proportioned to his pay, from the time he 
 enlisted as a private soldier till he rose to be adjutant to his regi- 
 
THE WHITE BRISTOL. S57 
 
 ment. And his very last remittance was considerable, though the 
 former ones were slight." 
 
 *' We know that, too," said Master Martin. " But we know, 
 moreover, that the last money didn't come to hand as soon as it 
 ought to have come ; nor till after Dick Hall went to seek his 
 fortune — (a bad one it turned up for him ;) nor till after little 
 Jane went to Lon'on, and her mother on the parish, and then to 
 ^he church-yard, just because it didn't." 
 
 " And Richard Hall followed his brother to India — more than 
 four years ago, as it appears ? And how was his fortune so bad?" 
 
 " Why, instead of letting him work his passage out to the 
 Hindees after brother George — (that he loved dearly, though he 
 couldn't be said to know him, as why, Dick was only in his fourth 
 when George left us, and the girl only in her second) — they 
 pressed him for a man-o'- war's man, down on the coast ; and took 
 him round the world to fight the French, just wherever they liked; 
 ay, and gave him tho rope's-end, I believe, when he wouldn't take 
 to the tar, at the first setting off." 
 
 '* Good God ! bad fortune, indeed, for a lad who had, and has, 
 a friend willing and able to help him to a better ! His brother 
 often wrote to have his education attended to; and at twenty he 
 must have been a clever boy.'' 
 
 " The cleverest among us.; and the ehap had the spirit of a 
 lord ; maybe his fault lay on that side. And there came another 
 letter from him t'other day, for his mother, like the first ; but as 
 she, poor old soul, was removed, his uncle, Luckhurst, opened it, 
 and he said, he had just got his discharge at last, and that he 
 would start after it, not waiting for a shilling to help him on the 
 road, to see her and Jane«" 
 
 " Is lane Hall still in London ?" 
 
 " No ; poor wench 1 she has had her own troubles : married a 
 London husband, two years ago — a good tradesman, but a wild 
 un. He broke, and ran away from her : and she came down to 
 us, to have her baby ; and then she took it with her to Bristol, 
 where she'd got anew place. But we are soon to see her again; 
 lier uncle says to-morrow, or next day, if not to-day." 
 
 George Hall had reverted, with certain misgivings, to more than 
 one of his late acquaintances of the road, during the narrative of 
 the old chronicler. Now his heart swelled with emotion, as he 
 saw, coming down the street, three of these acquaintances. They 
 were the young woman and her child, and the serious young man 
 to whom, during the journey^ she would not speak. At present, 
 
328 THE WHITE BRISTOL, 
 
 however, she leaned on his arm, and he carried her infant. They 
 must have descended from the White Bristol immediately after 
 George Hall, although his bounding speed did not at first allow 
 him to take notice, and the falling ground he traversed soon after 
 caused him to lose sight of " the stile among the trees." Perhaps, 
 too, — (indeed it afterwards appeared to be the case) — they had 
 tamed some time, just inside the stile, to go through the explana- 
 tions which, notwithstanding the young woman's determined cold- 
 ness on the road, ultimately produced the good understanding 
 that seemed re-established between them. 
 
 The young woman's eyes met those of George Hall the moment 
 she appeared in the street ; and the interest with which they con- 
 tinued to regard each other was probably of a similar kind. She 
 passed him, and proceeded to the door of a house well known to 
 him as his uncle Luckhurst's. This was the presumptive proof he 
 wanted ; and, before she could knock, her brother had made him- 
 self known to her. 
 
 After their first embrace, and his renewed caresses of his infant 
 favourite, and his salutation of her husband — (whom Jane whis- 
 pered was very contrite and quite a changed man, and had been 
 lately an industrious one, and now brought home proofs of the 
 fact to his wife and child) — George Hall led his sister over the 
 crumbling threshold of their former home — seated her on the ruins 
 of a partition wall, which had once bounded their little parlour, 
 and there heard her repetition of old Master Martin's stories. Jane 
 touched lightly on her own sorrows ; but wept much while she 
 recounted those of her mother, and even more while she reverted 
 to their brother Richard, whom she endowed with mental and bo- 
 dily merits, even beyond old Martin's eulogy. At twenty, when 
 he left the village, Richard was the handsomest, tallest, best- 
 hearted, best-learned lad in the whole parish ; somewhat too high 
 in his notions, perhaps, but not so, after all, considering the high 
 expectations his brother George had allowed him to form, and the 
 gentleman's education he had sent means to afibrd him, and for 
 which Richard loved George more than for any other proof of affec- 
 tion. " But God knows how hard usage and great cruelty — too 
 much even for the meanest to bear — may have changed his na- 
 ture," continued Jane ; " and, indeed, in the last letter he sent 
 home, and that uncle Luckhurst sent to me, there is a bitterness, 
 and a sad, sad carelessness of mind, that makes me fear for him.'^ 
 Their melancholy conversation continued ; and George, holding 
 his sister's hand, caused her to rest her head upon his sh 
 
THE WHITE BRISTOL. 329 
 
 while she wept. In this situation they suddenly heard some one 
 jump in through a window-hole at their backs, and come crashing 
 among the rubbish. Before George Hall could stand on his guard, 
 he was overpowered and dragged to the ground, and the revengeful 
 wayfarer held his distorted face to our friend's, keeping him down 
 by the throat, and bending over him, while, amid Jane's shrieks, 
 he cried out — " Soh ! here I find you, miscreant, — here I and by 
 this woman's side ! Jane 1" he continued, almost shrieking, as he 
 turned to her, " I knew you this morning at one glance, though, 
 at one glance, you could not know me ; but I would not ask you 
 to recollect me, because my rags must have shamed you : and per- 
 haps for another reason — perhaps to watch your conduct with this 
 bully of yours— this scoffing, sneering braggart, who, for your 
 smiles — for your ruin !" he bent lower over our prostrate friend, 
 and griped him closer — " for your ruin — for my eternal shame — > 
 and for his own destruction — dared to insult your brother!" 
 
 Jane redoubled her screams, and clapped her hands, crying, 
 "Richard! Richard! — stop! stop!" Her frenzy did not allow 
 her to say more ; but George Hall shook off the young man's 
 gripe with a great effort, and jumped to his feet, as he said, " Yes, 
 Richard, stop ! for I, too, am Jane's brother." 
 
 Some months following, on the spot where this happened, the 
 two brothers, their sister, her child, and her husband, made a 
 happy family party, at a " housewarming-dinner," given by George 
 Hall, after he had built a commodious and handsome house upon 
 the site of the old cottage ; his youngest acquaintance of " The 
 White Bristol" on his knee. 
 
 THE END OF THE WHITE BRISTOL. 
 
THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 
 The faults of the lower orders of the Irish are sufficiently well 
 known : perhaps their virtues have not been proportionately ob- 
 served, or recorded for observation. At all events, it is but jus- 
 tice to them, and it cannot conflict with any established policy, or 
 do any one harm, to exhibit them in a more favourable light to 
 their British fellow- subjects, as often as strict truth will permit. 
 In this view the following story is written — the following facts, 
 indeed ; for we have a newspaper report before us, which shall be 
 very slightly departed from, while we make our copy from it. 
 
 The Irish plague, called typhus fever, raged in its terrors. In 
 almost eveiy third cabin there was a corpse daily. In every one, 
 without an exception, there was what had made the corpse — 
 hunger. It need not be added that there was poverty too. The 
 poor could not bury their dead. From mixed motives of self- 
 protection, terror, and benevolence, those in easier circumstances 
 exerted themselves to administer relief, in diflferent ways. Money 
 was subscribed — (then came England's muiftficent donation — God 
 prosper her for it !) — wholesome food, or food as wholesome as a 
 bad season permitted, was provided ; and men of respectability, 
 bracing their minds to avert the danger that threatened them- 
 selves, by boldly facing it, entered the infected house, where death 
 reigned almost alone, and took measures to cleanse and purify the 
 close cribbed air, and the rough, bare walls. Before proceeding 
 to our story, let us be permitted to mention some general marks 
 of Irish virtue, which, under those circumstances, we personally 
 noticed. In poverty, in abject misery, and at a short and fearful 
 notice, the poor man died like a Christian. He gave vent to none 
 of the poor man's complaints or invectives against the rich man 
 who had neglected him, or who, he might have supposed, had 
 done so, till it was too late. Except for a glance — and, doubt- 
 less, a little inward pang while he glanced — at the starving and 
 perhaps infected wife, or child, or old parent, as helpless as the 
 child, he blessed God, and died. The appearance of a comforter 
 
332 THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 
 at his wretched bed-side, even when he knew comfort to be useless, 
 made his heart grateful, and his spasmed lips eloquent in thanks. 
 In cases of indescribable misery — some members of his family lying 
 lifeless before his eyes, or else some dying — stretched upon damp 
 and unclean straw, on an earthen floor, without cordial for his 
 lips, or potatoes to point out to a crying infant — often we have 
 heard him whisper to himself (and to Another who heard him!) 
 " The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the 
 name of the Lord." Such men need not always make bad neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 In the early progress of the fever, before the more affluent 
 roused themselves to avert its career, we cross the threshold of an 
 individual peasant. His young wife lies dead j his second child 
 is dying at her side ; he has just sunk into a corner himself, under 
 the first stun of disease, long resisted. The only persons of his 
 family who have escaped contagion, and are likely to escape it, 
 are his old father, who sits weeping feebly upon the hob, and his 
 first born, a boy of three or four years, who, standing between 
 the old man's knees, cries also — for food. 
 
 We visit the young peasant's abode some time after. He has 
 not sunk under " the sickness."' He is fast regaining his strength, 
 even without proper nourishment ; he can creep out of doors, and 
 sit in the sun. But, in the expression of his sallow and emaciated 
 face, there is no joy for his escape from the grave, as he sits there 
 alone, silent and brooding. His father, and his surviving child, 
 are still hungry — more hungry, indeed, and more helpless than 
 ever ; for the neighbours who had relieved the family with a po- 
 tato and a mug of sour milk, are now stricken down themselves, 
 and want assistance to a much greater extent than they can give it, 
 " I wish Mr. Evans was in the place," cogitated Michaul Carroll ; 
 *' a body could spake for'nent him, and not spake for nothin', 
 for all that he's an Englishman ; and I don't like the thoughts o* 
 goin' up to the house to the steward's face — it wouldn't turn kind 
 to a body. Maybe he'd soon come home to us, the masther himself." 
 Another fortnight elapsed. Michaul's hope proved vain. Mr. 
 Evans was still in London ; though a regular resident on his small 
 Irish estate, since it had come into his possession, business unfor- 
 tunately — and he would have said so himself — now kept him an 
 unusually long time absent. Thus disappointed, Michael overcame 
 his repugnance to appear before the " hard" steward. He only 
 asked for v/ork, however. There was none to be had. He turned 
 his slow and still feeble foot into the adjacent town. It was market- 
 
THE STOLEN SHEEP. 833 
 
 day, and he took up his place among a crowd of other claimants for 
 agricultural employment, shouldering a spade, as did each of his com- 
 rades. Many farmers came to the well-known" stannin'," and hired 
 men at his right and at his left, but no one addressed Michaul. Once 
 or twice, indeed, touched perhaps by his sidelong looks of beseech- 
 ing misery, a farmer stopt a moment before him, and glanced over 
 his figure ; but his worn and almost shaking limbs giving little 
 promise of present vigour in the working field, worldly prudence 
 soon conquered the humane feeling which started up towards him 
 in the man's heart, and with a choking in his throat, poor Michaul 
 €aw the arbiter of his fate pass on. 
 
 He walked homeward, without having broken his fast that day. 
 ^^ JBud, musha, what's the harm o' that,"' he said to himself; " only 
 here's the ould father, an' her pet boy, the weenock, without a 
 pyatee either. Well asthore, if they can't have the pyatees, they 
 must have betther food — that's all ; ay," he muttered, clenching his 
 hands at his sides, and imprecating fearfully in Irish — " an' so 
 they must." 
 
 He left his house again, and walked a good way to beg a few 
 potatoes. He did not come home quite empty-handed. His father 
 and his child had a meal. He ate but a few himself ; and when 
 he was about to lie down in his corner for the night, he said to the 
 old man, across the room — " Don't be a-crying to-night, fiither — 
 you and the child, there ; but sleep well, and ye'll have the good 
 fereak'ast afore ye in the mornin'." 
 
 " Hie good break'ast, ma-bouchal f* a-then, an' where 'ill id 
 come from ?" 
 
 *' A body promised it to me, father." 
 
 " Avich ? Michaul, an' sure it's fun you're making of us, now, 
 at any rate. Bud, the good night, a chorra, t an' my blessin' on 
 your head, Michaul. If we keep trust in the good God, an' ax his 
 blessin,' too, mornin' an' evenin' gettin' up an' lyin' down, He'll be 
 a friend to us at last. That was always an' ever my word to you, 
 poor boy, since you was the years o' your own weenock, now fast 
 asleep at my side; an' it's my word to you, now, ma-bouchal; an' 
 you won't forget id. And there's one sayin' the same to you, out 
 o' heaven, this night — herself, an' her little angel-in-glory hy the 
 hand, Michaul a-vonrneen,^^ 
 
 Having thus spoken in the fervent and rather exaggerated, 
 though every- day, words of pious allusion of the Irish poor man, 
 
 * My boy. t Term of endearment. 
 
S34 THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 
 old Carroll soon dropt asleep, with his arms round his little grand- 
 son, both overcome by an unusually abundant meal. In the middle 
 of the night he was awakened by a stealthy noise. Without mov- 
 ing, he cast his eyes round the cabin. A small window, through 
 which the moon broke brilliantly, was open. He called to his son, 
 but received no answer. He called again and again : all remained 
 silent. He arose and crept to the corner where Michaul had lain 
 down. It was empty. He looked out through the window into 
 the moonlight. The figure of a man appeared at a distance, just 
 about to enter a pasture-field belonging to Mr. Evans. ^ 
 
 The old man leaned his back against the wall of the cabin^ 
 trembling with sudden and terrible misgivings. With him the 
 language of virtue, which we have heard him utter, was not cant. 
 In early prosperity, in subsequent misfortunes, and in his late and 
 present excess of wretchedness, he had never swerved in practice 
 from the spirit of his own exhortations to honesty before men, and 
 love for, and dependance upon God, which, as he has truly said, he 
 had constantly addressed to his son, since his earliest childhood. 
 And hitherto that son had, indeed, walked by his precepts, further 
 assisted by a regular observance of the duties of his religion. Was 
 he now about to turn into another path ? to bring shame on his 
 father in his old age ? to put a stain on their family and their name^ 
 " the name that a rogue or a bould woman never bore ?" continued 
 old Carroll, indulging in some of the pride and egotism for which 
 an Irish peasant is, under his circumstances, remarkable. And then 
 came the thought of the personal peril incurred by Michaul ; and his 
 agitation, incurred by the feebleness of age, nearly overpowered him. 
 
 He was sitting on the floor, shivering like one in an ague-fit^ 
 when he heard steps outside the house. He listened, and they 
 ceased: but the familiar noise of an old barn door creaking on its 
 crazy hinges, came on his ear. It was now day-dawn. He dressed 
 himself ; stole out^ cautiously; peeped into the bam, through a chink 
 of the door, and all he had feared met full confirmation. There, 
 indeed, sat Michaul, busily and earnestly engaged, with a frowning 
 brow and a haggard face, in quartering the animal he had stolen 
 from Mr. Evans's field. 
 
 The sight sickened the father — the blood on his son's hands, and 
 all. He was barely able to keep himself from falling. A fear, if 
 not a dislike, of the unhappy culprit also came upon him. His un- 
 conscious impulse was to re-enter their cabin unperceived, without 
 speaking a word ; he succeeded in doing so ; and then he fastened 
 the door again, and undressed, and resumed his place beside his 
 innocent little grandson. 
 
THE STOLEN SHEEP. 335 
 
 About an hour after, Michanl came in cautiously through the 
 still open window, and also undressed and reclined on his straw, 
 after glancing towards his father's bed, who pretended to be asleep. 
 
 At the usual time for arising, old Carroll saw him suddenly jump 
 up, and prepare to go abroad. He spoke to him, leaning on his 
 elbow. 
 
 " And what hollg * is on you, ma-houchal f 
 
 " Going for the good breakfast I promised you, father dear." 
 
 " An' who's the good Christhin '11 give id to us, Michaul ?" 
 
 " Oh, you'll know that soon, father : now, a good-bye :" — he 
 hunied to the door. 
 
 " A good-bye, then, Michual ; bud, tell me, what's that on your 
 hand ?" 
 
 "No — nothin'," stammered Michaul, changing colour, as he 
 hastily examined the hand himself. " Nothin' is on id : what could 
 there be ?" (nor was there, for he had very carefully removed all 
 evidence of guilt from his person ; and the father's question was 
 asked upon grounds distinct from anything he then saw.) 
 
 " Well, avich, an' sure I didn't say anything was on it wrong ; 
 or anything to make you look so quare, an' spake so sthrange to 
 your father, this mornin.' Only I'll ax you, Michaul, over agin, who 
 has took such a sudd'n likin' to us, to send us the good break' ast ? 
 an' answer me sthraight, Michaul — what is it to be, that you call it 
 so good ?" 
 
 " The good mate, father ;" he was again passing the threshold. 
 
 " Stop !" cried his father ; "stop, an' turn forn'ent me. Mate ? — 
 the good mate? — What 'ud bring mate into our poor house, 
 Michaul ? Tell me, I bid you again an' again, who is to give id to 
 you ?" 
 
 " Why, as I said afore, father, a body that — " 
 
 " A body that thieved it, Michaul Carroll ?" added the old man, 
 as his son hesitated, walking close up to the culprit ; " a body that 
 thieved id, an' no other body. Don't think to blind me, Michaul. 
 I am ould, to be sure ; but sense enough is left in me to look 
 round among the neighbours, in my own mind, an' know that none 
 of 'em that has the will, has the power to send us the mate for our 
 break'ast, in an honest way. An' I don't say, outright, that yau 
 had the same thought wid me, when you consented to take it from 
 a thief — I don't mean to say that you'd go to turn a thief's recaiver^ 
 at this hour o' your IJf e, an' afther growin' up from a boy to a man 
 
 * What are you about ? 
 
336 THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 
 widout bringin' a spot o' shame on yourself, or on your weenock, 
 or ou one of us. No : I won't say that. Your heart was scalded, 
 Michaul, an' your mind was darkened, for a start ; an' the thought 
 o' getting comfort for the ould father, an' for the little son, made 
 you consent in a hurry, widout lookin' well afore you, or widout 
 lookin' up to your good God." 
 
 *' Father, father, let me alone ! don't spake them words to me," 
 interruped Michaul, sitting on a stool, and spreading his large and 
 hard hands over his face. 
 
 " Well, thin, an' I won't, avicJi : I won't ; — nothin' to throuble 
 you, sure : I didn't mean id. Only this, a-vourneen. don't bring 
 a mouthful o' the bad, unlucky victuals into this cabin ; the pya- 
 tees, the wild berries o' the bush, the wild roots o' the earth, will be 
 sweeter to us, Michaul ; the hunger itself will be sweeter ; an' 
 when we give God thanks afther our poor meal, or afther no meal 
 at all, our hearts will be lighter, and our hopes for to-morrow 
 sthronger, avich-ma-chree, than if we faisted on the fat o' the land, 
 but couldn't ax a blessin' on our faist." 
 
 " Well, thin, / won't either, father ; I won't : — an' sure you 
 have your way now. I'll only go out a little while from you — to 
 beg ; or else, as you say, to root down in the ground, with my nails, 
 like a baste-brute, for our break'ast." 
 
 " My vourneen you are, Michaul, an' my bleesin' on your head ; 
 yes, to be sure, avich, beg, an' I'll beg wid you — sorrow a shame 
 is in that : — No ; but a good deed, Michaul, when it is done to 
 keep us honest. So come, we'll go among the Christhins together. 
 Only, before we go, Michaul, my own dear son, tell me — tell one 
 thing." 
 
 " What, father ?" Michaul began to suspect. 
 
 '* Never be afraid to tell me, Michaul Carroll, ma-houchal/ I 
 won't — I can't be angry Avid you now. You are sorry ; an' your 
 Father in heaven forgives you, and so do I. But you koow, avich, 
 there would be danger in quitting the place widout hiding well every 
 scrap of anything that could tell on us." 
 
 *' Tell on us ! What can tell on us ?" demanded Michaul ; 
 " what's in the place to tell on us ?" 
 
 '* Nothin' in the cabin, I know, Michaul ; but " 
 
 "But what, father?" 
 
 " Have you left nothing in the way, out there ?" whispered the 
 old man. pointing towards the barn. 
 
 " Out there ? Where ? What ? What do you mean at all, 
 now, father ? Sure you know it's your ownsef has kept me from 
 as much as laying a hand on it." 
 
THE STOLEN SHEEP. 337 
 
 " Ay, to-day-morning' ; — but you laid a hand on it last night, 
 avich, an' so " 
 
 " Gurp-an dhoulT imprecated Michaul — *' this is too bad, at 
 any rate ; no, I didn't — last night, or any other night — let me 
 alone, I bid you, father." 
 
 " Come back again, Michaul," commanded old Carroll, as the 
 son once more hurried to the door : and his words were instantly 
 obeyed. Michaul, after a glance abroad, and a start, which the 
 old man did not notice, paced to the middle of the floor, hanging 
 his head, and saying in a low voice — " Hushth, now, father — it's 
 time." 
 
 " No, Michaul, I will not hushth ; an' its not time ; come out with 
 me to the barn." 
 
 *' Hushth !" repeated Michaul, whispering sharply : he had glanced 
 sideways to the square patch of strong morning sun-hght on the 
 ground of the cabin, defined there by the shape of the open door, 
 and saw it intruded upon by the shadow of a man's bust leaning 
 forward in an earnest posture. 
 
 " Is id in your mind to go back into your sin, Michaul, an' tell 
 me you were not in the barn, at day- break, the mornin' ?" asked 
 his father, still unconscious of a reason for silence. 
 
 '' Arrah, hushth, ould man 1" Michaul made a hasty sign to^ 
 wards the door, but was disregarded. 
 
 " I saw you in id," pursued old Carroll, sternly : " ay, and at 
 your work in id, too." 
 
 " What's that you're say in', ould Peery Carroll ?" demanded a 
 well-known voice. 
 
 " Enough — to hang his son," whispered Michaul to his father, 
 as Mr. Evans's land-steward, followed by his herdsman and two 
 policemen, entered the cabin. In a few minutes afterwards, the 
 policemen had in charge the dismembered carcass of the sheep, 
 dug up out of the floor of the barn, and were escorting Michaul, 
 handcuffed, to the county gaol, in the vicinity of the next town. 
 They could find no trace of the animal's skin, though they sought 
 attentively for it ; and this seemed to disappoint them and the 
 steward a good deal. 
 
 From the moment that they entered the cabin, till their departure, 
 old Carroll did not speak a word. Without knowing it, as it 
 seemed, he sat down on his straw bed, and remained staring stupidly 
 around him, or at one or another of its visitors. When Michaul 
 was about to leave the wretched abode, he paced quickly towards 
 his father, and holding out his ironed hand^^, and turning his cheek 
 
 z 
 
338 THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 
 for a kiss, said, smiling miserably — " God be wid you, father dear." 
 Still the old man was silent, and the prisoner and all his attend- 
 ants passed out on the road. But it was then the agony of old 
 Carroll assumed a distinctness. Utteriug a fearful cry, he snatched 
 up his still sleepiug little grandson, ran with the boy in his arms 
 till he overtook Michaul ; and, kneeling down before him in the 
 dust^ said — " I ax pardon o' you avich — won't you tell me I have 
 id afore you go ? an' here^ I've brought little Peery for you to kiss ; 
 you forgot Am, a-vourneen.^^ 
 
 " No, father, I didn't," answered Michaul, as he stooped to kiss 
 the child ; an' get up, father, get up ; my hands are not my own, 
 or I wouldn't let you do that afore your son. Get up, there's no- 
 thin' for you to throuble yourself about ; that is, I mean, I have 
 nothing to forgive you : no, but everything to be thankful for, an' 
 to love you for ; you were always an' ever the good father to me ; 
 
 an' " The many strong and bitter feelings which till now he 
 
 had almost perfectly kept in, found full vent, and poor Michaul 
 could not go on. The parting from his father, however, so differ- 
 ent from what it had promised to be, comforted him. The old 
 man held him in his arms, and wept on his neck. They were 
 separated with difficulty. 
 
 Pefery Carroll, sitting on the roadside after he lost sight of the 
 prisoner, and holding his screaming grandson on his knees, thought 
 the cup of his trials was full. By his imprudence he had fixed the 
 proof of guilt on his own child ; that reflection was enough for him, 
 and he could indulge it only generally. But he was yet to con- 
 ceive exactly in what a dilemma he had involved himself as well as 
 Michaul. The policemen came back to compel his appearance be- 
 fore the magistrate ; and when the little child had been disposed 
 of in a neighbouring cabin, he understood, to his consternation and 
 horror, that he was to be the chief witness against the sheep-stealer. 
 Mr. Evans's steward knew well the meaning of the words he had over- 
 heard him say in the cabin, and that if compelled to swear all he 
 was aware of, no doubt would exist of the criminality of Michaul 
 in the eyes of a juiy. " 'Tis a sthrange thing to ax a father to do,'* 
 muttered Peery, more than once, as he proceeded to the magis- 
 trates ; " it's a very sthrange thing." 
 
 The magistrate proved to be a humane man. Notwithstanding 
 the zeal of the steward and the policemen, he committed Michaul 
 for trial, without continuing to press the hesitating and bewildered 
 old Peery into any detailed evidence ; his nature seemed to rise 
 against the task, and he said to the steward — '' 1 have enough of 
 
THE STOLEN SHEEP. 839 
 
 facts for making out a committal ; if you think the father will be 
 necessary on the trial subpoena him." 
 
 The steward objected that Peery would abscond, and demanded 
 to have him bound over to prosecute, on two sureties, solvent and 
 respectable. The magistrate assented ; Peery could name no bail ; 
 and consequently he also was marched to prison, though prohibited 
 from holding the least intercourse with Michaul. 
 
 The assizes soon came on. Michaul was arraigned ; and, during 
 his plea of " not guilty,'* his father appeared, unseen by him, in 
 the gaoler's custody, at the back of the dock, or rather in an inner 
 dock. The trial excited a keen and painful interest in the court, 
 the bar, the jury-box, and the crowds of spectators. It was uni- 
 versally known that a son had stolen a sheep, partly to feed a starv- 
 ing father ; and that out of the mouth of the father it was now 
 sought to condemn him. " What will the old man do ?" was the 
 general question which ran through the assembly : and while few 
 of the lower orders could contemplate the possibility of his swearing 
 to the truth, many of their betters scarce hesitated to make out for 
 him a case of natural necessity to swear falsely. 
 
 The trial began. The first witness, the herdsman, proved the 
 loss of the sheep, and the finding the dismembered carcass in the 
 old barn. The policemen and the steward followed to the same 
 effect, and the latter added the allusions which he had heard the 
 father make to the son, upon the morning of the arrest of the latter. 
 The steward went down from the table. There was a pause, and 
 complete silence, which the attorney for the prosecution broke by 
 saying to the crier, deliberately, " Call Peery Carroll." 
 
 " Here, sir," immediately answered Peery, as the gaoler led him 
 by a side- door, out of the back dock to the table. The prisoner 
 started round ; but the new witness against him had passed for an 
 instant into the crowd. 
 
 The next instant old Peery was seen ascending the table, as- 
 sisted by the gaoler, and by many other commiserating hands, near 
 him. Every glance fixed on his face. The barristers looked wist- 
 fully up from their seats round the table; the judge put a glass to 
 his eye and seemed to study his features attentively. Among the 
 audience there ran a low but expressive murmer of pity and interest. 
 Though much emaciated by confinement, anguish, and suspense, 
 Peery's cheeks had a flush, and his weak blue eyes glittered. The 
 half-gaping expression of his parched and haggard lips was miser- 
 able to see. Yet he did not tremble much, nor appear so con- 
 founded as upon the day of his visit to the magistrate. 
 
340 THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 
 The moment he stood upright on the table, he turned himself 
 fully to the judge, without a glance towards the dock. 
 
 " Sit down, sit down, poor man," said the judge. 
 
 " Thanks to you, my lord, I will," answered Peery, " only, first, 
 rd ax you to let me kneel, for a little start. He accordingly did 
 kneel, and after bowing his head, and forming the sign of the cross 
 on his forehead, he looked up, and said — ''My Judge in heaven 
 above, 'tis you I pray to keep me to my duty, afore my earthly 
 judge, this day ; — amen !" — Then, repeating the sign of the cro^s, 
 he seated himself. 
 
 The examination of the witness commenced, and humanely pro- 
 ceeded as follows — (the counsel for the prosecution taking no notice 
 of the superfluity of Peery's answers). 
 
 " Do you know Michaul, or Michael Carroll, the prisoner at the 
 ar?" 
 
 " Afore that night, sir, I believed I knew him well ; every 
 thought of his mind, every bit of the heart in his body. Afore 
 that night, no living crature could throw a word at Michaul Carroll, 
 or say he ever forgot his father's rearin', or his love of his good 
 God. — Sm-e the people are afther telling you by this time, how it 
 came about that night — an' you, my lord, — an' ye, gintlemen, — 
 an' all good Christians th'at hear me. — Here I am to help to hang 
 him — my own boy, and my only one — But, for all that, gintlemen, 
 ye ought to think of it. 'Twas for the weenoch and the ould father 
 that he done it.— Indeed, an'deed, we hadn't a pyatee in the place ; 
 an' the sickness was among us, a start afore ; it took the wife from 
 him, and another babby ; an' id had himself down, a week or sobefore- 
 haod ; an' all that day he was looking for work, but couldn't get a 
 hand's turn to do. An' that's the way it was. Not a mouthful 
 for me an' little Peery. More betoken, he grew sorry for id, in 
 the mornin', an' promised me not to touch a scrap of what was in 
 the barn, — ay, long afore the steward an' the peelers came on us, — 
 but was willin' to go among the neighbours an' beg our breakfast, 
 along wid myself, from door to door, sooner than touch it." 
 
 *' It is my painful duty," resumed the barrister, when Peery 
 would at length cease, — " to ask you for closer information. You 
 saw Michael Carroll in the barn, that night ? — " 
 
 '' Musha — The Lord pity him and me! — I did, sir." 
 " Doing what ?" 
 
 "The sheep between his hands," answered Peery, dropping his 
 head, and speaking almost inaudibly. 
 
 '' I must still give you pain, I fear. Stand up ; take the crier's 
 rod ; and if you see Michael CorroU in court, lay it on his head," 
 
THE STOLEJ^ SHEEP. 341 
 
 Och^ musha^ musha, sir, don't ax me to do that !" pleaded 
 Peerj, rising, wringing his hands, and, for the first time, weeping— 
 '' och, don't, my lord, don't, and may your own judgment be 
 favourable, the last day !" 
 
 " I am sorry to command you to do it, witness ; but you must 
 take the rod," answered the judge, bending his head close to his 
 notes, to hide his own tears. At the same time, many a veteran 
 barrister rested his forehead on the edge of the table. In the body 
 of the court were heard sobs. 
 
 " Michaul, avich ! Michaul, a corra-ma-chree /" exclaimed 
 Perry, when at length he took the rod, and faced round to his sod, — . 
 *' Is id your father they make to do it, ma-houchal T 
 
 " My father does what is right," answered Michaul, in Irish, 
 The judge immediately asked to have his words translated ; and 
 when he learned their import, regarded the prisoner with satisfac* 
 tion. 
 
 " We rest here, my lord," said the counsel, with the air of a man 
 freed from a painful task. 
 
 The judge instantly turned to the jury-box. 
 
 " Gentlemen of the jury. — That the prisoner at the bar stole the 
 sheep in question, there can be no shade of moral doubt. But you 
 have a very peculiar case to consider. A son steals a sheep that 
 his own famishing father and his own famishing son may have 
 food. His aged parent is compelled to give evidence against him 
 here for the act. The old man virtuously tells the whole truth, 
 before you and me. He sacrifices his natural feelings — and we 
 have seen that they are lively-— to his honesty, and to his religious 
 sense of the sacred obligations of an oath. Gentlemen, I will pause 
 to observe, that the old man's conduct is strikingly exemplary, and 
 even noble. It teaches all of us a lesson. Gentlemen, it is not 
 within the province of a judge to censure the rigour of the proceed- 
 ings which have sent him before us. But I venture to anticipate 
 your pleasure that, notwithstanding all the evidence given, you 
 will be enabled to acquit the old man's son, the prisoner at the bar. 
 I have said there cannot be the shade of a moral doubt that he has 
 stolen the sheep, and I repeat the words. But, gentlemen, there 
 is a legal doubt, to the full benefit of which he is entitled. The 
 sheep has not been identified. The herdsman could not venture 
 to identify it (and it would have been strange if he could) from 
 the dismembered limbs found in the barn. To his mark on its 
 skin, indeed, he might have positively spoken ; but no skin has 
 been discovered. Therefore, according to the evidence, and you 
 
342 THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 
 have sworn to decide by that alone, the prisoner is entitled to your 
 acquittal. Possibly, now that the prosecutor sees the case in its 
 full bearing he may be pleased with this result." 
 
 While the jury, in evident satisfaction, prepared to return their 
 verdict, Mr. Evans, who had but a moment before returned home, 
 entered the court, and becoming aware of the concluding words of 
 the judge, expressed his sorrow aloud, that the prosecution had 
 ever been undertaken ; that circumstances had kept him unin- 
 formed of it, though it had gone on in his name. And he begged 
 leave to assure his lordship that it would be his future effort to 
 keep Michaul Carroll in his former path of honesty, by finding him 
 honest and ample employment, and, as far as in him lay, to reward 
 the virtue of the old father. 
 
 While Peery Carroll was laughing and crying in a breath, in 
 the arms of his delivered son, a subscription, commenced by the 
 bar, was mounting into a considerable sum for his advantage. 
 
 THE END OF THE STOLEN SHEEP. 
 
THE PUBLICAN'S DREAM. 
 
 The fair-day had passed over in a little straggling town in the 
 south-east of Ireland, and was succeeded by a languor proportioned 
 to the wild excitement it never failed to create. But of all in the 
 village, its publicans suffered most under the reaction of great bustle. 
 Few of their houses appeared open at broad noon ; and some — the 
 envy of their competitors — continued closed even after that late 
 hour. Of these latter, many were of the very humblest kind ; little 
 cabins, in fact, skirting the outlets of the village, or standing alone 
 on the road-side, a good distance beyond it. 
 
 About two o'clock upon the day in question, a house of " En- 
 tertainment for Man and Horse," the very last of the description 
 noticed, to be found between the village and the wild tract of moun- 
 tain country adjacent to it, was opened by the proprietress, who 
 had that moment arisen from bed. 
 
 The cabin consisted of only two apartments, and scarce more 
 than nominally even of two ; for the half- plastered wicker and 
 straw partition, which professed to cut off a sleeping nook from the 
 whole area enclosed by the clay walls, was little higher than a tall 
 man, and, moreover, chinky and porous in many places. Let the 
 assumed distinction be here allowed to stand, however, while the 
 reader casts his eyes around what was sometimes called the kitchen, 
 sometimes the tap-room, sometimes the " dancing-flure." Forms 
 which had run by the walls, and planks by way of tables, which 
 had been propped before them, were turned topsey-turvey, and, in 
 some instances, broken. Pewter-pots and pints, battered and 
 bruised, or squeezed together and flattened, and fragments of 
 twisted glass tumblers, lay beside them. The clay floor was scraped 
 with brogue-nails, and indented with the heel of that primitive 
 foot-gear, in token of the energetic dancing which had lately been 
 performed upon it. In a corner still appeared (capsized how- 
 ever) an empty eight gallon beer barrel, recently the piper's throne, 
 whence his bag had blown forth the inspiring storm of jigs and reels, 
 
344 THE PUBLlCAN^S DREAM. 
 
 which prompted to more antics than ever did a bag of the langhing- 
 gas. Among the yellow turf-ashes of the hearth lay, on its side, 
 an old blackened tin kettle, without a spout — a principal utensil in 
 brewing scalding water for the manufacture of whiskey-punch ; its 
 soft and yet warm bed was shared by a r6d cat, who had stolen ia 
 from his own orgies, through some cranny, since day-break. The 
 single four-paned window of the apartment remained veiled by its 
 rough shutter, that turned on leather hinges ; but down the wide 
 yawning chimney came sufficient light to reveal the objects here de- 
 scribed. 
 
 The proprietress opened her back door. She was a woman of 
 about forty ; of a robust, large-boned figure; with broad, rosy visage, 
 dark, handsome eyes, and well-cut nose. After a look abroad, to 
 inhale the fresh air, and then a remonstrance (ending in a kick) with 
 the hungry pig, who ran, squeaking and grunting, to demand his 
 long-deferred breakfast, she settled her cap, rubbed down her 
 prausheen^ (coarse aproo,) tucked and pinned up her skirts behind, 
 and saying, in a loud, commanding voice, as she spoke into the 
 sleeping-chamber — " Get up now, at once, Jer, I bid you" — 
 vigorously, if not tidily, set about putting her tavern to rights. 
 
 During her bustle, the dame would stop an instant, and bend her 
 ear to listen for a stir inside the partition ; but at last losing patience, 
 she resumed — 
 
 *' Why, then, my heavy hatred on you, Jer Mulcahy, is it gone 
 into a sauvaun (pleasant drowsiness) you are, over again ? Or may- 
 be you stole out of bed, an' put your hand on one o' them ould, 
 good-for-nothing books, that makes you the laziest man that a poor 
 woman ever had under one roof wid her ? Ay, an' that sent you 
 out of our dacent shop an' house, in the heart of the town below, 
 an' banished us here, Jer Mulcahy, to sell drams o' whiskey an' pots 
 o' beer to all the rifiF-raff o' the counthry-side, instead o' the nate 
 boots an' shoes you served your honest time to ?" — she entered his, 
 or her chamber, rather, hoping that she might detect him luxuri- 
 antly perusing in bed one of the mutilated books, a love of which 
 (or, more truly, a love of indolence, thus manifesting itself) had 
 indeed chiefly caused his downfall in the world. Her husband, 
 however, really tired after his unusual bodily efforts of the previous 
 day, only slumbered, as Mrs. Mulcahy had at first anticipated ; and 
 when she had shaken nd aroused him, for the twentieth time that 
 morning, and scolded him until the spirit-broken blockhead whim- 
 pered, nay, wept, or pretended to weep, the dame returned to her 
 household duties. 
 
THE publican's DREAM. 345 
 
 She did not neglect, however, to keep calling to him, every half- 
 minute, until at last, Mr. Jeremiah Mulcahy strode into the kitchen, a 
 tall, ill-contrived figure, that had once been well fitted out, but that 
 now wore its old skin, hke its old clothes very loosely; and those 
 old clothes were a discoloured threadbare, half-polished kerseymere 
 pair of trowsers, and an aged superfine black coat, the last relics 
 of his former Sunday finery: to which had recently and incongru- 
 ously been added a calf-skin vest, a pair of coarse sky-blue, pea- 
 sant's stockings, and a pair of brogues. His hanging cheeks and 
 lips told his present bad living and domestic subjection ; and an 
 eye that had been blinded by the small-pox, wore neither patch 
 nor band ; although in better days, it used to be genteely hidden 
 from remark — an assumption of consequence now deemed incom- 
 patible with his altered condition in society. 
 
 " Oh, Cauth! oh, I had such a dhrame," he said, as he made his 
 appearance. 
 
 " An* ril go bail you had," answered Cauth, •' an' when do you 
 ever go asleep without having one dhrame or another, that pesters 
 me off o' my legs, the livelong day, 'till the night falls again to let 
 you have another ? Musha, stop Jer, don't be ever an' always such 
 a fool. Never mind the dhrame now, but lend a hand to help me 
 in the work o' the house. See the pewther there. Have it up, 
 man-alive, an' take it out into the garden, an' sit on the big stone, 
 in the sun, an' make it look as well as you can, afther the ill usage 
 it got last night. Come, hurry, Jer — go an' do what I bid you." 
 
 He retired in silence to " the garden," a little patch of ground 
 luxuriant in potatoes and a few cabbages. Mrs. Mulcahy pursued 
 her work till her own sensations warned her that it was time to 
 prepare her husband's morning or rather day-meal ; for by the 
 height of the sun, it should now be many hours past noon. So she 
 put down her pot of potatoes ; and, when they were boiled, took 
 out a wooden trencher full of them, and a mug of sour milk, to Jer, 
 determined not to summon him from his useful occupation of re- 
 storing the pints and quarts to something of their former shape. 
 
 Stepping through the back door, and getting him in view, she 
 stopped short, in silent anger. His back was turned to her, that it 
 might enjoy the warmth of the sunshine ; and while the vessels, 
 huddled about in confusion, seemed little the better of his latent skill 
 and industry, there he sat on his favourite round stone, studiously 
 perusing, half-aloud to himself, some idle volume which, doubtless, 
 he had smuggled out into the garden, in his pocket. Laying down 
 her trencher and^her mug, Mrs. Mulcahy stole forward on tip-toe, 
 
346 THE publican's DREAM. 
 
 gained his shoulder without being heard, snatched the imperfect 
 bundle of soiled pages out of his hand, and hurled it into a neigh- 
 bour's cabbage-bed. 
 
 Jeremiah complained, in his usual half-crying tone, declaring 
 that " she never could let him alone, so she couldn't ; and he would 
 rather list for a soger, than lade such a life, from year's end to 
 year's end — so be would." 
 
 ** Well, an' do then — an' whistle that idle cur off wid you," 
 pointing to a nondescript puppy, which had lain happily coiled up 
 at his master's feet until Mrs. Mulcahy's appearance, but that now 
 watched her closely, his ears half cocked, and his eyes wide open, 
 though his position remained unaltered. " Go along to the divil, 
 you lazy whelp, you !" — she took up a pint in which a few drops 
 of beer remained since the previous night, and drained it on the 
 puppy's head, who instantly ran off, jumping sideways, and yelp- 
 ing as loud as if some bodily injury had really visited him ; — 
 " Yes — an' now you begin to yowl, like your masther, for nothing at 
 all, only because a body axes you to stir your idle legs — -hould your 
 tongue, you foolish baste !" — she stooped for a stone — "one would 
 think I scalded you." 
 
 " You know you did once, Cauth, to the backbone ; an' small 
 blame for Shuffle to be afeard of you ever since," said Jer. 
 
 This vindication of his own occasional remonstrances as well as 
 Shuffle's, was founded in truth. When very young, just to keep 
 him from running against her legs, while she was busy over the 
 fire, Mrs. Mulcahy had certainly emptied a ladleful of boiling po- 
 tato-water upon the poor puppy's back ; and from that moment it 
 was only necessary to spill a drop of the coldest possible water, or 
 of any cold liquid, on any part of his body, and he believed he was 
 again dreadfully scalded, and ran out of the house, screaming in 
 all the fancied throes of torture. 
 
 " Will you ate your good dinner now, Jer Mulcahy, an' promise 
 to do something to help me, afther it ? — Mother o' Saints !" — thus 
 she interrupted herself, turning to the place where she had deposited 
 the eulogised food — " see that, you unlucky bird ! May I never 
 do an ill turn but there's the pig afther spilling the sweet milk, an' 
 now shovelling the beautiful white-eyes* down her throath, at a 
 mouthful !" 
 
 Jer, really afflicted at this scene, promised to work hard, the 
 moment he got his dinner, and his spouse, first procuring a pitch- 
 fork to beat the pig into her sty, prepared a fresh meal for him, 
 * Pieces of potato. 
 
THE PUBLICAN^S DREAM. 347 
 
 and retired to eat her own in the house, and then to continue her 
 labour. 
 
 In about an hour, she bethought of paying Jer another visit of 
 inspection, when his voice reached her ear, calling out in disturbed 
 accents — " Cauth ! — Cauth ! a-vovrneenl For the love o' heaven, 
 Cauth ! where are you ?" 
 
 Running to him, she found her husband sitting upright, though 
 not upon his round stone, amongst the still untouched heap of pots 
 and pints, his pock-marked face very pale, his single eye staring, 
 his hands clasped and shaking, and moisture on his forehead. 
 " What !" she cried, " the pewther just as I left it, over again 1" 
 " Oh, Cauth ! Cauth ! don't mind that now — but spake to me 
 kind, Cauth, an' comfort me." 
 
 " Why, what ails you, Jer, a-vourmeenT^ affectionately taking 
 his hand, when she saw how really agitated he was. 
 
 " Oh, Cauth, oh, I had such a dhrame, now, in earnest, at any 
 rate !" 
 
 "A dhrame?" she repeated, letting go his hand, "a dhrame, 
 Jer Mulcahy ! so, afther your good dinner, you go for to fall asleep, 
 Jer Mulcahy, just to be ready wid a new dhrame for me, instead 
 of the work you came out here to do, five blessed hours ago !" 
 
 " Don't scould me now, Cauth ; don't, a-pet ; only listen to me, 
 an' then say what you like. You know the lonesome little glen, 
 between the hills, on the short cut for man or horse, to Kilbrog- 
 gan ? Well, Cauth, there I found myself in the dhrame ; and I 
 saw two sailors, tired afther a day^s hard walking, sitting before 
 one of the big rocks that stand upright in the wild place. An' 
 they were ating, or dhrinking, I couldn't make out which ; an' one 
 was a tall, sthrong, broad-showldered man, an' the other was 
 sthrong, too, but short an' burly. While they were talking very 
 civilly to each other, lo an' behould you, Cuth, I seen theUall man 
 whip his knife into the little man. An' then they both sthruggled, 
 and wrastled, an' schreeched together, till the rocks rung again. 
 But at last the little man was a corpse ; an' may I never see a sight 
 o' glory, Cauth, but all this was afore me as plain as you are in 
 this garden ! an' since the hour I was born, Cauth, I never got 
 such a fright ; an' — oh, Cauth, what's that now ?" 
 
 " What is it, you poor fool, you, but a customer, come at last 
 into the kitchen — an' time for us to see the face o' one this blessed 
 day. Get up out o' that, wid your dhrames — don't you hear 'em 
 knocking ? I'll stay here to put one vessel at laste to rights — for 
 I see I must." 
 
348 THE publican's DREAM. 
 
 Jeremiah arose, groaning, and entered the cabin through the 
 back door. In a few seconds he hastened to his wife, more terror- 
 stricken than he had left her, and settling his loins against the 
 low garden wall, stared at her. 
 
 " Why, then, dhouFs in you, Jer Mulcahy — (Saints forgive me 
 for cursing !) — and what's the matter wid you, at-all-at-all ?" 
 '* They're in the kitchen," he whispered. 
 " Well, an' what will they take ?" 
 
 " I spoke never a word to them, Cauth, nor they to me ; I 
 couldn't — an' I won't, for a duke's ransom : I only saw them 
 stannin' together, in the dark that's coming on, behind the dour, 
 an' I knew them at the first look — the tall one, an' the little one." 
 With a flout at his dreams, and his cowardice, and his good- 
 for-nothingness, the dame hurried to serve her customers. Jere- 
 miah heard her loud voice addressing them, and their hoarse tones 
 answering. She came out again for two pints to draw some beer, 
 and commanded him to follow her, and '* discoorse the customers.'* 
 He remained motionless. She returned in a short time, and fairly 
 drove him before her into the house. 
 
 He took a seat remote from his guests, with difficulty pro- 
 nouncing the ordinary words of *' God save ye, genteels," which 
 they bluffly and heartily answered. His glances towards them 
 were also few; yet enough to inform him that they conversed 
 together like friends, pledging healths, and shaking hands. The 
 tall sailor abruptly asked him how far it was, by the short 
 cut, to a village where they proposed to pass the night — Kilbrog- 
 gan ? Jeremiah started on his seat, and his wife, after a glance 
 and a grumble at him, was obliged to speak for her husband. 
 They finished their beer ; paid for it ; put up half a loaf, and a 
 cut of bad watery cheese ; saying that they might feel more hungry 
 a few miles on than they now did ; and then they arose to leave 
 the cabin. Jeremiah glanced in great trouble around. His wife 
 had fortunately disappeared ; he snatched up his old hat, and, 
 with more energy than he could himself remember, ran forward 
 to be a short way on the road before them. They soon approached 
 him ; and then, obeying a conscientious impulse, Jeremiah saluted 
 the smaller of the two, and requested to speak with him apart. 
 The sailor, in evident surprise, assented. Jer vaguely cautioned 
 him against going any farther that night, as it would be quite 
 dark by the time he should get to the mountain pass, on the by- 
 road to Kilbroggan. His warning was made light of. He grew 
 more earnest, asserting, what was not the fact, that it was " a bad 
 
THE PUBLICAN S DREAM. 349 
 
 road," meaning one infested by robbers. Still the bluff tar paid 
 no attention, and was turning away. '' Oh, sir ; oh, stop, sir," 
 resumed Jeremiah, taking great courage, " I have a thing to tell 
 you ;" and he rehearsed his dream, averring that, in it, he had 
 distinctly seen the present object of his solicitude set upon and 
 slain by his colossal companion. The listener paused a moment, 
 first looking at Jer, and then at the ground, very gravely ; but the 
 next moment he burst into a loud, and, Jeremiah thought, frightful 
 laugh, and walked rapidly to overtake his ship-mate. Jeremiah, 
 much oppressed, returned home. 
 
 Towards dawn, next morning, the publican awoke in an ominous 
 panic, and aroused his wife to listen to a loud knocking, and a 
 clamour of voices at their door. She insisted there was no 
 fiuch thing, and scolded him for disturbing her sleep. A renewal 
 of the noise, however, convinced even her incredulity, and showed 
 that Jeremiah was right for the first time in his life, at least. Both 
 arose, and hastened to answer the summons. 
 
 When they unban-ed the front door, a gentleman, surrounded 
 by a crowd of people of the village, stood before it. He had dis- 
 covered on the by-road through the hills from Kilbroggan, a dead 
 body, weltering in its gore, and wearing sailor's clothes ; had rid- 
 den on, in alarm ; had raised the village ; and some of its popu- 
 lation, recollecting to have seen Mrs. Mukahy's visitors of the pre- 
 Tious evening, now brought him to her house to hear what she 
 vcould say on the subject. 
 
 Before she could say anything, her husband fell senseless at her 
 «ide, groaning dolefully. While the by-standers raised him, she 
 <;lapped her hands, and exalted her voice in ejaculations, as Irish- 
 women, when grieved, or astonished, or vexed, usually do. Now, 
 as proud of Jeremiah's dreaming capabilities, as she had before 
 befen impatient of them, she rehearsed his vision of the murder, 
 4ind authenticated the visit of the two sailors to her house, almost 
 while he was in the act of making her the confidant of his pro- 
 phetic ravings. The auditors stept back in consternation, crossing 
 themselves, smiting their breasts, and crying out, " The Lord save 
 ius ! The Lord have mercy upon us !" 
 
 Jeremiah slowly awoke from his swoon. The gentleman who 
 had discovered the body, commanded his attendance back to the 
 lonesome glen, where it lay. Poor Jeremiah fell on his knees, 
 and, with tears streaming down his cheeks, prayed to be saved 
 from such a trial. His neighbours almost forced him along. 
 
 Ail soon gained the spot, a narrow pass between slanting piles 
 
850 THE publican's DEEAM. 
 
 of displaced rocks ; the hills from which they had tumbled rising 
 brown and barren, and to a great height above and beyond them. 
 And there, indeed, upon the stripe of verdure which formed the 
 winding road through the defile, lay the corpse of one of the sailors 
 who had visited the publican's house the evening before. 
 
 Again Jeremiah di'opt on his knees, at some distance from the 
 body, exclaiming, " Lord save us ! Yes ! oh, yes, neighbours ; 
 this is the very place. Only — the saints be good to us, again ! 
 'Twas the tall sailor I seen killing the little sailor, and here's the 
 tall sailor murthered by the little sailor !" 
 
 " Dhrames go by conthraries, some way or another," observed 
 one of his neighbours ; and Jeremiah's puzzle was resolved. 
 
 Two steps were now indispensable to be taken : the county co- 
 roner should be summoned, and the murderer sought after. The 
 crowd parted to engage in both matters simultaneously. Evening 
 drew on when they again met in the pass ; and the first, who had 
 gone for the coroner, returned with him, a distance of near twenty 
 miles ; but the second party did not prove so successful. In fact, 
 they had discovered no clue to the present retreat of the supposed 
 assassin. 
 
 The coroner impanelled his jury, and held his inquest under a 
 large, upright rock, bedded in the middle of the pass, such as 
 Jeremiah had seen in his dream. A verdict of wilful murder 
 against the absent sailor was quickly agreed upon ; but, ere it 
 could be recorded, all hesitated, not knowing how to individualize 
 a man of whose name they were ignorant. 
 
 The summer night had fallen upon their deliberations, and the 
 moon arose in splendour, shining over the top of one of the high 
 hills that enclosed the pass, so as fully to illumine the bosom of 
 the other. During their pause, a man appeared standing upon 
 the line of the hill thus favoured by the moonlight, and every eye 
 turned in that direction. He ran down the abrupt declivity be- 
 neath him; he gained the continued sweep of jumbled rocks 
 which immediately walled in the little valley, springing from one 
 to another of them with such agility and certainty, that it seemed 
 almost magical ; and a general whisper of fear now attested the 
 fact of his being dressed in a straw hat, a short jacket, and loose 
 white trowsers. As he jumped from the last rock upon the sward 
 of the pass, the spectators drew back ; but he, not seeming to 
 notice them, walked up to the corpse, which had not yet been 
 touched ; took its hand ; turned up its face into the moonlight, 
 and attentively regarded the features ; let the hand go ; pushed 
 
THE publican's DEEAM. 351 
 
 lis hat upon his forehead; glanced around him ; recognised the 
 person in authority ; approached, and stood still before him, and 
 said — ''Here I am, Tom Mills, that killed long Harry Holmes, 
 and there he lies." 
 
 The coroner cried out to secure him, now fearing that the man's 
 sturdiness meant farther harm. "No need," resumed the self- 
 accused ; " here's my bread-and-cheese knife, the only weapon 
 about me ;" he threw it on the ground. "I come back just to 
 ax you, commodore, to order me a cruize after poor Harry, bless 
 his precious eyes, wherever he is bound.'* 
 
 " You have been pursued hither ?" 
 
 " No, bless your heart ; but I wouldn't pass such another 
 watch as the last twenty-four hours for all the prize-money won 
 at Trafalgar. 'Tisn't in regard of not tasting food or wetting my 
 lips ever since I fell foul of Harry, or of hiding my head like a 
 cursed animal o' the yearth, and starting if a bird only hopped 
 nigh me ; but I cannot go on living on this tack no longer — that's 
 it ; and the least I can say to you, Harry, my hearty." 
 
 " What caused your quarrel with your comrade ?" 
 
 *' There was no jar or jabber betwixt us, d'you see me." 
 
 " Not at the time, I understand you to mean : but surely you 
 must have long owed him a grudge ?" 
 
 " No, but long lo^ed him ; and he, me." 
 
 " Then, in Heaven's name, what put the dreadful thought in 
 your head ?" 
 
 " The devil, commodore — (the horned lubber I) and another 
 lubber to help him," pointing at Jeremiah, who shrank to the 
 skirts of the crowd. " I'll tell you every word of it, commodore, 
 as true as a log-book. For twenty long and merry years, Harry 
 and I sailed together, and worked together, thro' a hard gale, 
 sometimes, and through hot sun another time ; and never a squally 
 word came between us till last night, and then it all came of that 
 there lubberly swipes-seller, I say again. I thought as how it 
 was a real awful thing that a strange landsman, before ever he 
 laid eyes on either of us, should come to have this here dream 
 about us. After falling in with Harry, when the lubber and I 
 parted company, my old mate saw I was cast down, and he told 
 me as much, in his own gruff, well-meaning way ; upon which I 
 gave him the story, laughing at it. JSe didn't laugh in return, 
 but grew glum — glummer than I ever seed him ; and I wondered, 
 and fell to boxing about my thoughts, more and more — (deep sea 
 ink that cursed thinking and thinking, say I ! it sends many an 
 
So2 THE publican's DREAM. 
 
 honest fellow out of his course:) — and ^it's hard to know the best 
 man's mind,' I thought to myself. Well ; we came on the tack 
 into these rocky parts, and Harry says to me all on a sudden — 
 ' Tom, try the soundings here, a-head, by yourself ; or let me, 
 by mjself/ I axed him why ? ' No matter,' says Harry, again ; 
 ' but, after what you chawed about, I don't like your company 
 any farther, till we fall in again at the next village.' ' What, 
 Harry,' I cries, laughing heartier than ever, ' are you afeard of 
 your own mind with Tom Mills ?' * Pho,' he made answer, walk- 
 ing on before me ; and I followed him. 
 
 '' * Yes,' I kept saying to myself, ' he is afeard of his own mind 
 with his old ship-mate.' 'Twas a darker night than this ; and 
 when I looked a-head, the devil (for now I know 'twas he that 
 boarded me !) made me take notice what a good spot it was for 
 Harry to fall foul of me. And then I watched him making way 
 before me, in the dark, and couldn't help thinking he was the 
 better man of the two — a head and shoulders over me, and a 
 match for any two of my inches. And then, again, I brought to 
 mind that Harry would l3e a heavy purse the better of sending me 
 to Davy's locker, seeing we had both been just paid off, and got 
 a lot of prize-money, to boot ; and at last (the real red devil 
 having fairly got me helm a-larboard) I argufied with myself that 
 Tom Mills would be as well alive, with Harry Holmes's luck in his 
 pocket, as he could be dead, and his in Harry Holmes's ; not to 
 say nothing of taking one's own part, just to keep one's self afloat, 
 if so be Harry let his mind run as mine was running. 
 
 " All this time Harry never gave me no hail, but kept tacking 
 thro' these cursed rocks ; and that, and his last words, made me 
 doubt him more and more. At last he stopped nigh where he 
 now lies, and, sitting with his back to that high stone, he calls 
 for my blade to cut the bread and cheese he had got at the vil- 
 lage ; and, while he spoke, I believed he looked glummer and 
 glummer, and that he wanted the blade, the only one between us, 
 for a some'at else than to cut bread and cheese — though now I 
 don't believe no such thing howsumdever, but then I did ; and so, 
 d'jou see me, commodore, I lost ballast all of a sudden, and when 
 he stretched out for the blade — (hell's fire blazing up in my lub- 
 berly heart !) — ' Here it is, Harry,' says I ; and I gives it to him 
 in the right side ! once, twice, in the right place !" — (the sailor's 
 voice, hitherto calm, though broken and rugged, now rose into a 
 high, wild cadence) — " and then how we did grapple ! and sing 
 out one to another ! ahoy ! yeho ! aye ; till I thought the whole 
 
THE PUBLICAN S DREAM. 353 
 
 crew of devils answered our hail from the hill-tops ! But I hit 
 you again and again, Harry, before you could master me," conti- 
 nued the sailor, returning to the corpse, and once more taking its 
 hand, " until at last you struck, my old mess-mate. And now 
 nothing remains for Tom Mills but to man the yard-arm !" 
 
 The narrator stood his trial at the ensuing assizes, and was 
 executed for this avowed murder of his shipmate — Jeremiah 
 appearing as a principal witness. Our story may seem drawn 
 either from imagination, or from mere village gossip ; its chief * 
 facts rest, however, upon the authority of members of the Irish 
 bar, since risen to high professional eminence ; and they can even 
 vouch that, at least, Jeremiah asserted the truth of " The Pub- 
 lican's Dream.' 
 
 THE END OF THE PUBLICAN*S DREAM. 
 
 2a 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 At English fairs business and merriment are kept rather dis- 
 tinct. The buying and selling of sheep, oxen, and horses, com- 
 monly occur before the gingerbread booths, the toy-booths, and 
 the dancing booths (such as the dancing in the latter is found to 
 be), are visited, and take place upon some spot detached from the 
 crowded encampments of pleasure and finery. At Irish fairs, 
 however, important sales, halfpenny adventures in gambling, love- 
 making, dancing ('^ the right sort at a fair"), and perhaps some 
 harmless fighting, used, in our time, to go hand in hand from the 
 opening of the blessed day. Hence, our Irish fair was a less or- 
 derly, but a more rousing scene than one in this inveterately deco- 
 rous island. While the mind of a serious spectator is filled with 
 the important circumstance of groups of " strong farmers" bar- 
 gaining about the transfer of fifty or a hundred great horned beasts, 
 his livelier or lighter sensibilities might be appealed to by the ora- 
 tory of the proprietress of a show of fragile nick-nacks, alarmed 
 lest some of those animals should overthrow and shatter at a 
 touch her whole stock in trade : or a rich-cheeked country girl, 
 laughing loudly, and struggling, "just for dacency," half caused 
 by her half-proffered lips, the uncouth smack which startles our 
 observer, and which is the payment for her swain's " treat" to a 
 grass-green ribbon, or a pair of scarlet garters ; or the rub-a-dub 
 of a set of '^ jiggers," with their cries of ecstasy, strikes upon his 
 ear from some adjacent public-house; or perhaps two "factions," 
 who have been at war, as they would themselves say, " ever since 
 their grandfather's time," emit fiercer shouts, as, huddled amongst 
 cattle of all descriptions, and striking the animals as often as their 
 own heads, they fight their twentieth pitched battle for some 
 cause of dispute which neither can explain. 
 
 About forty years ago, when the writer had most to do with 
 
356 THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 such an assemblage^ an accompanying feature, now almost worn 
 out by the progress of gentility, was observable. While elderly 
 farmers plodde^ to the important rendezvous, strictly in the spirit 
 of men of business, their sons, or perhaps some youthful land- 
 holders of four or five hundred acres, pushed in from the country 
 on nearly whole-blood horses, arrayed in the Sunday suit, which, 
 at each weekly mass, made them the stars of their district chapels, 
 purely, or chiefly, to ride up and down through throngs of men, 
 women, and beasts, vouching their attractions in the face of half 
 the assembled county, and also in the faces of rural " darkers" of 
 the other sex, who, perched on pillions behind their fathers, and 
 flaming in all colours, came pretty nearly in the same policy to 
 the great general mart for the day. 
 
 A group of such gallant amateurs, standing still because they 
 have been blocked up by surrounding droves of cattle, is presented 
 to the reader, at the fair, holden about forty years ago, to which 
 we direct our attention. The young men were all known to each 
 other ; and they talked or laughed cheerily, and seemed fully en- 
 joying their day's adventures. 
 
 " But stop, boys," said one, " here comes Martin Brophy ; and 
 if he sees us so merry he'll swear we're laughing at himself." 
 " And then put a quarrel on us all," said another. 
 *' Then ye won't spake to him, boys ?" asked a third. 
 " What's the use, Jack ? Ever since things went so conthrary 
 against him, you can't look but he thinks it a slight, so that there's 
 no managing \^ith Martin. I, for one, will just let him go quietly 
 by on his poor broken-down half«blood." 
 
 " Besides, Tom, though an ould head can't be put on young 
 shoulders (a truth we all stand up for), Martin done the ven- 
 geance^ entirely, in regard of his behaviour to little Catty Morissy." 
 " Yes, and the priest calling Mm t for it, at last mass, Sunday- 
 se'nnit (week)," added a pious person of the party; " but here he 
 is ! See, boys 1" speaking loudly, and pointing his whip to a drove 
 of cows and oxen, while the eyes of his companions followed his — 
 " Them browns is the clanest cattle in the fair to my mind." 
 
 Martin Brophy passed them with eyes studiously averted in the 
 opposite direction, as if he had determined to anticipate their slight. 
 Yet his erect carriage, his knitted brow, and his protruded lips, 
 destroyed the ease which should have given to the act its best ex- 
 pression, and suggested, instead, a bitter and haughty conscious- 
 
 * Went too far. f Rebuking him. 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 357 
 
 ness of the presence of his former companions in the carouse and 
 in the sporting-field. 
 
 They continued their observations by turns. 
 
 '• There he goes, the proudest and the poorest grandee in 
 Leinster." 
 
 " Look at the hat ! — the poor hair will be growing through it 
 with the next crop." 
 
 "• Bat the ould green !" — (Martin's coat) — " it ought to bring 
 him new ones by that time, for it's long ago it ran to seed between 
 his shoulders." 
 
 " And what brings him to the fair, boys ?" 
 
 " To sell ould Nora ;" (Martin's skeleton steed.) 
 
 " Yes — to the tanners." 
 
 " Or to cut a dash on her back-bone." 
 
 *' Aye — before Dora Marum ; only she's not here: I stopt at the 
 house to-day morning, to know if she'd be at the fair with ould 
 cranky Dan, the father of her ; but no, purty Dora couldn't come. 
 
 ''Then Martin won't take the light out of her eyes entirely this 
 blessed day." 
 
 " Hoot, tut, man-a-live ; in jest or arnest, that's all gone by ; 
 Dan gave him the cowld shouldher long ago." 
 
 They separated to resume the exhibition of their handsome steeds 
 and admirable persons through the fair. We follow the individual 
 of whom they have been speaking. 
 
 He was a man as young as any of them ; better featured than 
 any, notwithstanding that premature sufferings and the conflict of 
 strong passions had thinned and swarthed his cheek ; nay, his air, 
 and the character of those features, gave him nearer claims than 
 any to a gentlemanlike appearance, although, as they had truly re- 
 marked, his attire was shabby. 
 
 He had not overheard a word of the jeers spoken at his expense, 
 but his sensitive mind imagined such a dialogue between his former 
 friends, and imagined it to an extent even beyond the reality ; and 
 the petty ferment consequently called up in his bosom, worked his 
 features and temper more violently than greater misfortunes had 
 that day done. 
 
 They scoffingly wondered why he appeared at the fair. Martin 
 Brophy could not himself, have satisfied their idle and cruel curiosity. 
 He could only have stated, were he so inclined, that upon the ap- 
 proach of bailiffs to his house, early in the morning, to seize his 
 furniture — the last of his earthly goods — he had run to the stable, 
 saddled old Nora, jumped on her back, and while his mother's low 
 
358 THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 wailings filled his ears, pushed the feeble beast out of sight and 
 hearing of a scene which maddened his heart, but which he could 
 not help ; and that then, wajwardly yielding to an unaccountable 
 impulse, he had hurried into the thick of another scene, the most 
 unlikely of any he might select, to assuage his angry feelings. 
 
 " And this," he muttered, " this is the end of slashing Mick 
 Brophy's divil-may-care days ; of his hunting days, and his danc- 
 ing days, and his cock-fighting days : ay, and of his good-fellow 
 nights, with their songs, and their brave cursing and swearin^:, and 
 screeling and tattering. father ! you left us too soon for Mick's 
 good. Look out of your grave and see him now. Not worth a 
 lady halfpenny, stock, lock, and barrel ; not a dacent tack to his back; 
 the ould mother crying at home to the bare walls in the empty 
 house; Dora Marum lost ; and these very houts, * that you left me 
 a head-and-shoulders over — and that I made my equals only to let 
 them make me what I am at last come to — these very scheming, 
 
 cvmgmg^ palavering -\ hounds Oh !" — yielding to tiie bitterness 
 
 of his immediate position — " by the light o' the world ! Td a'most 
 stop thinking of every thing else that once pleasured me, only for 
 as much good fortune as would again put me where I was — above 
 them ; and then, with my foot on their neck, instead of the hand to 
 their hands, as it used to be !" 
 
 His reverie was interrupted by the quick approach of two bodies 
 of screaming rioters. As they capered past him, he drew, even 
 from their noise and outrage, a renewed cause for embittered regret. 
 " Ay ! Dullard's faction and Campion's faction 1" repeating their 
 war-cries, and now soliloquizing rather aloud — " But who shouts 
 Brophy's faction to-day ? though I remember the day when if any 
 tenant or follower of his shouted that name, a hundred good alpeens 
 would jump at the sound." " An' there's one, at laste, to shout it 
 yet, Masther Martin," said a low, thick-necked, red-headed lad at 
 his side — " whoo !" jumping among a pacific crowd — " whoo for 
 Masther Brophy ? who'll look crooked at him ? will you ? or you ?" 
 
 Martin was much surprised at this unrecognised friend so Quixoti- 
 cally challenging the whole world on his account ; but as the hero, 
 after prancing here and there, and peering up hostility into many 
 faces, only earned for his stunted, burley, unwarlike figure, and for 
 the cause it abetted, contemptuous sneers or loud laughter, on 
 the part of the athletic fellows around him, poor Brophy's wonder 
 changed into increased mortification. 
 
 ' * Paltry fellow. f Sycophantic. 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 359 
 
 A little old man, dressed in the common peasant garb of the dis- 
 trict ; namely, coat, vest, breeches, and hose, all grey, with a two- 
 buckled flaxen, wig, and a foxy felt hat, staggered up the street, 
 holding a stick, and every now and then stopping and trying to 
 balance himself in order to make a solemn drunken soliloquy ; and 
 upon these occasions he feebly flourished his stick, and seemed to 
 come to the conclusion that he was agrieved and valiant. 
 
 " Or you !" continued Martin's knight, as the old fellow met his 
 eye — " mind this, Masther Martin" — speaking under his breath, 
 while he passed Bropliy — " a friendlier blow was never struck for 
 your good" — and darting on, down tumbled the man of soliloquies, 
 and with a dozen pursuers at his heels, Martin one of them ; away 
 scampered the aggressor. For notwithstanding the lad's whisper, 
 Martin could not think that the little old man had anything to do 
 with him, nor with his assaulter. There was in the blow a matter- 
 of-fact kind of character ; its very sound on the other's skull, might 
 suggest an act without a motive, an effect without a cause. 
 
 None of the indignant pursuers succeeded in apprehending the 
 red-haired champion ; and Martin returned to condole with the in- 
 considerable victim, sacrificed so much against his will, to his feudal 
 importance. 
 
 The sire had arisen and gone on. Partly by inquiries, partly by 
 a gory and devious track, Martin traced him out of the fair, and 
 then out of the town. Spurring his sorry nag, he overtook him 
 upon the road towards his own sad home. The sufferer still stag- 
 gered, but now more from weakness than inebriety. 
 
 " Tell me that young rascal's name, daddy." 
 
 " Troth, an' I don't know the poor boy's name." 
 
 " Come back into the town, then ; he will surely be caught, and 
 you must be ready to take the law of him." 
 
 " Why then," in a very kind and simple tone, " I believe we 
 can't do that, either, avichf^ (my son ;) '' I owe the poor boy no ill- 
 will, an' sure I won't go for to put him in raal throuble jest for a 
 little matther of a clipe" (blow,) '' of a stick, that I'm sure, afore 
 my Maker, there was no harum in ; an' I'll engage he's a good, 
 honest, poor slob for all that." 
 
 "Then let me help you a bit of the road, daddy:" Martin 
 alighted, and throwing Nora's bridle over one arm, caused his tot- 
 tering companion to lean on the other. 
 
 After walking along slowly for some time — '* The blessings be in 
 your path for ever, avich ; sure here's my poor cabin," said the old 
 man, stopping at the closed door of a very inferior habitation even 
 of the kind he named. 
 
860 THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 " This ?*' questioned Martin Brophy — >'' why, this, I remember, 
 used to be Musha Merry's — and stop" — ^looking attentively into his 
 face — "Yes — now I remember you too-— you are ould Musha Merry, 
 our great fairy- man." 
 
 " Hushth, hushth — ^a pet— ^manners to them — mainin* you no of- 
 fence, but the best o' good, conthrary-wise : poor Musha Merry I 
 am — their friend, an' the friend o' the good Christhians, whenever 
 they let me.'* 
 
 " Oho !" ejaculated Martin, assuming a sneer, but from the effects 
 of his early education, not fully feeling it however — *' and didn't 
 you send a body to me, the other day, to tell me not to let the 
 heart be cast down entirely, for all that's come and gone, yet ?" 
 
 '* Of a thruth, an' so 1 did, avich ; just out o' the pity is on my 
 soul for your only throubles, an' the kind-of^a-sort-of a knowledge 
 I have that there's loock in store for you, let the priest scowld you 
 an' curse you, off o' the althar^ as often as he likes, plaise his 
 reverence." 
 
 " With help from the fairies ?" laughed Martin. 
 
 " hushth, now again, avich^ an' call them no names, but lave 
 them to themse'fs, my honey, Masther Martin ; an' no, in troth no ; 
 but widhelp from them, sure they haven't the power to give the 
 riches, like others, much as they can do in everything else." 
 
 " Then with help from the Barrymount gang ?" 
 
 " Avoch, nien, nieu, entirely ; duv you think, Masther Martin 
 Brophy, my pet, I'd go for to give you the advice to take part wid 
 them rapparees o' the arth — Nien, nien ; — and yet,"— speaking 
 more expressively — "there's a way, so there is— but hushth, again!" 
 the door of his cabin opened, and a group of men and women ap- 
 peared at it, scraping their feet or dropping curtsies to him. " See, 
 here's some o' the poor neigbours waitin' for me to give 'em the good 
 o' the trifle o' knowledge that's come to me, somehow or someway — 
 a good-day to ye^ neighbours, honies ; come in, Masther Martin, 
 avich, an' just tie your bridle to the hasp, and rest yourself on the 
 chair a bit, and when I do my endayvours for the poor Christhians, 
 jsure then you an' I can go on wid our own little shanachus — (gos- 
 siping.)" 
 
 Doing as he was exhorted, Martin Brophy followed Musha Merry 
 into his cabin. More people than had appeared at the door were 
 tarrying for him under its roof, the greater number women, who sat 
 on the mud floor, with their back to the mud wail. Martin was 
 aware that, as patients crowd the waiting-rooms of a popular town 
 or city physician, these persons had come to get charms from Musha 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 561 
 
 Merry, for evils inflicted upon themselves, or upon their families, 
 or upon their cows, horses, or crops. 
 
 Occupying "the chair," so described, because it was the only 
 one in the house, Martin looked on attentively, and with more de- 
 ference towards the wise man's gifts, than his language might have 
 expressed at the door : for unconsciously he agreed in the general 
 homage now paid, in his presence, to the wizard-doctor, if, indeed, 
 he bad ever really felt disposed to withold his share of it. 
 
 Musha Merry first retired behind a wicker partition, or screen, 
 which ran half way across the waste apartment, at its upper end, 
 expressing modestly an intention to charm away his own broken 
 head, before he engaged in the service of any other afflicted person : 
 and after having been invisible for a short time, he re-appeared, 
 every previous mark of violence effaced from his cheek and temple, 
 or hidden under a more ample wig, while his crabbed old features 
 simpered all over with their usual insinuating good-nature, and his 
 glossy grey eyes were almost shut up in the pucker of wrinkles, 
 which the bland expression induced round them. 
 
 A pale, melancholy, over-watched woman, arose, curtsying, and 
 calling him " sir," and stated the first case that claimed his profes- 
 sional attention. " The good people," had sent a great " faver" 
 (fever) to her only son, and the doctor gave the boy up, and the 
 priest gave him up, what was she to do ? — Musha Merry made very 
 light of the matter, and of the skill of his learned brethren, the 
 doctor and the priest, and speaking smooth words of comfort and 
 assurance, gave her a phial filled with some coloured liquid, mur- 
 mured at her ear, directions for administering it, received his fee, 
 and the sorrowful woman slipt lightly over the threshold. 
 
 A half-stai-ved cottier next represented, in a whining, miserable 
 voice, how his one cow had been " overlooked." The fairy-man 
 handed him a little bag to tie under her left ham, and smilingly 
 pocketed sixpence more. 
 
 A second woful mother, holding an emaciated, silent, starving 
 infant upon her arms, rose from her squatting position at the wall, 
 and her words were — " Avoch, Misther Musha Merry, sir, sure this 
 poor crature of a baby isn't wid me at all, but gone off wid them^^ — 
 meaning, and plainly understood to mean, notwithstanding the 
 seeming puzzle of two identities, that the child which, a few 
 months before, she had brought into the world, had been kidnapped 
 by the fairies, and the certainly preternatural looking babe she held 
 out for inspection, left in its stead. 
 
 Another poor peasant applied to have " the fairy-worum pult 
 
362 TnE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 out of his tooth, because it wouldn't let him sleep night or day, 
 wid the atin' it war givin him ?" and Musha Merry procured a 
 cow's horn, burnt a reed in it, put the pointed end into the patient's 
 gaping mouth, whispered at the other end, then shook it over the 
 palm of his hand till a little red worm fell out ; and the man de- 
 parted with a happy grin on his features, declaring that his tooth- 
 ache was perfectly cured. 
 
 Many more curious complaints received fit attention from the 
 fairy-doctor. At length Martin Brophy and he were left alone. 
 Then old Musha Merry bolted the crazy door of his desolate cabin, 
 and rubbing his hands softly, and simpering in his most affectionate 
 style, approached the young man, and seated himself upon a large 
 stone at his feet. 
 
 *' And so this is not the way I'm to win the good luck that is 
 in store for me," said Martin. 
 
 The wizard slightly glancing towards the upper end of the cabin, 
 softly said, " It is not." 
 
 '* And yet there is a way you tell me," resumed Martin Brophy, 
 after a break in the conversation, during which his companion kept 
 his eyes fixed on the floor, now very serious. 
 
 " There i5," slowly answered Musha Merry : and he did not offer 
 to go on, nor yet raise his head. Deep silence ensued, except that 
 Martin could distinctly hear every wheezing respiration of the old 
 man at his feet. The pause and his situation began to grow disa- 
 greeable to Martin Brophy, he could not tell why. As his eye 
 glanced round, a washy gleam of December sunshine which, enter- 
 ing through a small aperture in the broken thatch of the roof, crept 
 over the rough floor, as unaccountably made him almost start. In 
 fact, the young farmer was superstitious, and the dreary and pecu- 
 liar lonesomeness and silence of the fairy-man's abode, together with 
 the mysterious hint as to *^ the way," in which he was to retrieve 
 his fortune, and the suspended explanation of that hint, fully called 
 up this weak sentiment. 
 
 Still Musha Merry did not go on, and Martin resumed in a low 
 voice : '' Well ; and what is that way ?" 
 
 His counsellor now looked up into his face, every feature at rest, 
 and his shadowy grey eyes widely opened ; — the change of expres- 
 sion was, indeed, so remarkable, that Martin Brophy returned, in 
 a kind of fascination, the glossy and vague glare with which he 
 found himself regarded. 
 
 " You're afeard o' the priest, so you are, though he done his 
 best on you already, or I'd tell you," said Musha Merry. 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 863 
 
 " Curse the priest !" cried Martin Brophj, in a mixed feeling of 
 impatience at the wizard's hesitation, and anger at, as he believed, 
 the unmerited disgrace which his clergyman had stamped on him. 
 
 "That'll do for a beginnin'," muttered the old man ; " an' now 
 I'll sliow you the way, afore I tell it to you ;" he arose from the 
 stone ; " you haven't much o' the goold or the silver in your pockets, 
 Masther Martin, avich ?" 
 
 " Not a cross to keep the devil out o' them — and my mother is 
 at home without her dinner." 
 
 " Ochone ! — an' sure that's a hard case — but a friend is near at 
 hand, Masther Martin ; never mind me, for a start now, only ob- 
 serve this. — " 
 
 He drew a dingy card from his bosom, and, holding it out for 
 his companion's inspection, Martin saw that it was the Ace of Clubs : 
 find then Musha Merry hobbled to the upper end of the waste apart- 
 ment, and hid himself behind the wicker pai'tition. 
 
 " I'm kneelin' down, a vich-ma-chree,'^ (son of my heart,) he 
 said from his concealment. Martin's bosom beat quick. In a short 
 time the old man's voice sounded again. 
 
 " An' now it's time for you to put your band in your hat that's 
 close by your side." 
 
 Martin did so, and his moving fingers caused to jingle in the hat 
 some pieces of coin. He snatched it up, looked into it, and saw 
 three guineas. His bosom's quick throbbing was arrested by a 
 spasm, and as Musha Merry again advanced, smiling in a congra- 
 tulating and affectionate manner, he saw that his young friend was 
 deadly pale. 
 
 " You knelt down, you say, to send me these ?" questioned Martin 
 Brophy. 
 
 " Throth, aye, on the two poor knees, avich." 
 
 " Did you pray ?" 
 
 " Och, an' sure I did, from the bottom o' my heart." 
 
 "Tell me " Martin slowly stood up, and glanced stealthily 
 
 round the cabin as he whispered — " Tell me — did you pray— to 
 God ?" 
 
 Musha Merry bent bis head close to Martin Brophy's face, and 
 also answered in a whisper — " No." 
 
 Martin sprang to the door, and began hastily to unbolt it, having 
 put up, however, almost unconsciously, the three guineas. 
 
 " An' you won't wait to larn the way, yourself?" asked the old 
 man, as he crossed the unhallowed threshold. 
 
 Martin muttered an incoherent dissent. 
 
364 THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 "Well, avich ; when it's most pleasin' to you, to get the Iiapes 
 o' goold, instead o' them three beggarly guineas, sure you know 
 who to come to, to lara you ; — or, if you like, I'll be in the little 
 glin o' Coile at the first light, to-morrow mornin' — it's a good place 
 for talkin' of id." 
 
 Without uttering a word, Martin mounted old Nora, and rode off, 
 
 " Come out here to me, now, Maurice, you poor creature," con- 
 tinued Musha Merry, again carefully bolting his cabin door. 
 
 A man about forty strode from behind the wicker screen. Before 
 he appeared, there had been a rustling, as if of straw ; and from 
 his rubbing his eyes, and also from the fact of bits of straws being 
 stuck through his tangled black hair, and to different parts of his 
 attire, it would seem that this concealed inmate of the cabin was 
 asleep, or dozing, previous to Musha Merry's call. His person and 
 limbs were athletic and coarse, his brow scowling ; and he held a 
 large pistol in his hand. 
 
 " By dad, Maurice, my poor boy, I b'lieve we are nigh hand to 
 our snug little revenge on the Brophys at last, though it cost the 
 simple ould father o' you a'most thirty long years to bring it about," 
 resumed Musha Merry, rubbing his hands, and smiling on his son. 
 
 " Will he 'list wid us, father ?" growled Maurice. 
 
 " I didn't ax him, and I won't ax him a-while, yet, avich ; be- 
 case, for all his throubles an' ru'nation, the good bringin-up he got 
 from his mother, does be comin' into his head, an' the priest-talk, 
 an' the masses, an' them things ; an' if we bid him be a bould 
 Barrymount-boy, at once, 'twould frighten him, may be, an' he'd 
 dhraw back from us entirely, not to talk o' the chance o' tellin' the 
 neighbours some of our sacrets." 
 
 " Then I don't know what you spake of." 
 
 " Wait, avich. Sure I made him b'lieve that the Ace o' Clubs, 
 wid help from the card's masther, sent him three guineas out o' the 
 brave booty that came to your share last night ; an' I'm a big fool in 
 my ould days, Maurice, if he rests night or day till he spakes to the 
 card himsel' ; an' as soon as he does, tho' he'll be as far from the 
 hapes o' goold as ever he was, httle o' that rhaumaush, (nonsense,) 
 about the priests, and the prayers, an' the mass-songs, 'ill stay wid 
 Martin Brophy : and then we'll have our own time to 'list him, 
 Maurice, avich, jist by promisin' the riches in another way." 
 
 " The priest was lookin' for him to-day mornin', father ; an' if 
 he comes across him now, he'll take Martin out o' your hands." 
 
 " We'll do our endayvour to keep the' both broken friends, 
 Maurice ; Nance Dempsy must throw hersef in the poor boy's way 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 865 
 
 to-night ; an' afore daylight, the priest 'ill be tould where to find 
 them together ; Nance is a duck-o'-the world, in regard of a decoy- 
 duck." 
 
 Meantime, Martin Brophy rode homeward. The winter evening 
 fell rapidly. He came in sight of the front of his house ; no usual 
 lights glimmered through its windows. He turned into the back-yard, 
 put up Nora, groomed her carefully, gave her a bunch of musty 
 hay, crossed to the kitchen-door, raised the latch, and heard the 
 low lament of his mother before he saw her, seated on a low stool 
 at the hearth, and confronted by a very old woman, her nurse ; the 
 embers of some twigs, gathered by the latter from the neighbour- 
 ing hedges, flickering between them. 
 
 With a shrill scream, his only living parent sprang up to throw 
 herself round his neck : she had entertained fearful thoughts as to 
 the cause of his absence. 
 
 " Come into the little parlour, Martin, my son," she said ; then 
 changing her voice, " Avoch ! atf sure I forgot. I left it myself 
 to sit down here, on this stool, borrowed at a neighbour's cabin, 
 becase it broke my heart to look at the four bare walls, that often 
 saw us and ours comfortable and happy between 'em. An' I'm 
 afeard you're dhry and hungry, Martin, my son." 
 
 " Cush,^' said Martin, throwing a guinea to the old woman — 
 ^' hnny down to the village, and get us something to ate and to 
 dhrink." 
 
 The feeble creature, with cries of wonder and joy, tottered off 
 on her errand. His mother, 'also surprised, inquired how he had 
 procured the guinea. He hesitated. She looked alarmed, and 
 
 hoped he had not And she stopt, and with streaming eyes 
 
 gazed on him. 
 
 " Mother, mother," he said hastily, " don't be afeard — I neither 
 killed nor robbed for it." 
 
 Cush returned with food and spirits. She had also providently 
 thought of the fire, and a pile of turf now blazed on the hearth. 
 Martin and his mother ate their meal off their knees : the bailiffs had 
 not left them a table. It was scarce over when horsemen rode up 
 to the front of the house, hallooing heartily. The old nurse went to 
 the. hall-door to " discoorse them ;" Martin stept after her to listen. 
 He soon ascertained that the visitors were two of the " squireens," 
 who had insulted him that day at the fair ; and who now, elated 
 with liquor, turned off the main road to taunt him farther, by ask- 
 ing a bed at his desolate house. When, in consequence of Gush's 
 representations, that there was *^ no one in id," they galloped off, 
 
366 THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 still hallooing. " I'll match ye yet," said Martin, grinding his teeth, 
 " if I burned for it." 
 
 " Mother," he resumed abruptly, in some time after, while he 
 liberally helped himself to the whiskey, " tell me some o' your choice 
 old stories about ghosts, and fairies, and Ould Nick." 
 
 " Christ save us, Martin Brophy," crossing herself. 
 
 " Yes, mother ; you know you had plenty of 'em for me when 
 I didn't ask for 'em — and never mind the night it is — the blacker 
 to us, the more we want something to put it out of our heads" — 
 he drank another deep draught — 
 
 " Come, mother, I remember a capital story of yours that I'll 
 thank you to tell me once again — about old Squire Jarvis and a 
 friend of his." 
 
 After many demurs, the mother began her tale. It was an old 
 one ; or rather a local version of one, common to every country in 
 Christendom. Squire Jarvis was a very bad man, and led a very 
 wicked life, and became very poor in his old age. Every body for- 
 sook him, and he lived in a lone house, a great way off the road, 
 where he did nothing from morning to night but eat and drink, and 
 sleep, and commit sin, and scold the few servants who remained to 
 share his fortune. One Sunday evening, after dinner, and after a 
 good deal of wine too, he got into such a passion with his own man, 
 and so abused and swore at him, that the domestic declared he 
 would quit his service as soon as he paid him his wages. Now 
 Squire Jarvis could pay no wages at all, and this made him down- 
 right furious ; he turned the man out of the room, and fell asleep in 
 his arm-chaim by the fire, still cursing and swearing, and just as he 
 said — " I'd sell myself body and sowl, for one barrel-bag-ful of 
 goold." 
 
 About twelve o'clock he awoke, when everything was still in the 
 house, and looking across the fire, there was a dark-complexioned 
 gentleman, decently dressed in black, sitting in the chair opposite 
 to his, and attentively watching him — but the tale need not be 
 continued ; Squire Jarvis got the " barrel-bag-ful of goold" on the 
 usual terms. 
 
 " An' sure you're not such a fool, mother, as to b'lieve such a 
 thing can happen ?" demanded Martin Brophy. 
 
 His mother, mingling pious and friojhtened ejaculations with her 
 answer, had no doubt but it could. Nor had Martin himself much 
 doubt when he asked the question. He only wanted confirmation 
 from his mother's anticipated assurances ; for he misconceived the 
 mode by which Musha Merry proposed to endow him with wealth. 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 36? 
 
 The distressed parent, wearied with grief and watching, began 
 to nod. Martin arose to make up some kind of a couch for her, 
 Cush, again provident, had provided straw ; upon part of it, in the 
 corner of the kitchen, next to the fire, he left his mother and her 
 old nurse to stretch themselves ; the rest he took into his own 
 chamber. And here he flung it from him, locked himself in, and 
 holding his rushlight in his hand, stared wildly and fiercely around. 
 
 " Would he, without Mush a Merry's knowledge, make the call?"' 
 At the thought, his forehead grew moist and cold, his scalp 
 froze, his limbs shook. A glance at his desperate position, aided 
 by the effects of the spirits, controlled his horror. " He would !" — 
 and, as the preface to his call, he furiously, though unconsciously, 
 stamped upon the floor. The whole house vibrated to the shock, 
 and something slightly clattered against the wall of the chamber. 
 He looked up. It was an old wooden crucifix hanging by a thread 
 from a nail — the only article which the baihffs had hesitated to 
 drag away. He rivetted his eye upon the symbol of his redemp- 
 tion and his hope ; he trembled again, but it was with new fears ; 
 he dashed down his rushlight — trod on it — plunged on his knees 
 into his straw ; and amid choking sobs, Martin Brophy muttered a 
 prayer — but it was a prayer to God. 
 
 In about an hour, a wailing, soft voice sounded from under his 
 window. He arose, looked out, and saw a girl sitting on the 
 ground, and rocking to and fro, and clapping her hands. He 
 opened the window and spoke to her. She said she had missed 
 her father and her brothers at the fair ; had strayed so far in quest 
 of them ; and now did not know what to do for the night ; but 
 the public-houses were open in the village, only she had no money. 
 Martin went out to her through the window, and accompanied her 
 to the village. The least respectable of the public- houses gave 
 them entertainment and lodging for payment before-hand. Martin, 
 but too well acquainted, from former experience, with the ways of 
 the house, spent his second guinea before he fell asleep, and ere he 
 awoke in the morning, Nance Dempsey had gone off with the other. 
 
 With remorse for recent sin, added to his frenzy of the previous 
 night, he hurried out of the house. It was yet scarce day- break, 
 though not an early hour. As he issued from the door, a horse- 
 man, standing still, confronted him, as if watching the egress of 
 some person. At a glance he knew his rigid parish-priest. 
 
 '• I find you coming out from this house after all, Martin Bro- 
 phy ?" he said ; " you have been warned from the altar : take heed 
 you do not expose yourself to be cursed from the altar." 
 
868 THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 " Curse away !" answered Martin, bounding across the road into 
 the fields, the worst species of desperation now blackening in his 
 bosom, namely, that of lost character and conscious guilt. 
 
 Without thinking of an interview with Mush a Merry, he gained 
 the little glen of Coile, where, in happier and better days, Dora 
 Marum and he had often sat together. In summer it was a beau- 
 tiful close scene ; a fairy dell blocked up at one end, by a face of 
 shrubbed rock, adown which trickled a silver line of water, and 
 almost embowered at either side by beech and ash trees, that 
 dropped their foliage to the very surface of the mossy sod under 
 foot. Now, upon a howling winter's morning, and while twilight 
 yet brooded over it, the place bore, on the contrary, a drear and 
 fierce character. The thread of shining water had become a red 
 and foamy torrent, which tore through the middle of the little val- 
 ley ; the naked trees groaned and clattered their tangled branches 
 in the gust, chorusing its sullen roar ; and the piping of the wind 
 among them sometimes filled Martin's ear like human or superhu- 
 man voices. Immediately under the fall of water, there was a 
 deep and boiling basin, and self-destruction, by a plunge into this, 
 was now Martin's impulse. Despairing, and even depraved as his 
 heart had become, he rejected, since his change of feeling the pre- 
 vious night, prolonged and successful life by virtue of a cold-blooded 
 covenant with the enemy of man. He glanced around to note if 
 he was alone. A figure was just disappearing out of the dell — he 
 thought his champion at the fair; and now he identified his red- 
 haired friend with Keeraun Dernphy, Dora's foster-brother. An- 
 other figure, that of a female, stood watching him. He ran towards 
 her; it was Dora Marum — he fell with a cry at her feet. 
 
 Dora called on him to " Stand up like a man !" 
 
 "You do not care for me now, Dora : and for that reason, little 
 do I care for myself." 
 
 " Stand up, Martin Brophy !" — the tall, finely-formed, brown- 
 complexioned girl spoke with energy, and her brown cheek red- 
 dened, and her black eye grew expressive. " I do care for you, 
 yet ; though, indeed, you care so little for yourself ; and though 
 you have given me no cause to tell you so." He arose. " Stand 
 up, in arnest, Martin ; — mend your life, and your fortune must mend 
 with it, and then my father will no longer hinder me from showing 
 how much I care for you." 
 
 " And not till then, Dora? not till I grow rich ?" cried Martin, 
 in total despair of his chance of succeeding according to this ad- 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 36§ 
 
 "No, Martin Brophy, not till theu," answered old Daniel Marum, 
 gaining his daughter's side. " Come home, Dora ; it's plain lan- 
 guage I spake to you, Martin, my boy ; grow as rich as will make 
 you Dora's match, and theu take her, with my blessin' ;" he and 
 Dora went away. 
 
 " Grow rich ! haw !" shouted Martin, furiously. Old Musna Mer- 
 tottered before him, and repeated his offer to " larn him the way, 
 haw !" Martin angrily desired him to begone, adding, that " the 
 horned Dhowl might have him, body and soul — -and should, soon— 
 but not at a price." His counsellor smiling assured him that he 
 greatly mistook ; that no such hard terms were expected as the 
 bribe for hastening superabundance of riches. Martin eagerly 
 pressed him to explain. He did so ; and although there certainly 
 was a material difference in the bargain proposed, from that entered 
 into by old Squire Jarvis, still Martin Brophy listened in unfeigned 
 horror. 
 
 " An' see, here it's for you," added Musha Merry, handing his 
 begrimed card — *' the ould one that stood yom- friend afore, — so 
 you'll have loock wid it, avich" Martin took the card, and slowly 
 and silently walked out of the little dell. 
 
 " There, now," muttered Musha Merry to himself, as he labori- 
 ously crawled up the side of the retreat, in a different direction. 
 " An' only use id as I bid you, Martin Brophy, my boy, an' if we 
 don't list you in the bould Barrymount throop, nauhochlish ; (never 
 mind ;) an' in a little while after that, plaise God, you'll be snug 
 in the stone-jug (jaol) in their fine town bey ant, an' in a fiir way 
 to go under the skibbeah's (Jack Ketch's) hands, in regard of bein' 
 found out, somehow, for one o' them terrible robbers that frightens 
 the whole counthry. Ay, just the way it happened to poor Me- 
 chaul, the one brother o' me, about thirty years agone, by manes 
 of a father you had, rest his sowl, the first time our brave boys 
 took head together, and opened the fun wid a call at Dick Brophy's 
 house, after sun-set ; and maybe it's not a nate fit for that to help 
 your father's son to jest the same loock your father helped poor 
 Mechaul to ; ah, an' jest on the same ould account ; ha, bud stop, 
 isn't that Keeraun Dernphy's red head watchin' me agin ?" 
 
 It was Sunday morning. Half an hour after Martin Brophy 
 left the glen, he was seen hovering about the door of the little 
 country chapel, by the crowds who went in to early mass. They 
 wondered that they did not see him at the entrance to the galleries, 
 whither, consistently with his former rank, it had been his habit 
 to repair. Indeed, they almost wondered at his appearance near 
 
 2b 
 
870 THE ACE OF CLUBS. 
 
 the house of prayer, under any circumstaaces, for lately he had 
 been absent from all religious observances* But they concluded 
 that he came to humble himself to the " call" of his priest, issued 
 the previous Sunday. Arrived in " the body of the chapel," where 
 the crowds knelt or stood without seats of any kiad, many looked 
 round for Martin, but none saw him. 
 
 He was in the chapel, notwithstanding. Avoiding and baffling 
 observation, he had stolen through the throng to a spot under the 
 rude pulpit, where inside the sweep of its stairs, was a small space, 
 left comparatively unthronged, and where, without his knowledge 
 of the fact, women who proposed to coinmunicite after the cere- 
 mony of the morning, were in the habit of kneeling, with their 
 fa(ve3 enveloped in the hoods of their dark-blue cloaks, and turned 
 to the wall, so that they might compose themselves to approach 
 the railings of the sanctuary. And here also, turning his face to 
 the wall, Martin knelt to prepare his mind, and wait his time for 
 HIS devotional act. 
 
 At a certain period of the mass, the priest elevates the conse- 
 crated bread and wine, which Roman Catholics believe to be the 
 Real Presence ; and Martin Brophy, acting upon Musha Merry's 
 instructions, intended, when this usual ceremonial should occur, to 
 turn his back on the altar, hold up before his eyes, in the hollow 
 of his hand, the Ace of Clubs which his tutor had given him, and 
 bow to it thrice, and worship it thrice, " in the devil's name :" the 
 only concession, he was assured, required by the great father of 
 riches to give him power over mountains of gold. 
 
 In a paroxysm of desperation he had so far taken his measures. 
 But after he had knelt down, and that mass had begun, the sullen 
 lethargy of Martin's heart became fearfully broken up. The act of 
 apostacy he resolved to commit was, in its form, of no ordinary 
 character ; and, further, Martin Brophy believed in the Redeemer, 
 of whose atonement for the sins of the world the sacrament was a 
 memento ; nay, still, according to his creed, a perpetuation. And 
 this Redeemer, and this sacrament, he came to forswear on his 
 knees, for the worship of the king of hell ; — the thought swelled 
 his bosom with tremendous horror. 
 
 The pious women and girls around him murmured their aspira- 
 tions of repentance for their sins, and of joy at the prospect of 
 partaking of that very sacrament. His heart chilled and collapsed 
 over its own hidden intent. Still he dragged the intent closer to 
 '*4^.him, and did not waver. Mass went on — every stage of its pro- 
 ^;.gress familiar to his ear — 3very resoonse of the surpliced boys who 
 
THE ACE OF CLUBS. 371 
 
 served at the steps of the altar — he had often served there himself— 
 and a vivid picture started before his mind, of his mother folding 
 up his newly-washed surplice, and giving it him to button under 
 his boyish jacket, that he might hasten off to attend his favourite 
 priest at early prayers. The time drew near when the bread and 
 wine were to be consecrated. Martin shuffling on his knees, fully 
 turned his back upon the altar, and, shaking in every limb, and 
 teeming with cold moisture, adjusted the card in the palm of his 
 hand. The little bell, rung by one of the boys, which gave notice 
 of the approach of " the Elevation," tingled in his ears, and pierced 
 into his brain. The hosannah hymn burst from the village choir, 
 and echoed over him and around him, first loudly and shrilly,and 
 then louder and confused, then wildly and faintly, until, as almost 
 madness mastered him, its swell seemed te break out into scream 
 and laughter. Again, however, he was darkly aware of the second 
 notice of the little bell, and then, with staring eyes and ghastly 
 features, he raised the card close to his face. His arm was dragged 
 down. He uttered a loud cry, and gazed under the head of the 
 woman's cloak who had thus interfered between him and his terribly 
 apostacy. The eyes of Dora Marum met his. She had learned 
 <5f his dread purpose from Keeraun Dernpby, who contrived to listen 
 to Martin's conversation with Musha Merry in the glen, and who, 
 indeed, had been long aware of the old- robber's thirst for revenge 
 against her unfortunate lover. 
 
 After his scream, Martin fell senseless, though in strong con- 
 vulsions. For weeks afterwards he was a raving madman. When 
 his senses returned to him, he found himself in the priest's house, 
 watched by his mother and Dora Marum ; they were softly whisper- 
 ing over, his bed. Martin Brophy did not leave that house till, in 
 an humbled, contrite, and chastened spirit, he had worthily pro- 
 pitiated Heaven's forgiveness, through the medium of the sacrament 
 he had so recently proposed, along with that Heaven, to forswear. 
 Restored to health in mind, in heart, and in body, he seriously set 
 himself to follow the advice given to him by Dora in the Glen of 
 €oile ; and from very small beginnings, with perhaps some com- 
 passionate allowances for his griefs and sufferings, became, in a 
 few years, "a match," in old Dan Marum's eye, for his only daughter, 
 just about the time that Musha Merry left this world, to seek his 
 unavenged brother in a better or a worse, and by the same mode 
 of exit vouchsafed to that worthy brother. 
 
 THE END. 
 
YB 72889 
 
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