here; secret societies have sprung up; they have revived the old foolish story of their possessing the ancient title deeds to the estates forfeited under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, and have ventured to say that "the Darragh" and its castle, as they call this house, belong to Dominick M'Hanlon, one of your tenants, and grandson to the farmer from whom the Admiral purchased this place at three times its value nearly a hundred years ago.

"These are bad-very bad things to hear, Gilbert," said my uncle, "but kindness can do much. We must try and kill this evil spirit by the introduction of a good and forbearing spirit of active and liberal benevolence; and should we fail, it will be consoling to remember that we did all we could."

So saying, he arose from the table and walked to the fire, Gilbert following him, and holding him in conversation, which gradually sunk to a whisper whereupon Mr. Montfort and I left the room, but not before we had heard the word "eviction," coupled with that gentleman's name, which caused my friend to assume a stern look and very lofty port. We crossed the hall. The moonbeams were playing on the old oak settle and billiard table, and we opened the house door to look out on the night, and watch the moon racing over the white stormpatches in the sky. With a smile of contempt Montfort spoke;

"Kildoon has been, I see, complaining of my doings among my refractory tenants to your uncle: I would advise him to let me and my affairs alone. Walter," he added, “be always honest and straightforward; you have no example in your cousin,

whom I consider a double-faced fellow. He has much pride and vanity under all that surface of humility. Last year we met in Germany, I think it was at Mayence, and there Mr. Kildoon wrote his name in the hotel visitors' book as "Gilbert Nugent, Rentier,"-leaving out altogether his real name, which at all events in these parts is rather plebeian, and subscribing himself as a "rentier," when he has nothing to do with rents but the receiving of them as a paid agent. Was not this most contemptible? He wanted to make up to me at the "table d'hôte,"

but I kept him at a respectful distance. I dont like such humbug; no man should be ashamed of his name or his calling, if they are honest ones. Lok at the General, and compare this Kildoon with him: your uncle is a Bayard, sans peur et sans reprochi ; he is a preux chevalier for honour; a pillar of integrity and truth, clear as the day; you have a noble pattern in him; but, Walter, you are young, and know nothing of mankind, and like your uncle you are singularly unsuspicious. This Kildoon is seven or eight years your senior, and as knowing as a Doncaster jockey; watch him well, and don't trust him one inch beyond what you can help, for he is clever enough to give a much wiser man than you a heavy fall, and he may do so yet."

So saying, the doughty Montfort stalked slowly into the drawing-room, leaving me not at all obliged, but on the contrary rather indignant at his speech: first, because he had ignored my knowledge of the world-a thing on which every lad of eighteen piques himself, for it is not till he arrives

"At thirty, man suspects himself a fool." I who had been educated at an Eng lish school, and visited the Continent on two occasions! I not to know mankind! how extremely absurd of Mr. Montfort!-and secondly, I was vexed at his depreciation of my cousin, who was at all events most kind and attentive to me, and when I had no cause to suspect as Montfort did. Truly, thought I, this Englishman takes great liberties; and so with a mein as proud as my adviser's I joined the party in the drawing

general paced the room with his chest expanded, his hands behind his back ; the clouds of thought had fallen back from his brow, a sparkle was in his large eye, a smile on his happy lip, as he trod the carpet with a short

swinging cavalry step, a delighted and sympathizing auditor of our strains ; although a band of Caravats might have been platooning in his lawn at the very time, or skulking amidst the old forest paths of the Darragh.

ABOUT two miles beyond our avenue gate, sat smiling conceitedly upon a hill the little town of Ballynatrasna. Truth to say, it was a mere village, but the self-importance of the small locality had assumed the larger title, and custom had now converted it into an unquestioned fact. It was after all but a juvenile place, computing its age by civic chronology, having only been built about forty years. It was not exactly the county town, but rather the self-constituted metropolis of the neighbourhood where it presided, and was indeed the only emporium of trade and traffic for many a circling mile; and having a good river, the Trasna, which was navigable from the sea up to its very streets, it waxed saucy, and prosperous in mercantile matters of a minute

kind; trading in coals, corn, and fish; and, if the truth be told, not a little smuggled tea and tobacco. It had a small neat church, where the family at the Darragh attended on Sunday; a large straggling Roman Catholic chapel, with a bare and very damp interior, and clay floor; a ricketty tawdry inn, half hostel, half shebeenhouse, with the gentleman proprietor

Ireland, a Threnody.

lounging at the door in a torn coat. It had also a smug and solid limestone police barrack, standing coldly in a small cabbage garden, and having in its upper windows metal balconies pierced with round holes for the insertion of a musket barrel. It also exhibited the united triad of houses found in almost every country village in Ireland-namely, the apothecary's, the attorney's, and the parish priest's -three traders, respectively, on our stomach, our purse, and our inward man. The first of these mansions was dingy and unclean, like that of a man who was not succeeding in the world-the place being most unfortunately salubrious; the second was a deep and solid house-clean, and large, and well painted, with bright brasses and shining windows-like that of a man who was doing right well in the world; and the third was dark, blinded up and batchelorly, like that of a man who did not choose to let the world know what he was doing.

Up the street of this town, about a month after the conversation narrated in the foregoing chapter, rode three horsemen. First, there was

my uncle, with his kind smile and handsome person, mounted on one of his famous Yorkshire bays-a magnificent animal, which had cost him two hundred guineas, and which was the pride and wonder of the field in the hunting season. Next there was our friend Mr. Montfort, who bestrode a powerful brown horse, which carried him to cover and was a favorite.

This gentleman, by virtue of his having purchased a property between Ballynatrasna and the sea, had now been given the commission of the peace, which office he prosecuted with zeal and unflinching activity. The third horseman was myself, mounted on an animal called "The Highflier," a strong half-bred, but very hot horse, which was well known by the country people as having been bred in my uncle's stables, and broken and trained by myself while yet a mere youth.

It was market-day at Ballynatrasna; the streets were lined on either side by cars, stalls, and tables containing goods for sale; the crowd was dense, and a sea of waving caubeens appeared to occupy the centre of the road, and fill the space between the booths; save when its surface was broken by the disturbance caused by some perverse pig, who, held by a cord tied to his leg, straggled and struggled against its fetter, screaming loudly as if it were appealing to the sympathy of the whole porcine population around, against the illegality of its detention; or again, when the crowd was cleft asunder by some old green gig, advancing slowly amidst the hats and cloaks, like a boat amidst the breakers; and containing either a superannuated farmer, too fat or too lazy to walk, or haply the priest from a neighbouring parish, come to look after some of his fourlegged sheep, or dispose of a fat heifer. The peasantry wore their appropriate costume: the men

were

mostly purple-hosed and frieze-coated; brogued and shillelaed; the women red-cloaked and blue-petticoated; most of them having dark Spanish faces, and light and even graceful figures: either party forming a living hedge on the right hand and on the left, and staring hard at us with wondering and upturned faces, as we slowly rode through them. We were recognized by many, and voices would ex

claim, "Your Honour is welcome to the country," and "Well, but I'm proud to see you, General," issued from many a lip in the rich and cordial brogue of the M- peasantry. "Well, Master Walter, but it's tall you are; troth and it's the very moral of the General you are getting, alanna." "And sits on the highflier like a huntsman, bedad." These and sundry other remarks, polite and personal, were discharged at us like bons-bons at a Roman carnival, as we rode between the ranks of the complimentary public: but I remarked that no man greeted Montfort

which I ascribed at the time not to any personal unpopularity, but to his being an Englishman and a stranger.

On reaching the well-conditioned mansion before mentioned, my uncle and I alighted, while Montfort rode down the banks of the river to visit his newly purchased farm, where he talked of erecting a fishing lodge. In this house dwelt Mr. M'Clintock, a keen but kind man, and an able but thoroughly honest attorney. He was the General's law agent, and was greatly respected and entirely trusted by him. His wife was a pleasant unaffected gentlewoman; his daughters well educated and pious, good girls; sons he had none. M'Clintock himself was a middle sized stout man, with a compressed mouth, a keen blue eye, a bald and well knobbed forehead, and a strong seasoning of the northern accent in his habitual vernacular. We spent two hours there; lunching with him and his family: and were sorry to find that his account of the position of the country was, if anything, more gloomy than that of my cousin Gilbert. He said the people seemed grateful for the General's kindness and liberality; "yet still," added he, "the bad spirit is greatly on the increase among them; and what I dread is, that it will hardly pass away without some explosion which will end in mischief to themselves."

paying neither rate nor rent: but they are an ancient stock-old 'residenters,' as they say, and the peasantry value them not for any moral excellence, of which they don't indeed possess an atom, but because they are of long standing in the place; and now having been evicted, they have by the custom of the country been regularly installed as martyrs, which no doubt adds in no small measure to the amount of sympathy felt for them. I do repeat that the eviction of such men is a public benefit; yet I will honestly say that I wish Mr. Montfort-who however knows his own business best-had delayed a little till this cloud had blown by, when his stringent measures could have been put in force as effectually, and perhaps with more safety."

A little after this conversation Montfort called for us, and remounting our horses we rode out of the town, which was still extremely full of people; the men standing grouped in knots on the street, or gathering themselves into public houses to consummate some half-closed bargain; the women for the most part on their way home. After a brisk trot my uncle suddenly pulled up, and addressed Montfort. He told him much of what Mr. M'Clintock had said, to all of which his auditor listened with a sturdy smile" Well, my dear Montfort, I am glad to see you bear the intrusion of my opinions upon you so good-naturedly; but still I must feel that these Aherns are ugly folk to meddle with just now, and that in putting them to the sword, you have, as it were, thrust a stick into a wild wasp's nest. M'Clintock tells me that Dermid Ahern, the old man's nephew, is now in the country. I have had him twice in jail for poaching, and he is a desperate though a successful smuggler, and a lawless

man.

I well know how fearless you are, yet it is hard to provide against treachery, and these fellows are very guerillas in their method of attack

and warfare."

"My dear general," answered Montfort, "I told these Aherns two years ago, that I should resume their farms when the last life in their lease dropt; and this took place at Christmas. I have never had one shilling of rent from them; but, on the contrary, I ordered my agent to

pay them fifteen pounds a man, and forgive them all rent due, on condition that they would unroof their houses (which have been dens for smuggling these six years), and bring the keys of the doors of their miserable wigwams to my agent. To all this they appeared to assent heartily; they took off their roofs and unhinged their doors, and I fitted up the best of the tenements for my bailiff, Cowan. And now after three months comes this smuggling mate of a Dutch lugger -this illconditional contrabandistawho ought to be hung for his misdeeds-this nephew, Dermid Ahern, and raises a tumult in the country; and I do believe had the audacity to address a threatening letter to that very honest and manly fellow, James Cowan, warning him off my premises, which has compelled me to furnish him with arms and means of self-defence.

"For my part, my dear general, I am as a magistrate determined to lay hold on this Dermid Ahern, or any other disturber of the peace whom I can catch in an overt act against the law; and as a man and an Englishman I need not say that the idea of fear could never trouble the mind of John Montfort."

He spoke this firmly, but with rather a proud smile, sitting very erect in his saddle, the very form and glass of an honest, inflexible, but somewhat over-confident Englishman. The general looked at him with a grave and fixed attentiveness; and then, as if some thought crossed his brow like a gleam, he smiled.

"Well, general," said Montfort, reciprocating his smile with one of his own, "tell me what it is amuses you? I should always prefer seeing a smile on your lip to a care on your brow."

"It was nothing," said my uncle, getting a little red, "nothing of any importance; it was a foolish thought and irrelevant to our subject; it was just a notion that came into my mind, Montfort ; what an efficient heavy dragoon you would have turned out, had you been present, just as you are now, at our famous cavalry action at E- in the frontiers of Portugal!"

The sun was near to his setting as we rode up to the Darragh approach. Immediately inside the great gates, on the right hand lay a round hollow

or pond containing water, and resting amidst green banks. On the side next the avenue was a bridle road, much trodden and broken up by the feet of cattle, as the grooms brought their horses to water there every day. We turned down as we entered the park, and Montfort rode first into the pond, as his custom was; and as his horse stooped his neck to drink, a figure, with a crape over his face, started from behind a thorn bush on the right bank, and levelling a gun, fired right at that gentleman; but happily without effect, the bullet tearing away the peak of the saddle, but doing no further mischief. In a second my uncle's usually placid tones awoke in thunder.

"Walter, ride right across the pond and up the bank after that cowardly The rest of his sentence was lost to me, as giving both the spurs to my horse, he dashed in one bound violently into the pond with me, and in a moment was straining Mazeppa-like, and mad with passion, up the opposite bank. On gaining the top, I plainly saw the figure of a man running most swiftly towards the fir plantation; but though I went at him at a wild gallop, he had got among the thick trees before I could reach him. Here no horse could penetrate; so leaping off mine, I knotted the bridle on his neck, he plunging all the time, and resigned him to his own will, while I dashed on foot amidst the trees, searching and listening every where, and every moment, if haply I might come upon the assassin's trail. But when I had reached the park-wall which ran all round the wood, and climbed it over into the road, I saw no man, nothing but the cold, clear evening calmly settling into night around me, and I so hot and breathless, and fevered with excitement. In a hollow, on the opposite side of the road from the park-wall, was the eight-acre meadow, and at the far end of it some nine or ten men were digging lazily, and at their ease. I shouted to them to come over to me, but before they could answer, Mr. Montfort trotted up the road from the gate, as cool as if he was only about the unkenneling of a dog-fox, in place of arresting a homicide. The general, who had gone round the other way up the park, now joined us from an opposite direc

tion, coming down the road in a canter, very much flushed, thoroughly roused, sitting in his saddle like an ancient Paladin, and looking really magnificent in his generous indignation.

He questioned the labourers from the trenched field, but they had heard nothing, seen nothing, knew nothing, and seemed ready to ignore every thing; they were mostly in their shirt sleeves, and their large frieze jocks were lying in a heap in a cart, whose two horseless shafts reposed on the ground. It seemed plain that these poor men had no knowledge of the deed, nor could they furnish any clue to discover what the newspapers in a day or two styled "the perpetrator of the outrage."

My uncle and Montfort were going back to Ballynatrasna to see M'Clintock, and issue warrants; and I returned home, where I found two grooms doing their best to dry the Highflier, who was hot and wet, and had broken his girth in flying over the ha-ha, wanting to make the short journey," said the groom, “för

his stable."

I got on Madeline's mare, and rode after my uncle; first cautioning the men not to say a word about Mr. Montfort's having been shot at; but my warning came too late, for when we met at dinner, my poor Madeline looked pale and most unhappy, and asked many anxious questions; and though Montfort ate, and drank, and laughed, and was the joyfullest person of the party, yet I have often since remembered that that day seemed to be the first period of the occultation of the bright star of joy and hope which had risen on the loves and future prospects of my sister and her lover.

My cousin Gilbert dined with us, together with M'Clintock; the former was all full of a soft and spruce kind of sympathy, in keeping with his artificial manner; but the latter expressed the greatest horror and indignation at so audacious a deed, and seemed low and unhappy.

But my uncle engaged most of my concern. Sorrow and disappointment had clouded his noble features, and hope was fled. He had laboured much and brought home nothing; and all his liberality and thoughtfulness seemed to have produced no