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his money; an having no famaly nor air a wife that would look after the house and things, every whole tote went wrong intirely. Besides, he was great after the hounds; and a fine rider he was, and with sech a dawny darland of a horse, that he one day left the hounds, hunt, hare, an' all behind him. On he went, an' he was goen, goen, goen (as the ould gossips say), ont'l he came to a great valley intirely. And there he saw THEMSELVES, in their little red jackets, and with caps on their heads, and hurlies in their hands, and they playen goal. Well, an ould hag that was sitten as it might be this way like meself, see David, and made to-wards him with a piggin of something that's good, which he refused, and well became him, knowen it was not good to take drink from the like. 'Take it, heart', says the ould hag, and don't spare. It's David Foy's cider, and long may he live and reign; we don't want for the best he has, for it's we that get all that's wasted in the house by bad looken after, and it's good liven we have here, while the poor Christians are starving at his door. Take the drop and be comfortable'. 'Thanky kindly, ma'am', says David, 'but I rather not, av you plase, wit the same thanks to you as if I did; my stomach is not well indeed this mornen, saving your favour'. 'No offince in life, sir', says she. So they sat down together. By an by, in comes a strappen young Clooricaun with a pailful o' sweet milk. "Where did you get that, eroo?' says the hag. E'then long life to Davy Foy, where should I get it only out of his dairy? He was out hunten, an Bridget was in the haggart wit Tim Fouloo, so I came in for my share wit the cat an the dog'. 'Sha guthine! is this the way of it?' says Davy to himself. Then comes in another of the gentry with a firkin o' butter, and another with a gammon o' bacon, and all in the same story, and Davy himself by all the time, and not one o' them knowen him, in rigard of his never being about the house, hardly. "Tis little admiration for ye to

be so fat, gintlemin', says he at last, as he was wishen 'em a good mornen, at which they all laughed hearty, and nodded and winked their little wicked eyes at him, mighty merry intirely, as much as to say: "True for you, lad'. In a year after he came to the same place: the little goalplayers were nothen but skin and bone, and the old hag was scrapen a raw pzatie agen a grater to make a cake for their supper. 'Oh, then the Cromaylian curse upon your head, David Foy, for we know you now!' says the whole set of 'em together—there's all we got losing after you this twelvemonth', showen the raw pzatie the same time. 6 The more my luck', says David, 'wasn't it yer own taiching?""

Having, as he believed, fully discomfited Sandy at his own weapons, old Michael rose to depart, with the view of instituting an inquiry at the neighbouring village relative to the owner of the mysterious brogues and

pavers.

He was scarcely out of sight, when the back door of the dwelling-house opened, and the stranger who had on the preceding evening accosted Sandy in the avenue of Kilavariga, made his appearance. The latter was busily occupied in polishing a stubborn fetlock when the old man hurried into the stable.

"Come, Sandy, saddle the horse, and lead him out here", he exclaimed. "I have received a piece of intelligence from Mr. Evans which will render it necessary for me to travel fifty miles before night fall. Is the animal frost shod?"

"Quite complate, yer honour. But that's a thing o' nothen. Mr. William Aylmer that bid me have the cratur convanient for himself this morning".

"Where is he going?"

"Sarrow a know do I know".

"No matter. Give me the horse, and make out what excuse you can for your young master".

"The best I can offer, then", said Sandy as he assisted the stranger to mount, "will be to keep out of his way intirely, for indeed he's not over honest when he do be crossed".

"Kind father for him ", said the stranger laughing.

"Wonst in his day, sir", replied Sandy, "but time and trouble changes the people ".

The expression of merriment was instantly quelled on the lip of the stranger. He fetched his breath hard, and, checking the bridle, rode through the yard gate just as Aylmer, wrapped in his great coat, and covered with snow-flakes, made his appearance on the avenue. The latter used a slight action of surprise, as the other passed him at a more rapid pace than he had before employed.

"He knows the horse!" said Sandy, "time for me to be moven". And he was about to depart, when the young gentleman's voice arrested his flight.

"Who is that man, Sandy?"

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-Mick Donovan, sir,

"He looks more large, and rides better than he used". "Thriving with him the place is, your honour.-Not a word about the horse!" he added, in some astonishment, as Aylmer, with a look of some disappointment, turned off in the direction of the house. "Some trouble at Kilavariga, I'll be bail".

The limits which we prescribed to ourselves at the commencement of this little tale, render it impossible for us to enter into a minute detail of many unimportant circumstances which occupied the principal personages during the several days which followed the eventful morning of Aylmer's discovery. It will save the reader a great deal

* Honest is a synonym for mild or gentle, in Ireland.

of heavy reading, and the historian of the parties a great deal of analyzing matter, of speculations on impulse and motive, and cloudy talking, if we proceed to the next situation of the story with as little preface as possible.

Fitzmaurice and his daughter having heard nothing more of Aylmer, concluded that his resolution was fixed, not to enter the house of his old benefactor from that time forward. Although the cause of this determination, and the apparent probability of her young friend's persevering in it, had produced a mournful change both in the heart and in the appearance of the lively Katharine, she had exerted a sufficient degree of mastery over her wounded feelings to conceal at least the voluntary expression of her suffering from the eye of her parent. Convinced as she now was of the depth and intensity of her love for the haughty fugitive, and satisfied, even to the very limit of utter hopelessness, that no chance or change of circumstances could ever again restore the hearts of both to the relative position which they had occupied from childhood-satisfied, in a word, that, loving as she did even to sickness of soul and frame, she yet loved in vain, it was touching to witness the quiet fortitude with which she disguised those feelings when in the presence of her parent. Frequently, indeed, in her wanderings about the lonely mansion, when a scattered remembrancer of "past, happy hours" caught her eye; when she looked from her window, in the calm and silent even-fall, on the scenes of their youthful sports; or when her hand, unconsciously straying over her neglected harp, happened to awaken a cadence of one of his favourite melodies, in those moments it was that her bosom would swell and tighten, while the sudden passion laboured in her throat, and relieved itself at length in bursts of overwhelming grief. But the moment her father's footstep sounded on the flagged hall without, these signs of anxiety disappeared, and the note of the harp was changed to one of a lesser interest and meaning.

The change which had taken place in the disposition and manner of the old man was still more striking and more rapid. It seemed as if, instead of experiencing any relief from the confidence he had made, it only added fresh terrors to those which he had so long confined in his own bosom, and multiplied the chances and fears of detection that had made the last years of his life one long and weary chain of anxiety and sorrow. His eye had lost its heaviness and gloom, while it assumed instead a restlessness of glance, and a wildness and distrust in its most ordinary expression, which furnished his now more than ever vigilant and affectionate daughter with a more startling subject for alarm, than even the increased paleness of his lips and brow and the rapid wasting of his sallow cheeks afforded. The sound of a strange footstep, the shutting of a door, the whistling of a sudden gust around the dreary mansion, any unexpected sight or sound, seemed to shake his being to the very centre. At those times, too, he was wont to receive the accustomed consolations of his daughter with expressions full of a sharp and pettish asperity, which, continued, repeated, and unatoned for, as they were, by any after-kindness, put the devotion of her filial love to a severer test than even the revolting cause in which they originated. With the fineness of perception which is so peculiarly the characteristic of her sex, she quickly arrived at the mode of treatment best adapted for the novel turn which the disease had taken. Like the minstrel of the Israelitish monarch, when the evil influence came over the mind of her patient, she abandoned all efforts to combat it by argument, or even condolence, and affected an air of perfect abstraction and security, while she ran, as if in careless practice, over the chords of her instrument, varying and accommodating the character of the melody to the changes which were visible in the conntenance of the listener, with a tact and fidelity which would not have been

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