moved further on; then back again, past the door; then they halted close in front: but the dry turf left no traces of footmarks, and all their attempts were baffled. Several of the large stacks of turf they removed, but our particular one escaped from its insignificance; and to have removed all would have been the work of a week.

The old officer, a dry, matter-of-fact Englishman, was becoming heartily sick of the adventure. He said something about being made a fool of, which Mr. Cronin doubted, muttering something to the effect, as I apprehended, that nature had been beforehand with the gauger.

'I shall not allow my men to slave here all night, pulling down and building up stacks of peat after a ten-mile march, and ten miles to return; so fall in, men, and unpile arms. Shew us the place, sir, and we'll make the

seizure."

(Inside.)—“ Well done, old boy, stick to

that."

"I'll be upon my oath," said the gauger, "that I saw the smoke coming out of the bog hereaway, when I passed th'other day-here,

in a line with the two stacks over there-it's right in this line." ("Thank ye, Mr. Flannagan, we'll move 'em to-morrow.") I'd rather than ten pound I had that fellow by the scruff of the neck!" ("Thank ye kindly, Mr. Flannagan; the same to yerself.") "It's daring us he is." ("Likely enough.") "But I'll have him safe enough one of those days." ("Did ye bring any salt wid ye to put on his tail?") "And I'd be glad we'd find him, sir, that ye'r men may have a sup of the stuff, poor fellows, after the march." ("How kind ye are! ye'r mighty free wid another man's sperrits.")

As the night advanced, the difficulty of finding the still increased, and at last the gauger was fain to give up the pursuit in de spair, and the party was moved off. The intruder lost no time in slipping out of his hiding-place, and reached home before the party.

Till a late hour that night he was edified with a full and particular account of the adventure; how they had been hoaxed, and dragged over twenty Irish miles to a place where there never was an illicit still; where

there never could have been the smallest reason for suspecting the existence of one. “] looked pretty sharp," said the old officer, " and I can see as far into a mill-stone as most people."

But nothing could convince Flannagan, the gauger, that he was wrong-such is the obstinacy of some people. Nay, he dragged that detachment twice to the place afterwards, in spite of all angry remonstrances, and, it is needless to say, very much against the wish of all concerned.

Now this officer may have neglected his duty; he may have connived at a breach of the revenue laws, but he certainly did not find the still, nor was it found in his time. On the occasion of the two official visits, Mr. Michael Cronin accompanied them, wearing an air of lamb-like innocence, and wondering what they sought.

There was one thing the officer had to complain of, which was, that on several marketdays, a jar of whisky was mysteriously left at his quarters but he laid a trap for the bringer, and at last caught Mike Cronin in the fact, and the harmony of their acquaintance was

a little disturbed by his being made to take it away, under a threat of certain pains and penalties.

Confound the fellow! he then sent his wife, even Kitty, so that the sportsman was obliged to compromise by accepting a bottle or two; or else shut the gates against all the grey cloaks on a market-day.

A MYSTERY AMONGST THE MOUNTAINS.

ALTHOUGH the following narrative does not come properly under the head of an Irish story, seeing that it is in nowise illustrative of Irish manners; yet I am induced to give it from its singular and mysterious interest.

A few years ago, an officer whom we will call Captain G, received a sudden order to оссиру with a detachment one of those small barracks in the county of Wicklow, built shortly after the great rebellion. The district in which it is situated, appears on the map as a wild tract of mountains, fifteen square miles, if I rightly remember, being noted on the large maps as uncultivated and nearly uninhabited. In order to open out this wild region, so favourable for the assembling of the masses for unlawful purposes (and the more dangerous as