nothing of his poverty, nor the many temptations by which he was beset.

"Still", said he, "I tell you a simple truth when I assert that, during the whole time of this visit, while he lay sleeping in his chair, and while I held the razor in my hand, so shocking a thought as that of taking a fellowcreature's life never once, even for an instant, crossed my mind. But there was another temptation which did suggest itself, and to which I did give way. The portmanteau containing the money, lay on a chair near the window--he slept profoundly-I took the key from his pocket-I removed the money, which was chiefly in gold and silver, and filling the two bags in which it was contained with small pebbles of about an equal weight, I replaced the portmanteau as it was before. I then awoke him with difficulty, and fearful of being discovered if he remained till morning, persuaded him to resume his journey.

"He had scarcely left the house when I found myself seized with an unaccountable terror at the idea of detection and ignominy. Accordingly, abstracting from the sum a few pieces of silver for present uses, I made fast the remainder in a bag, and hurried out into the air, uncertain whither to direct my steps. I ran across the neighbouring fields with the design of seeking out some place of concealment for my treasure. An old ruin within a short distance of the village suggested itself as a favourable spot for my design, and thither accordingly I hastened. In an obscure corner of the building 1 deposited the money, and returned to my own house with a mind distracted by anxiety and remorse.

"On my way home, I heard voices, and the sound of horses' feet, in a field upon my right. I listened, and the words I caught seemed to be those of people who were exercising and leaping horses. Soon after, a horse without a rider left the field at full gallop. The sounds ceased,

and in a short time I saw two horsemen galloping from the place. Strange as it may seem, I have the proof of what I am about to state, and let it warn you, sir, and all who are in power, to weigh well the grounds on which they decide the guilt or innocence of the wretches whom they judge. I entered the field, and found there, lying at a distance from the ditch, the body of the tax-collector, newly dead, with a dreadful wound upon the head, and the portmanteau gone! My first impulse-I know not wherefore was to conceal the work of murder. Favoured by the night, which still continued stormy, I conveyed the body to my own orchard, where I gave it temporary interment in the spot from which I was last night detected in the act of seeing it removed. It would be vain to tell what poignancy this dreadful addition to the terrors of the night imparted to my remorse. I felt almost as if I had been myself the author of his destruction; and the apparent certainty, likewise, that the detection of the crime which I had committed, would be sufficient to convict me also in the eyes of all judges of that which I had not, made my life one protracted thought of fear and misery".

Here the barber related, with feelings of the deepest shame, the device which he had adopted of digging up the treasure in the presence of the cobbler, in order to throw a veil over the real origin of his new prosperity.

"Still", said he, "I could not be at rest amid the scenes which continually reminded me of that terrible event. The consciousness of meanness joined to guilt added the poignancy of self-contempt to the deeper anguish of remorse. I fled the country, and sought refuge in change of scene from my fears and my remembrances.

"But it was in vain. I could not find repose, for I carried my violated conscience still about me. Every new article I purchased for the use of my family-every fresh morsel of food that I lifted to my lips, seemed like a new and aggravated theft. I would at this time have

T

given the whole world for a friend to whom I could confide the secret that destroyed me. I thought of making a full disclosure to my wife, but she was far too good and holy to be the depositary of such a confidence.

"I entered into trade, and was successful, and in my success, for a time, I lost something of my inward agony. I will not weary you, gentlemen, by a long detail of the means by which I became acquainted with many of the real perpetrators of the more heinous offence. They were two persons who dined in company with Mr. Moynehan at Castle Tobin, on the evening previous to his disappearance. One died in Ireland soon after the occurrence-the other, William Cusack (commonly called Buffer), died abroad, and left this written confession of their common guilt, which I obtained as you shall hear.

"The hand of Providence began to press upon my house. One member after another of my family dropped into the grave, until I remained alone in the world with my remorse for a companion. Misfortune humbled me: I sought relief at length at the right source, and revealed the whole to a clergyman who attended me in a dangerous illness. It was through his means that document came into my possession and it is in fulfilment of his injunction that I have now come to the restitution of the money which I have so long retained".

Strange as the barber's defence appeared to Edmund and the magistrate, it was fully substantiated in the sequel by the testimony of the clergyman who had placed the confession, for his security, in the hands of O'Berne. The mode of his detection by Edmund Moynehan relieved the barber from an apprehension which had long sat next to his remorse upon his mind. This was the fancy that he had been haunted by an evil spirit, who disturbed him in his sleep, and had on one occasion engaged him in a fatal compact. It now appeared that himself, in his somnambulism, had performed all those feats which had so much

perplexed him, and that his midnight excursion to the firgrove was but a dream, to which he never would have paid attention, but for the corroboration afforded to it by the other mysterious occurrences. There was no prosecution instituted on the minor offence, and the barber continued long after to lead a penitential life, in the neighbourhood. The house, however, has long been razed (as we have already mentioned) to the earth, and it is legend alone that preserves the memory of its situation amongst the neighbouring villagers.

THE BROWN MAN.

All sorts of cattle he did eat:

Some say he eat up trees,

And that the forest sure he would
Devour up by degrees.

For houses and churches were to him geese and turkeys;
He ate all, and left none behind,

But some stones, dear Jack, which he could not crack,
Which on the hills you'll find.

Dragon of Wantley.

THE Common Irish expression of "the seven devils" does not, it would appear, owe its origin to the supernatural influences ascribed to that numeral, from its frequent associations with the greatest and most solemn occasions of theological history. If one were disposed to be fancifully metaphysical upon the subject, it might not be amiss to compare credulity to a sort of mental prism, by which the great volume of the light of speculative superstition is refracted in a manner precisely similar to that of the material, every-day sun, the great refractor thus showing only blue devils to the dwellers in the good ity of London, orange and green devils to the inhabitants of the sister (or rather step-daughter) island, and so forward until the seven component hues are made out through the other nations of the Earth. But what has this to do with the story? In order to answer that question, the story must be told.