"But the anxiety produced by your refusal may have very dangerous effects on her health."

"Then you must contrive somehow to consale my refusal from her till she gets recovered. I couldn't do what you want me; an' if you press me further upon it, I'll think you don't respect me as much as I'd wish her brother to do. Oh, God of Heaven!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands, "must I lave you, my darling Una, forever? I must, I must! an' the drame of all we hoped is past—but never, never, will she lave my heart! Her eye dim, an' her cheek pale! an' all forme—for a man covered with shame and disgrace! Oh, John, John, what a heart!—to love me in spite of all this, an' in spite of the world's opinion along with it!"

At this moment one of the turnkeys entered, and told him that his mother and a young lady were coming up to see him.

"My mother!" he exclaimed, "I am glad she is come; but I didn't expect her till the day after to—morrow. A young lady! Heavens above, what young lady would come with my mother?"

He involuntarily exchanged looks with O'Brien, and a thought flashed on the instant across the minds of both. They immediately understood each other.

"Undoubtedly," said John, "it can be no other—it is she—it is Una. Good God, how is this? The interview and separation will be more than she can bear—she will sink under it."

Connor made no reply, but sat down and pressed his right hand upon his forehead, as if to collect energy sufficient to meet the double trial which was now before him.

"I have only one course, John," said he, "now, and that is, to appear to be—what I am not—a firm—hearted man. I must try to put on a smiling face before them."

"If it be Una," returned the other, "I shall withdraw for a while. I know her extreme bashfulness in many cases; and I know, too, that anything like restraint upon her heart at present—in a word, I shall retire for a little."

"It may be as well," said Connor; "but so far as I am concerned, it makes no difference—just as you think proper."

"Your mother will be a sufficient witness," said the delicate—minded brother; "but I will see you again after they have left you."

"You must," replied O'Donovan. "Oh I see me—see me again. I have something to say to you of more value even than Una's life."

The door then opened, and assisted, or rather supported, by the governor of the gaol, and one of the turnkeys, Honor O'Donovan and Una O'Brien entered the gloomy cell of the guiltless convict.

The situation in which O'Donovan was now placed will be admitted, we think, by the reader, to have been one equally unprecedented and distressing. It has been often said, and on many occasions with perfect truth, that opposite states of feeling existing in the same breast generally neutralize each other. In Connor's heart, however, there was in this instance nothing of a conflicting nature. The noble boy's love for such a mother bore in its melancholy beauty a touching resemblance to the purity of his affection for Una O'Brien—each exhibiting in its highest character those virtues which made the heart of the mother proud and! loving, and that of his beautiful girl generous and devoted. So far, therefore, from their appearance together tending to concentrate his moral fortitude, it actually divided his strength, and forced him to meet each with a I heart subdued and softened by his love for the other.

As they entered, therefore, he approached! them, smiling as well as he could; and, first taking a hand of each, would have led them over to a deal form beside the fire, but it was soon evident, that, owing to their weakness and agitation united, they required greater support. He and O'Brien accordingly helped them to a seat, on which they sat with every symptom of that exhaustion which results at once from illness and mental suffering.

Let us not forget to inform our readers that the day of this mournful visit was that on which, according to his original sentence, he should have yielded up his life as a penalty to the law.

"My dear mother," said he, "you an' Una know that this day ought not to be a day of sorrow among us. Only for the goodness of my friends, an' of Government, it's not my voice you'd be now listening to—but that is now changed—so no more about it. I'm glad to see you both able to come out."

His mother, on first sitting down, clasped her hands together, and in a silent ejaculation, with closed eyes, raised her heart to the Almighty, to supplicate aid and strength to enable her to part finally with that boy who was, and ever had been, dearer to her than her own heart. Una trembled, and on meeting her brother so unexpectedly, blushed faintly, and, indeed, appeared to breathe with difficulty. She held a bottle of smelling salts in her hand.

"John," she said, "I will explain this visit."

"My dear Una," he replied, affectionately, "you need not—it requires none—and I beg you will not think of it one moment more. I must now leave you together for about half an hour, as I have some business to do in town that will detain me about that time." He then left them.

"Connor," said his mother, "sit down between this darlin' girl an' me, till I spake to you."

He sat down and took a hand of each.

"A darlin' girl she is, mother. It's now I see how very ill you have been, my own Una."

"Yes," she replied, "I was ill—but when I heard that your life was spared, I got better."

This she said with an artless but melancholy naivete, that was very trying to the fortitude of her lover. As she spoke she looked fondly but mournfully into his face.

"Connor," proceeded his mother, "I hope you are fully sensible of the mercy God has shown you, under this great trial?"

"I hope I am, indeed, my dear mother. It is to God I surely owe it."

"It is, an' I trust that, go where you will and live where you may, the day will never come when you'll forget the debt you owe the Almighty, for preventin' you from bein' cut down like a flower in the very bloom of your life. I hope, avillish machree, that that day will never come."

"God forbid it ever should, mother dear!"

"Thin you may learn from what has happened, avick agus asthofe, never, oh never, to despair of God's mercy—no matter into what thrial or difficulty you maybe brought. You see, whin you naither hoped for it here, nor expected it, how it came for all that."

"It did, blessed be God!"

"You're goin' now, ahagur, to a strange land, where you'll meet—ay, where my darlin' boy will meet the worst of company; but remember, alanna avillish, that your mother, well as she loves you, an' well, I own, as you deserve to be loved—that mother that hung over the cradle of her only one—that dressed him, an' reared him, an' felt many a proud heart out of him—that mother would sooner at any time see him in his grave, his sowl bein' free from stain, than to know that his heart was corrupted by the world, an' the people you'll meet in it."

Something in the last sentence must have touched a chord in Una's heart, for the tears, without showing any other' external signs of emotion, streamed down her cheeks.

"My advice, then, to you—an' oh, avick machree, machree, it is my last, the last you will ever hear from my lips—"

"Oh, mother, mother!" exclaimed Connor, but he could not proceed—voice waa denied him, Una here sobbed aloud.

"You bore your thrial nobly, my darlin' son—you must thin bear this as well; an' you, a colleen dhas, remember your promise to me afore I consulted to come with you this day."

The weeping girl here dried her eyes, and, by a strong effort, hushed her grief.

"My advice, thin, to you, is never to neglect your duty to God; for, if you do it wanst or twist, you'll begin by degrees to get careless—thin, bit by bit, asthore, your heart will harden, your conscience will leave you, an' wickedness, an' sin, an' guilt will come upon you. It's no matter, asthore, how much wicked comrades may laugh an' jeer at you, keep you thrue to the will of your good God, an' to your religious duties, an' let them take their own coorse. Will you promise me to do this, avuillish machree?"

"Mother, I have always sthrove to do it, an' with God's assistance, always will."

"An', my son, too, will you bear up undher this like a man? Remember, Connor darlin', that although you're lavin' us forever, yet your poor father an' I have the blessed satisfaction of knowin' that we're not childless—that you're alive, an' that you may yet do well an' be happy. I mintion these things, acushla machree, to show you that there's nothin' over you so bad, but you may show yourself firm and manly undher it—act as you have done. It's you, asthore, ought to comfort your father an me; an' I hope, whin you're parted from, him, that you 'ill—Oh God, support him! I wish, Connor, darlin', that that partin' was over, but I depend upon you to make it as light upon him as you can do."

She paused, apparently from exhaustion. Indeed, it was evident, either that she had little else to add, or that she felt too weak to speak much more, with such a load of sorrow and affliction on her heart.

"There is one thing, Connor jewel, that I needn't mintion. Of coorse you'll write to us as often as you convaniently can. Oh, do not forget that! for you know that that bit of paper from your own hand, is all belongin' to you we will ever see more. Avick machree, machree, many a long look—out we will have for it. It may keep the ould man's heart from breakin'."

She was silent, but, as she uttered the last words, there was a shaking of the voice, which gave clear proof of the difficulty with which she went through the solemn task of being calm, which, for the sake of her son, she had heroically imposed upon herself.

She was now silent, but, as is usual with Irish women under the influence of sorrow, she rocked herself involuntary to and fro, whilst, with closed eyes, and hands clasped as before, she held communion with God, the only true source of comfort.

"Connor," she added, after a pause, during which he and Una, though silent from respect to her, were both deeply affected; "sit fornint me, avick machree, that, for the short time you're to be with me, I may have you before my eyes. Husth now, a colleen machree, an' remimber your promise. Where's the stringth you said you'd show?"

She then gazed with a long look of love and sorrow upon the fine countenance of her manly son, and nature would be no longer restrained—

"Let me lay my head upon your breast," said she; "I'm attemptin' too much—the mother's heart will give out the mother's voice—will speak the mother's sorrow! Oh, my son, my son, my darlin', manly son—are you lavin' your lovin' mother for evermore, for evermore?"

She was overcome; placing her head upon his bosom, her grief fell into that beautiful but mournful wail with which, in Ireland, those of her sex weep over the dead.

Indeed, the scene assumed a tenderness, from this incident, which was inexpressibly affecting, inasmuch as the cry of death was but little out of place when bewailing that beloved boy, whom, by the stern decree of law, she was never to see again.

Connor kissed her pale cheek and lips, and rained down a flood of bitter tears upon her face; and Una, borne away by the enthusiasm of her sorrow, threw her arms also around her, and wept aloud.

At length, after having, in some degree, eased her heart, she sat up, and with that consideration and good sense for which she had ever been remarkable, said—

"Nature must have its way; an' surely, within reason, it's not sinful, seein' that God himself has given us the feelin's of sorrow, whin thim that we love is lavin' us—lavin' us never, never to see them agin. It's only nature, afther all; and now ma colleen dhas"—

Her allusion to the final separation of those who love—or, in her own words, "to the feelin's of sorrow, whin thim that we love is lavin us"—was too much for the heart and affections of the fair girl at her side, whose grief now passed all the bounds which her previous attempts at being firm had prescribed to it.



O'Donovan took the beloved one in his arms, and, in the long embrace which ensued, seldom were love and sorrow so singularly and mournfully blended.

"I don't want to prevent you from cryin' a colleen machree; for I know it will lighten an' aise your heart," said Honor; "but remimber your wakeness an' your poor health; an', Connor avourneen, don't you—if you love her—don't forget the state her health's in either."

"Mother, mother, you know it's the last time I'll ever look upon my Una's face again," he exclaimed. "Oh, well may I be loath an' unwillin' to part with her. You'll think of me, my darlin' life, when I'm gone—not as a guilty man, Una dear, but as one that if he ever committed a crime, it was lovin' you an' bringin' you to this unhappy state."

"God sees my heart this day," she replied—and she spoke with difficulty—"that I could and would have travelled over the world; borne joy and sorrow, hardship and distress—good fortune and bad—all happily, if you had been by my side—if you had not been taken from me. Oh, Connor, Connor, you may well pity your Una—for yours I am and was—another's I never will be. You are entering into scenes that will relieve you by their novelty—that will force you to think of other things and of other persons than those you've left behind you; but oh, what Can I look upon that will not fill my heart with despair and sorrow, by reminding me of you and your affection?"

"Fareer gair," exclaimed the mother, speaking involuntarily aloud, and interrupting her own words with sobs of bitter anguish—"Fareer gair, ma colleen dhas, but that's the heavy truth with us all. Oh, the ould man—the ould man's heart will break all out, when he looks upon the place, an' everything else that our boy left behind him."

"Dear Una," said Connor, "you know that we're partin' now forever."

"My breaking heart tells me that," she replied. "I would give the wealth of the world that it was not so—I would—I would."

"Listen to me, my own life. You must not let love for me lie so heavy upon your heart. Go out and keep your mind employed upon other thoughts—by degrees you'll forget—no, I don't think you could altogether forget me—me—the first, Una, you ever loved."

"And the last, Connor—the last I ever will love."

"No, no. In the presence of my lovin' mother I say that you must not think that way. Time will pass, my own Una, an' you will yet be happy with some other. You're very young; an', as I said, time will wear me by degrees out of your mimory."—

Una broke hastily from his embrace, for she lay upon his breast all this time—

"Do you think so, Connor O'Donovan?" she exclaimed; but on looking into his face, and reading the history of deep—seated sorrow which appeared there so legible, she again "fled to him and wept."

"Oh, no," she continued, "I cannot quarrel with you now; but you do the heart of your own Una injustice, if you think it could ever feel happiness with another. Already I have my mother's consent to enter a convent—and to enter a convent is my fixed determination."

"Oh, mother," said Connor, "How will I lave this blessed girl? how will I part with her?"

Honor rose up, and, by two or three simple words, disclosed more forcibly, more touchingly, than any direct exhibition of grief could have done, the inexpressible power of the misery she felt at this eternal separation from her only boy. She seized Una's two hands, and, kissing her lips, said, in tones of the most heart—rending pathos—

"Oh, Una, Una, pity me—I am his mother!"

Una threw herself into her arms, and sobbed out—

"Yes, and mine."

"Thin you'll obey me as a daughter should," said Honor. "This is too much for you, Oona; part we both must from him, an' neither of us is able to bear much, more."

She here gave Connor a private signal to be firm, pointing unobservedly to Una's pale cheek, which at that moment lay upon her bosom.

"Connor," she proceeded, "Oona has what you sent her. Nogher—an' he is breakin' his heart too—gave it to me; an' my daughter, for I will always call her so, has it this minute next her lovin' heart. Here is hers, an' let it lie next yours."

Connor seized the glossy ringlet from his mother's hand, and placed it at the moment next to the seat of his undying affection for the fair girl from whose ebon locks it had been taken.

His mother then kissed Una again, and, rising, said—

"Now, my daughther, remimber I am your mother, an' obey me."

"I will," said Una, attempting to repress her grief—"I will; but—"

"Yes, darlin', you will. Now, Connor, my son, my son—Connor?"

"What is it, mother, darlin'?"

"We're goin', Connor,—we're lavin' you—be firm—be a man. Aren't you my son, Connor? my only son—an' the ould man—an' never, never more—kneel down—kneel down, till I bless you. Oh, many, many a blessin' has risen from your mother's lips an' your mother's heart, to Heaven for you, my son, my son!"

Connor knelt, his heart bursting, but he knelt not alone. By his side was his own Una, with meek and bended head, awaiting for his mothers blessing.

She then poured forth that blessing; first: upon him who was nearest to her heart, and afterwards upon the worn but still beautiful; girl, whose love for that adored son had made her so inexpressibly dear to her. Whilst! she uttered this fervent but sorrowful benediction, a hand was placed upon the head of each, after which she stooped and kissed them both, but without shedding a single tear.

"Now," said she, "comes the mother's wakeness; but my son will help me by his manliness—so will my daughter. I am very weak. Oh, what heart can know the sufferin's of this hour, but mine? My son, my son—Connor O'Donovan, my son!"

At this moment John O'Brien entered the room; but the solemnity and pathos of her manner and voice hushed him so completely into silent attention, that it is probable she did not perceive him.

"Let me put my arms about him and kiss his lips once more, an' then I'll say farewell."

She again approached the boy, who S opened his arms to receive her, and, after having kissed him and looked into his face, said, "I will now go—I will' now go;" but instead of withdrawing, as she had intended, it was observed that she pressed him more closely to her heart than before; plied her hands about his neck and bosom, as if she were not actually conscious of what she did; and at length sunk into a forgetfulness of all her misery upon the aching breast of her unhappy son.

"Now," said Una, rising into a spirit of; unexpected fortitude, "now, Connor, I will be her daughter, and you must be her son. The moment she recovers we must separate, and in such a manner as to show that our affection for each other shall not be injurious to her."

"It is nature only," said her brother; "or, in other words, the love that is natural to such a mother for such a son, that has overcome her. Connor, this must be ended."

"I am willing it should," replied the other. "You must assist them home, and let me see you again tomorrow. I have something of the deepest importance to say to you."

Una's bottle of smelling salts soon relieved the woe-worn mother; and, ere the lapse of many minutes, she was able to summon her own natural firmness of character. The lovers, too, strove to be firm; and, after one long and last embrace, they separated from Connor with more composure than, from the preceding scene, might have been expected.

The next day, according to promise, John O'Brien paid him an early visit, in order to hear what Connor had assured him was of more importance even than Una's life itself. Their conference was long and serious, for each felt equally interested in its subject-matter. When it was concluded, and they had separated, O'Brien's friends observed that he appeared like a man whose mind was occupied by something that occasioned him to feel deep anxiety. What the cause of this secret care was, he did not disclose to anyone except his father, to whom, in a few days afterwards, he mentioned it. His college vacation had now nearly expired; but it was mutually agreed upon, in the course of the communication he then made, that for the present he should remain with them at home, and postpone his return to Maynooth, if not abandon the notion of the priesthood altogether. When the Bodagh left his son, after this dialogue, his open, good-humored countenance seemed clouded, his brow thoughtful, and his whole manner that of a man who has heard something more than usually unpleasant; but, whatever this intelligence was, he, too, appeared equally studious to conceal it. The day now arrived on which Connor O'Donovan was to see his other parent for the last time, and this interview he dreaded, on the old man's account, more than he had done even the separation from his mother. Our readers may judge, therefore, of his surprise on finding that his father exhibited a want of sorrow or of common feeling that absolutely amounted almost to indifference.

Connor felt it difficult to account for a change so singular and extraordinary in one with whose affection for himself he was so well acquainted. A little time, however, and an odd hint or two thrown out in the early part of their conversation, soon enabled him to perceive, either that the old man labored under some strange hallucination, or had discovered a secret source of comfort known only to himself. At length, it appeared to the son that he had discovered the cause of this unaccountable change in the conduct of his father; and, we need scarcely assure our readers, that his heart sank into new and deeper distress at the words from which he drew the inference.

"Connor," said the miser, "I had great luck yestherday. You remember Antony Cusack, that ran away from me wid seventy-three pounds fifteen shillin's an' nine pence, now betther than nine years ago. Many a curse he had from me for his roguery; but somehow, it seems he only thruv under them. His son Andy called on me yestherday mornin' an' paid me to the last farden, inthrest an' all. Wasn't I in luck?"

"It was very fortunate, father, an' I'm glad of it"

"It was, indeed, the hoighth o' luck. Now, Connor, you think one thing, an' that is, that; we're partin' forever, an' that we'll never see one another till we meet in the next world. Isn't that what you think?—eh, Connor?"

"It's hard to tell what may happen, father. We may see one another even in this; stranger things have been brought about."

"I tell you, Connor, we'll meet agin; I have made out a plan in my own head for that; but the luckiest of all was the money yestherday."

"What is the plan, father?"

"Don't ax me, avick, bekase it's betther for you not to know it. I may be disappointed, but it's not likely aither; still it 'ud be risin' expectations in you, an' if it didn't come to pass, you'd only be more unhappy; an' you know, Connor darlin', I wouldn't wish to be the manes of making your poor heart sore for one minute. God knows the same young heart has suffered enough, an' more than it ought to suffer. Connor?"

"Well, father?"

"Keep up your spirits, darlin', don't be at all cast down, I tell you."

The old man caught his son's hands ere he spoke, and uttered these words with a voice of such tenderness and affection, that Connor, on seeing him assume the office of comforter, contrary to all he had expected, felt himself more deeply touched than if his father had fallen, as was his wont, into all the impotent violence of grief.

"It was only comin' here to-day, Connor, that I thought of this plan; but I wish to goodness your poor mother knew it, for thin, maybe she'd let me mintion it to you."

"If it would make me any way unhappy," replied Connor, "I'd rather not hear it; only, whatever it is, father, if it's against my dear mother's wishes, don't put it in practice."

"I couldn't, Connor, widout her consint, barrin' we'd—but there's no us in that; only keep up your spirits, Connor dear. Still I'm glad it came into my head, this plan; for if I thought that I'd never see you agin, I wouldn't know how to part wid you; my heart 'ud fairly break, or my head 'ud get light. Now, won't you promise me not to fret, acushla machree—an' to keep your heart up, an' your spirits?"

"I'll fret as little as I can, father. You know there's not much pleasure in frettin', an' that no one would fret if they could avoid it; but will you promise me, my dear father, to be guided an' advised, in whatever you do, or intend to do, by my mother—my blessed mother?"

"I will—I will, Connor; an' if I had always done so, maybe it isn't here now you'd be standing, an' my heart breakin' to look at you; but, indeed, it was God, I hope, put this plan into my head; an' the money yestherday—that, too, was so lucky—far more so, Connor dear, than you think. Only for that—but sure no matther, Connor, we're not partin' for evermore now; so acushla machree, let your mind be aisy. Cheer up, cheer up my darlin' son."

Much more conversation of this kind took place between them during the old man's stay, which he prolonged almost to the last hour. Connor wondered, as was but natural, what the plan so recently fallen upon by his father could be. Indeed, sometimes, he feared that the idea of their separation had shaken his intellect, and that his allusions to this mysterious discovery, mixed up, as they were, with the uncommon delight he expressed at having recovered Cusack's money, boded nothing less than the ultimate derangement of his faculties. One thing, however, seemed obvious—that, whatever it might be, whether reasonable or otherwise, his father's mind was exclusively occupied by it; and that, during the whole scene of their parting, it sustained him in a manner for which he felt it utterly impossible to account. It is true he did not leave him without shedding tears, and bitter tears; but they were unaccompanied by the wild vehemence of grief which had, on former occasions, raged through and almost desolated his heart. The reader may entertain some notion of what he would have felt on this occasion, were it not for the "plan" as he called it, which supported him so much, when we tell him that he blessed his son three or four times dining their interview, without being conscious; that he had blessed him more than once. His last words to him were to keep up his spirits, for that there was little doubt that they would meet again.

The next morning, at daybreak, "their noble boy," as they fondly and proudly called him, was conveyed, to the transport, in company with many others; and at the hour of five o'clock p. m., that melancholy vessel weighed anchor, and spread her broad sails to the bosom of the ocean.

Although the necessary affairs of life are, after all, the great assuager of sorrow, yet there are also cases where the heart persists in rejecting the consolation brought by time, and in clinging to the memory of that which it loved. Neither Honor O'Donovan nor Una O'Brien could forget our unhappy hero, nor school their affections into the apathy of ordinary feelings. Of Fardorougha we might say the same; for, although he probably felt the want of his son's presence more keenly even than his wife, yet his grief, notwithstanding its severity, was mingled with the interruption of a habit—such as is frequently the prevailing cause of sorrow in selfish and contracted minds. That there was much selfishness in his grief, our readers, we dare say, will admit. At all events, a scene which took place between him and his wife, on the night of the day which saw Connor depart from his native land forever, will satisfy them of the different spirit which marked their feelings on that unfortunate occasion.

Honor had, as might be expected, recovered her serious composure, and spent a great portion of that day in offering up her prayers for the welfare of their son. Indeed, much of her secret grief was checked by the alarm which she felt for her husband, whose conduct on that morning before he left home was marked by the wild excitement, which of late had been so peculiar to him. Her surprise was consequently great when she observed, on his return, that he manifested a degree of calmness, if not serenity, utterly at variance with the outrage of his grief, or, we should rather say, the delirium of his despair, in the early part of the day. She resolved, however, with her usual discretion, not to catechize him on the subject, lest his violence might revive, but to let his conduct explain itself, which she knew in a little time it would do. Nor was she mistaken. Scarcely had an hour elapsed, when, with something like exultation, he disclosed his plan, and asked her advice and opinion. She heard it attentively, and for the first time since the commencement of their affliction, did the mother's brow seem unburdened of the sorrow which sat upon it, and her eye to gleam with something like the light of expected happiness. It was, however, on their retiring to rest that night that the affecting contest took place, which exhibited so strongly the contrast between their characters. We mentioned, in a preceding part of this narrative, that ever since her son's incarceration Honor had slept in his bed, and with her head on the very pillow which he had so often pressed. As she was about to retire, Fardorougha, for a moment, appeared to forget his "plan," and everything but the departure of his son. He followed Honor to his bedroom, which he traversed, distractedly clasping his hands, kissing his boy's clothes, and uttering sentiments of extreme misery and despair.

"There's his bed," he exclaimed; "there's our boy's bed—but where is he himself? gone, gone forever! There's his clothes, our darlin' son's clothes; look at them. Oh God! oh God! my heart will break outright. Oh Connor, our boy, our boy, are you gone from us forever! We must sit down to our breakfast in the mornin', to our dinner, an' to our supper at night, but our noble boy's face we'll never see—his voice we'll never hear."

"Ah, Fardorougha, it's thrue, it's thrue!" replied the wife; "but remember he's not in the grave, not in the clay of the churchyard; we haven't seen him carried there, and laid down undher the heart—breakin' sound of the dead—bell; we haven't hard the cowld noise of the clay fallin' in upon his coffin. Oh no, no—thanks, everlastin' thanks to God, that has spared our boy's life! How often have you an' I hard people say over the corpses of their children, 'Oh, if he was only alive I didn't care in what part of the world it was, or if I was never to see his face again, only that he was livin'!' An' wouldn't they, Fardorougha dear, give the world's wealth to—have their wishes? Oh they would, they would—an' thanks forever be to the Almighty! our boy is livin' and may yit be happy. Fardorougha, let us not fly into the face of God, who has in His mercy spared our son."

"I'll sleep in his bed," replied the husband; "on the very spot he lay on I'll he."

This was, indeed, trenching, and selfishly trenching upon the last mournful privilege of the mother's heart. Her sleeping here was one of those secret but melancholy enjoyments, which the love of a mother or of a wife will often steal, like a miser's theft, from the very hoard of their own sorrows. In fact, she was not prepared for this, and when he spoke she looked at him for some time in silent amazement.

"Oh, no, Fardorougha dear,the mother, the mother, that her breast was so often his pillow, has the best right, now that he's gone, to lay her head where his lay. Oh, for Heaven's sake, lave that poor pleasure to me, Fardorougha!"

"No, Honor, you can bear up undher grief better than I can. I must sleep where my boy slept."

"Fardorougha, I could go upon my knees! to you, an' I will, avourneen, if you'll grant me this."

"I can't, I can't," he replied, distractedly; "I could sleep nowhere else. I love everything belongin' to him. I can't, Honor, I can't, I can't."

"Fardorougha, my heart—his mother's heart is fixed upon it, an' was. Oh lave this to me, acushla, lave this to me—it's all I axe!"

"I couldn't, I couldn't—my heart is breakin'—it'll be sweet to me—I'll think I'll be nearer him," and as he uttered these words the tears flowed copiously down his cheeks.

His affectionate wife was touched with compassion, and immediately resolved to let him have his way, whatever it might cost herself. "God pity you," she said; "I'll give it up, I'll give it up, Fardorougha. Do sleep where he slep'; I can't blame you, nor I don't; for sure it's only a proof of how much you love him." She then bade him good—night, and, with spirits dreadfully weighed down by this singular incident, withdrew to her lonely pillow; for Connor's bed had been a single one, in which, of course, two persons could not sleep together. Thus did these bereaved parents retire to seek that rest which nothing but exhausted nature seemed disposed to give them, until at length they fell asleep under the double shadow of night and a calamity which filled their hearts with so much distress and misery.

In the mean time, whatever these two families might have felt for the sufferings of their respective children in consequence of Bartle Flanagan's villainy, that plausible traitor had watched the departure of his victim with a palpitating anxiety almost equal to what some unhappy culprit, in the dock of a prison, would experience when the foreman of his jury handed down the sentence which is either to hang or acquit him. Up to the very moment on which the vessel sailed, his cruel but cowardly heart was literally sick with the apprehension that Connor's mitigated sentence might be still further commuted to a term of imprisonment. Great, therefore, was his joy, and boundless his exultation on satisfying himself that he was now perfectly safe in the crime he had committed, and that his path was never to be crossed by him, whom, of all men living, he had most feared and hated. The reader is not to suppose, however, that by the ruin of Connor, and the revenge he consequently had gained upon Fardorougha, the scope of his dark designs was by any means accomplished. Far from it; the fact is, his measures were only in a progressive state. In Nogher M'Cormick's last interview with Connor, our readers will please to remember that a hint had been thrown out by that attached old follower, of Flanagan's entertaining certain guilty purposes involving nothing less than the abduction of Una. Now, in justice even to Flanagan, we are bound to say that no one living had ever received from himself any intimation of such an intention. The whole story was fabricated by Nogher for the purpose of getting Connor's consent to the vengeance which it had been determined to execute upon his enemy. By a curious coincidence, however,the story, though decidedly false so far as Nogher knew to the contrary, happened to be literally and absolutely true. Flanagan, indeed, was too skilful and secret, either to precipitate his own designs until the feeling of the parties should abate and settle down, or to place himself at the mercy of another person's honesty. He knew his own heart too well to risk his life by such dangerous and unseasonable confidence. Some months consequently passed away since. Connor's departure, when an event took place, which gave him still greater security. This was nothing less than the fulfilment by Fardorougha of that plan to which he looked forward with such prospective satisfaction, Connor had not been a month gone when his father commenced to dispose of his property, which he soon did, having sold out his farm to good advantage. He then paid his rent, the only debt he owed; and, having taken a passage to New South Wales for himself and Honor, they departed with melancholy satisfaction to seek that son without whose society they found their desolate hearth gloomier than the cell of a prison.

This was followed, too, by another circumstance—but one apparently of little importance—which was, the removal of Biddy Nulty to the Bodagh's family, through the interference of Una, by whom she was treated with singular affection, and admitted to her confidence.

Such was the position of the parties after, the lapse of five months subsequent to the transportation of Connor. Flanagan had conducted himself with great circumspection, and, so far as public observation could go, with much propriety. There was no change whatsoever perceptible, either in his dress or manner except that alluded to by Nogher of his altogether declining to taste any intoxicating liquor. In truth, so well did he act his part, that the obloquy raised against him at the period of Connor's trial was nearly, if not altogether, removed, and many persons once more adopted an impression of his victim's guilt.

With respect to the Bodagh and his son, the anxiety which we have described them as feeling in consequence of the latter's interview with O'Donovan, was now completely removed. Una's mother had nearly forgotten both the crime and its consequences; but upon the spirit of her daughter there appeared to rest a silent and settled sorrow not likely to be diminished or removed. Her cheerfulness had abandoned her, and many an hour did she contrive to spend with Biddy Nulty, eager in the mournful satisfaction of talking over all that affection prompted of her banished lover.

We must now beg our readers to accompany us to a scene of a different description from any we have yet drawn. The night of a November day had set in, or rather had advanced so far as nine o'clock, and towards the angle of a small three-cornered field, called by a peculiar coincidence of name, Oona's Handkerchief, in consequence of an old legend connected with it, might be seen moving a number of straggling figures, sometimes in groups of fours and fives; sometimes in twos or threes as the case might be, and not unfrequently did a single straggler advance, and, after a few private words, either join the others or proceed alone to a house situated in the angular corner of the field to which we allude. As the district was a remote one, and the night rather dark, several shots might be heard as they proceeded, and several flashes in the pan seen from the rusty arms of those who were probably anxious to pull a trigger for the first time. The country, at the period we write of, be it observed, was in a comparative state of tranquility, and no such thing as a police corps had been heard of or known in the neighborhood.

At the lower end of a long, level kind of moor called the Black Park, two figures approached a* kind of gate or pass that opened into it. One of them stood until the other advanced, and, in a significant tone, asked who comes there?

"A friend to the guard," was the reply.

"Good morrow," said the other.

"Good morrow mornin' to you."

"What age are you in?"

"In the end of the Fifth."

"All right; come on, boy; the true blood's in you, whoever you are."

"An' is it possible you don't know me, Dandy?"

"Faix, it is; I forgot my spectacles tonight. Who the dickins are you at all?"

"I suppose you purtind to forget Ned M'Cormick?"

"Is it Nogher's son?"

"The divil a other; an', Dandy Duffy, how are you, man alive?"

"Why, you see, Ned, I've been so long out of the counthry, an' I'm now so short a time back, that, upon my sowl, I forget a great many of my ould acquaintances, especially them that wor only slips when I wint acrass. Faith, I'm purty well considherin, Ned, I thank you."

"Bad luck to them that sint you acrass, Dandy; not but that you got off purty well on the whole, by all accounts. They say only that Rousin Redhead swore like a man you'd 'a' got a touch of the Shaggy Shoe."

"To the divil wid it all now, Ned; let us have no more about it; I don't for my own part like to think of it. Have you any notion of what we're called upon for to—night?"

"Divil the laste; but I believe, Dandy, that Bartle's not the white-headed boy wid you no more nor wid some more of us."

"Him! a double-distilled villain. Faith, there wor never good that had the white liver; an' he has it to the backbone. My brother Lachlin, that's now dead, God rest him, often tould me about the way he tricked him and Barney Bradly when they wor greenhorns about nineteen or twenty. He got them to join him in stealin' a sheep for their Christmas dinner, he said; so they all three stole it; an' the blaggard skinned and cut it up, sendin' my poor boacun of a brother home to hide the skin in the straw in our barn, and poor Barney, wid only the head an' trotters, to hide them in his father's tow-house. Very good; in a day or two the neighbors wor all called upon to clear themselves upon the holy Evangelisp; and the two first that he egg'd an' to do it was my brother an' Barney. Of coorse he switched the primmer himself that he was innocent; but whin it was all over some one sint Jarmy Campel, that lost the sheep, to the very spot where they hid the fleece an' trot—ters. Jarmy didn't wish to say much about it; so he tould them if they'd fairly acknowledge it an' pay him betune them for the sheep, he'd dhrop it. My father an' Andy Bradly did so, an' there it ended; but purshue the morsel of mutton ever they tasted in the mane time. As for Bartle, he managed the thing so well that at the time they never suspected him, although divil a other could betray them, for he was the only one knew it; an' he had the aiten o' the mutton, too, the blaggard! Faith, Ned, I know him well."

"He has conthrived to get a strong back o' the boys, anyhow."

"He has, an' 'tis that, and bekase he's a good hand to be undher for my revinge on Blennerhasset, that made me join him."

"I dunna what could make him refuse to let Alick Nulty join him?"

"Is it my cousin from Annaloghan? an' did he?"

"Divil a lie in it; it's as thrue as you're standin' there; but do you know what is suspected?"

"No."

"Why, that he has an eye on Bodagh Buie's daughter. Alick towld me that, for a long time afther Connor O'Donovan was thransported, the father an' son wor afeard of him. He hard it from his sister Biddy, an' it appears that the Bodagh's daughter tould her family that he used to stare her out of countenance at mass, an' several times struv to put the furraun on her in hopes to get acquainted."

"He would do it; an' my hand to you, if he undhertakes it he'll not fail; an' I'll tell you another thing, if he suspected that I knew anything about the thraitherous thrick he put on my poor brother, the divil a toe he'd let me join him; but you see I—was only a mere gorsoon, a child I may say at the time.

"At all events let us keep an eye on him; an' in regard to Connor O'Donovan's business, let him not be too sure that it's over wid him yet. At any rate, by dad, my father has slipped out a name upon him an' us that will do him no good. The other boys now call us the Stags of Lisdhu, that bein' the place where his father lived, an' the nickname you see rises out of his thrachery to poor Connor O'Donovan."

"Did he ever give any hint himself about carryin' away the Bodagh's pretty daughter?"

"Is it him'? Oh, oh! catch him at it; he's a damn sight too close to do any sich thing."

After some further conversation upon that and other topics, they arrived at the place of appointment, which was a hedge school-house; one of those where the master, generally an unmarried man, merely wields his sceptre during school-hours, leaving it open and uninhabited for the rest of the twenty-four.

The appearance of those who were here assembled was indeed singularly striking. A large fire of the unconsumed peat brought by the scholars on that morning, was kindled in the middle of the floor—it's usual site. Around, upon stones, hobs, bosses, and seats of various descriptions, sat the "boys"—some smoking and others drinking; for upon nights of this kind, a shebeen-housekeeper, uniformly a member of such societies, generally attends for the sale of his liquor, if he cannot succeed in prevailing on them to hold their meetings in his own house—a circumstance which for many reasons may not be in every case advisable. As they had not all yet assembled, nor the business of the night commenced, they were, of course, divided into several groups and engaged in various amusements. In the lower end of the house was a knot, busy at the game of "spoiled five," their ludicrous table being the crown of a hat, placed upon the floor in the centre. These all sat upon the ground, their legs stretched out, their torch-bearer holding a lit bunch of fir splinters, stuck for convenience sake into the muzzle of a horse-pistol. In the upper end, again, sat another clique, listening to a man who was reading a treasonable ballad. Such of them as could themselves read stretched over their necks in eagerness to peruse it along with him, and such as could not—indeed, the greater number—gave force to its principles by very significant gestures; some being those of melody, and others those of murder; that is to say, part of them were attempting to hum a tune in a low voice, suitable to the words, whilst others more ferocious brandished their weapons, as if those against whom the spirit of the ballad was directed had been then within the reach of their savage passions. Beside the fire, and near the middle of the house, sat a man, who, by his black stock and military appearance, together with a scar over his brow that gave him a most repulsive look, was evidently a pensioner or old soldier. This person was engaged in examining some rusty fire-arms that had been submitted to his inspection. His self-importance was amusing, as was also the deferential aspect of those who, with arms in their hands, hammering flints or turning screws, awaited patiently their turn for his opinion of their efficiency. But perhaps the most striking group of all was that in which a thick-necked, bull-headed young fellow, with blood-colored hair, a son of Rousin Redhead's—who, by the way, was himself present—and another beetle-browed slip were engaged in drawing for a wager, upon one of the school-boy's slates, the figure of a coffin and cross-bones. A hardened-looking old sinner, with murder legible in his face, held the few half-pence which they wagered in his open hand, whilst in the other he clutched a pole, surmounted by a bent bayonet that had evidently seen service. The last group worthy of remark was composed of a few persons who were writing threatening notices upon a leaf torn out of a school-boy's copy, which was laid upon what they formerly termed a copy-board, of plain deal, kept upon the knees, as a substitute for desks, while the boys were writing. This mode of amusement was called waiting for the Article-bearer, or the Captain, for such was Bartle Flanagan, who now entered the house, and saluted all present with great cordiality.

"Begad, boys," he said, "our four guards widout is worth any money. I had to pass the sign-word afore 'I could pass myself, and that's the way it ought to be. But, boys, before we go further, an' for fraid of thraitors, I must call the rowl. You'll stand in a row roun' the walls, an' thin we can make sure that there's no spies among us."

He then called out a roll of those who were members of his lodge and, having ascertained that all was right, he proceeded immediately to business.

"Rousin Redhead, what's the raisin you didn't take the arms from Captain St. Ledger's stewart? Sixteen men armed was enough to do it, an' yees failed."

"Ay, an' if you had been wid us, and sixteen more to the back o' that, you'd failed too. Begarra, captain dear, it seems that good people is scarce. Look at Mickey Mulvather there, you see his head tied up; but aldo he can play cards well enough, be me sowl, he's short of wan ear any how, an' if you could meet wan o' the same Stewart's bullets, goin' abroad at night like ourselves for its divarsion, it might tell how he lost it. Bartle, I tell you a number of us isn't satisfied wid you. You sends us out to meet danger, an' you won't come yourself."

"Don't you know, Rouser, that I always do go whenever I can? But I'm caged now; faix I don't sleep in a barn, and can't budge as I used to do."

"An' who's tyin' you to your place, thin?"

"Rouser," replied Bartle, "I wish I had a thousand like you, not but I have fine fellows. Boys, the thruth is this, you must all meet here to-morrow night, for the short an' long of it is, that I'm goin' to run away wid a wife."

"Well," replied Redhead, "sure you can do that widout our assistance, if she's willin' to come."

"Willin'! why," replied Bartle, "it's by her own appointment we're goin'."

"An' if it is, then," said the Rouser, who, in truth, was the leader of the suspicious and disaffected party in Flanagan's lodge, "what the blazes use have you for us?"

"Rouser Redhead," said Bartle, casting a suspicious and malignant glance at him, "might I take the liberty of axin' what you mane by spakin' of me in that disparagin' manner? Do you renumber your oath? or do you forget that you're bound by it to meet at twelve hours' notice, or less, whinever you're called upon? Dar Chriestha! man, if I hear another word of the kind out of your lips, down you go on the black list. Boys," he proceeded, with a wheedling look of good-humor to the rest, "we'll have neither Spies nor Stags here, come or go what may."

"Stags!" replied Rouser Redhead, whose face had already become scarlet with indignation. "Stags, you say, Bartle Flanagan! Arrah, boys, I wondher where is poor Connor O'Donovan by this time?"

"I suppose bushin' it afore now," said our friend of the preceding part of the night. "I bushed it myself for a year and a half, but be Japurs I got sick of it. But any how, Bartle, you oughn't to spake of Stags, for although Connor refused to join us, damn your blood, you had no right to go to inform upon him. Sure, only for the intherest that was made for him, you'd have his blood on your sowl."

"An' if he had itself," observed one of Flanagan's friends, "'twould signify very little. The Bodagh desarved what he got, and more if he had got it. What right has he, one of our own purswadjion as he is to hould out against us the way he does? Sure he's as rich as a Sassenach, an' may hell resave the farden he'll subscribe towards our gettin' arms or ammunition, or towards defindin' us when we're brought to thrial. So hell's delight wid the dirty Bodagh, says myself for wan."

"An' is that by way of defince of Captain Bartle Flanagan?" inquired Rouser Redhead, indignantly. "An' so our worthy captain sint the man across that punished our inimy, even accordian to your own provin', an' that by staggin' aginst him. Of coorse, had the miser's son been one of huz, Bartle's brains would be scattered to the four quarthers of heaven long agone."

"An' how did I know but he'd stag aginst me?" said Bartle, very calmly.

"Damn well you knew he would not," observed Ned M'Cormick, now encouraged by the bold and decided manner of Rouser Redhead. "Before ever you went into Fardorougha's sarvice you sed to more than one that you'd make him sup sorrow for his harshness to your father and family."

"An' didn't he desarve it, Ned? Didn't he ruin us?"

"He might desarve it, an' I suppose he did; but what right had you to punish the innocent for the guilty? You knew very well that both his son and his wife always set their faces against his doin's.'"

"Boys," said Flanagan, "I don't understand this, and I tell you more I won't bear it. This night let any of you that doesn't like to be undher me say so. Rouser Redhead, you'll never meet in a Ribbon Lodge agin. You're scratched out of wan book, but by way of comfort you're down in another"

"What other, Bartle?"

"The black list. An' now I have nothin' more to say except that if there's anything on your mind that wants absolution, look to it."

We must now pause for a moment to observe upon that which we suppose the sagacity of the reader has already discovered—that is, the connection between what has occurred in Flanagan's lodge, and the last dialogue which took place between Nogher and Connor O'Donovan. It is evident that Nogher had spirits at work for the purpose both of watching and contravening all Flanagan's plans, and, if possible, of drawing him into some position which might justify the "few friends," as he termed them, first in disgracing him, and afterwards of settling their account ultimately with a man whom they wished to blacken, as dangerous to the society of which they were members. The curse, however, of these secret confederacies, and indeed of ribbonism in general, is, that the savage principle of personal vengeance is transferred from the nocturnal assault, or the midday assassination, which may be directed against religious or political enemies, to the private bickerings and petty jealousies that must necessarily occur in a combination of ignorant and bigoted men, whose passions are guided by no principle but one of practical cruelty. This explains, as we have just put it, and justly put it, the incredible number of murders which are committed in this unhappy country, under the name of way-layings and midnight attacks, where the offence that caused them cannot be traced by society at large, although it is an incontrovertible fact, that to all those who are connected with ribbonism, in its varied phases, it often happens that the projection of such murders is known for weeks before they are perpetrated. The wretched assassin who murders a man that has never offended him personally, and who suffers himself to become the instrument of executing the hatred which originates from a principle of general enmity again a class, will not be likely, once his hands are stained with blood, to spare any one who may, by direct personal injury, incur his resentment. Every such offence, where secret societies are concerned, is made a matter of personal feeling and trial of strength between factions, and of course a similar spirit is superinduced among persons of the same creed and principles to that which actuates them against those who differ from them in politics and religion. It is true that the occurrence of murders of this character has been referred to as a proof that secret societies are not founded or conducted upon a spirit of religious rancor; but such an assertion is, in some cases, the result of gross ignorance, and, in many more, of far grosser dishonesty. Their murdering each other is not at all a proof of any such thing, but it, is a proof, as we have said, that their habit of taking away human life, and shedding human blood upon slight grounds or political feelings, follows them from their conventional principles to their private resentments, and is, therefore, such a consequence as might naturally be expected to result from a combination of men who, in one sense, consider murder no crime. Thus does this secret tyranny fall back upon society, as well as upon those who are concerned in it, as a double curse; and, indeed, we believe that even the greater number of these unhappy wretches whom it keeps within its toils, would be glad if the principle were rooted out of the country forever.

"An' so you're goin' to put my father down on the black list," said the beetle-browed son of the Rouser. "Very well, Bartle, do so; but do you see that?" he added, pointing to the sign of the coffin and the cross-bones, which he had previously drawn upon the slate; "dhav a sphirit Neev, if you do, you'll waken some mornin' in a warmer counthry than Ireland."

"Very well," said Bartle, quietly, but evidently shrinking from a threat nearly as fearful, and far more daring than his own. "You know I have nothin' to do except my duty. Yez are goin' aginst the cause, an' I must report yez; afther whatever happens, won't come from me, nor from any one here. It is from thim that's in higher quarters you'll get your doom, an' not from me, or, as I said afore, from any one here. Mark that; but indeed you know it as well as I do, an' I believe, Rouser, a good deal bether."

Flanagan's argument, to men who understood its dreadful import, was one before which almost every description of personal courage must quail. Persons were then present, Rouser Redhead among the rest, who had been sent upon some of those midnight missions, which contumacy against the system, when operating in its cruelty, had dictated. Persons of humane disposition, declining to act on these sanguinary occasions, are generally the first to be sacrificed, for individual life is nothing when obstructing the propagation of general principle.

This truth, coming from Flanagan's lips, they themselves, some of whom had executed its spirit, knew but too well. The difference, however, between their apprehension, so far as they were individually concerned, was not much; Flanagan had the person to fear, and his opponents the principle.

Redhead, however, who knew that whatever he had executed upon delinquents like himself, might also upon himself be visited in his turn, saw that his safest plan for the present was to submit; for indeed the meshes of the White-boys' system leave no man's life safe, if he express hostile opinions to it.

"Bartle," said he, "you know I'm no coward; an' I grant that you've a long head at plannin' anything you set about. I don't see, in the mane time, why, afther all, we should quarrel. You know me, Bartle; an' if anything happens me, it won't be for nothin. I say no more; but I say still that you throw the danger upon uz, and don't—"

"Rouser Redhead," said Bartle, "give me jour hand. I say now, what I didn't wish to say to-night afore, by Japurs, you're worth five men; an' I'll tell you all, boys, you must meet the Rouser here to-morrow night, an' we'll have a dhrink at my cost; an', boys—Rouser, hear me—you all know your oaths; we'll do something to-morrow night—an' I say again, Rouser, I'll be wid yez an' among yez; an' to prove my opinion of the Rouser, I'll allow him to head us."

"An', by the cross o' Moses, I'll do it in style," rejoined the hot-headed but unthinking fellow, who did not see that the adroit captain was placing him in the post of danger. "I don't care a damn what it is—we'll meet here to-morrow night, boys, an' I'll show you that I can lead as well as folly.

"Whatever happens," said Bartle, "we oughtn't to have any words or bickerin's among ourselves at any rate. I undherstand that two among yez sthruck one another. Sure yez know that there's not a blow ye giv to a brother but's a perjury—an' there's no use in that, barin an' to help forid the thruth. I'll say no more about it now; but I hope there'll never be another blow given among yez. Now, get a hat, some o' yez, till we draw cuts for six that I want to beat Tom Lynchagan, of Lisdhu; he's worken for St. Ledger, afther gettin' two notices. He's a quiet, civil man, no doubt; but that's not the thing. Obadience, or where's the use of our meetin's at all? Give him a good sound batin', but no further—break no bones."

He then marked slips of paper, equal in number to those who were present, with the numbers 1, 2, 3, &c, to correspond, after which he determined that the three first numbers and the three last should go—all of which was agreed to without remonstrance, or any apparent show of reluctance whatever. "Now, boys," he continued, "don't forget to attend to-morrow night; an' I say to every man of you, as Darby Spaight said to the divil, when he promised to join the rebellion, 'phe dha phecka laght,' (bring your pike with you,) bring the weapon."

"An who's the purty girl that's goin' to wet you, Captain Bartle?" inquired Dandy Duffy.

"The purtiest girl in this parish, anyhow," replied Flanagan, unawares. The words, however, were scarcely out of his lips, when he felt that he had been indiscreet. He immediately added—"that is, if she is of this parish; but I didn't say she is. Maybe We'll have to thravel a bit to find her out, but come what come may, don't neglect to be all here about half-past nine o'clock, wid your arms an' ammunition."

Duffy, who had sat beside Ned M'Cormiek during the night, gave him a significant look, which the other, who had, in truth, joined himself to Flanagan's lodge only to watch his movements, as significantly returned.

When the men deputed to beat Lynchaghan had blackened their faces, the lodge dispersed for the night, Dandy Duffy and Ned M'Cormick taking their way home together, in order to consider of matters, with which the reader, in due time, shall be made acquainted.



PART VII.

Our readers may recollect, that, at the close of that part of our tale which appeared in the preceding number, Dandy Duffy and Ned M'Cormick exchanged significant glances at each other, upon Flanagan's having admitted unawares that the female he designed to take away on the following night was "the purtiest girl in the parish." The truth was, he imagined at the moment that his designs were fully matured, and in the secret vanity, or rather, we should say, in the triumphant villainy of his heart, he allowed an expression' to incautiously pass his lips which was nearly tantamount to an admission of Una's name. The truth of this he instantly felt. But even had he not, by his own natural sagacity, perceived it, the look of mutual intelligence which his quick and suspicious eye observed to pass between Duffy and Ned M'Cormick would at once have convinced him. Una was not merely entitled to the compliment so covertly bestowed upon her extraordinary personal attractions, but in addition it might have been truly affirmed that neither that nor any adjoining parish could produce a female, in any rank, who could stand on a level with her in the character of a rival beauty. This was admitted by all who had ever seen the colleen dhan dhun, or "the purty brown girl," as she was called, and it followed as a matter of course, that Flanagan's words could imply no other than the Bodagh's daughter.

It is unnecessary to say, that Flanagan,—knowing this as he did, could almost have bit a portion of his own tongue off as a punishment for its indiscretion. It was then too late, however, to efface the impression which the words were calculated to make, and he felt besides that he would only strengthen the suspicion by an over-anxiety to remove it. He, therefore, repeated his orders respecting the appointed meeting on the following night, although he had already resolved in his own mind to change the whole plan of his operations.

Such was the precaution with which this cowardly but accomplished miscreant proceeded towards the accomplishment of his purposes, and such was his apprehension lest the premature suspicion of a single individual might by contingent treachery defeat his design, or affect his personal safety. He had made up his mind to communicate the secret of his enterprise to none until the moment of its execution; and this being accomplished, his ultimate plans were laid, as he thought, with sufficient skill to baffle pursuit and defeat either the malice of his enemies or the vengeance of the law.

No sooner had they left the schoolhouse than the Dandy and M'Cormick immediately separated from the rest, in order to talk over the proceedings of the night, with a view to their suspicions of the "Captain." They had not gone far, however, when they were overtaken by two others, who came up to them at a quick, or, if I may be allowed the expression, an earnest pace. The two latter were Rousin Redhead and his son, Corney.

"So, boys," said the Rouser, "what do you think of our business to-night? Didn't I get well out of his clutches?"

"Be me troth, Rouser, darlin'," replied the Dandy, "you niver wor completely in them till this minnit."

"Dhar ma lham charth," said Corney, "I say he's a black-hearted villin."

"But how am I in his clutches, Dandy?" inquired the Rouser.

"Why," rejoined Duffy, "didn't you see that for all you said about his throwin' the post of danger on other people, he's givin' it to you to-morrow night?"

Rousin Redhead stood still for nearly half a minute without uttering a syllable; at length he seized Dandy by the arm, which he pressed with the gripe of Hercules, for he was a man of huge size and strength.

"Chorp ad dioual, you giant, is it my arm you're goin' to break?"

"Be the tarnal primmer, Dandy Duffy, but I see it now!" said the Rouser, struck by Bartle's address, and indignant at the idea of having been overreached by him. "Eh, Corney," he continued, addressing the son, "hasn't he the Rouser set? I see, boys, I see. I'm a marked man wid him, an' it's likely, for all he said, will be on the black list afore he sleeps. Well, Corney avic, you an' others know how to act if anything happens me."

"I don't think," said M'Cormick, who was a lad of considerable penetration, "that you need be afeard of either him or the black list. Be me sowl, I know the same Bartle well, an' a bigger coward never put a coat on his back. He got as pale as a sheet, to-night, when Corney there threatened him; not but he's desateful enough I grant, but he'd be a greater tyrant only that he's so hen-hearted."

"But what job," said the rouser, "has he for us to-morrow night, do you think? It must be something past the common. Who the dioual can he have in his eye to run away wid?"

"Who's the the purtiest girl in the parish, Rouser?" asked Ned. "I thought every one knew that."

"Why, you don't mane for to say," replied Redhead, "that he'd have the spunk in him to run away with Bodagh Buie's daughter? Be the contents o' the book, if I thought he'd thry it, I stick to him like a Throjan; the dirty Bodagh, that, as Larry Lawdher said tonight, never backed or supported us, or gev a single rap to help us, if a penny 'ud save us from the gallis. To hell's delights wid him an' all belongin' to him, I say too; an' I'll tell you What it is, boys, if Flanagan has the manliness to take away his daughter, I'll be the first to sledge the door to pieces."

"Dhar a spiridh, an' so will I," said the young beetle-browed tiger beside him; "thim that can an' won't help on the cause, desarves no mercy from it."

Thus spoke from the lips of ignorance and brutality that esprit de corps of blood, which never scruples to sacrifice all minor resentments to any opportunity of extending the cause, as it is termed, of that ideal monster, in the promotion of which the worst principles of our nature, still most active, are sure to experience the greatest glut of low and gross gratification. Oh, if reason, virtue, and true religion, were only as earnest and vigorous in extending their own cause, as ignorance, persecution, and bigotry, how soon would society present a different aspect! But, unfortunately, they cannot stoop to call in the aid of tyranny, and cruelty, and bloodshed, nor of the thousand other atrocious allies of falsehood and dishonesty, of which ignorance, craft, and cruelty, never fail to avail themselves, and without which they could not proceed successfully.

M'Cormick, having heard Rousin Redhead and his son utter such sentiments, did not feel at all justified in admitting them to any confidence with himself or Duffy. He accordingly replied with more of adroitness than of candor to the savage sentiments they expressed.

"Faith, you're right, Rouser; he'd never have spunk, sure enough, to carry off the Bodagh's daughter. But, in the mane time, who was spakin' about her? Begor, if I thought he had the heart I'd—but he hasn't."

"I know he hasn't," said the Rouser.

"He's nothing but a white-livered dog," said Duffy.

"I thought, to tell you the truth," said M'Cormick, "that you might give a guess as to the girl, but for the Bodagh's daughter, he has not the mettle for that."

"If he had," replied the Rouser, "he might count upon Corney an' myself as right-hand men. We all have a crow to pluck wid the dirty Bodagh, an', be me zounds, it'll puzzle him to find a bag to hould the feathers."

"One 'ud think he got enough," observed M'Cormick, "in the loss of his haggard."

"But that didn't come from uz," said the Rouser; "we have our share to give him yet, an' never fear hell get it. We'll taich him to abuse us, an' set us at defiance, as he's constantly doin'."

"Well, Rouser," said M'Cormick, who now felt anxious to get rid of him, "we'll be wishin' you a good night; we're goin' to have a while of a kailyeah (An evening conversational visit) up at my uncle's. Corney, my boy, good night."

"Good night kindly, boys," replied the other, "an' _banaght lath any how."

"Rouser, you divil," said the Dandy, calling after them, "will you an' blessed Corney there, offer up a Patthernavy for my conversion, for I'm sure that both your prayers will go far?"

Rousin Redhead and Corney responded to this with a loud laugh, and a banter.

"Ay, ay, Dandy; but, be me sowl, if they only go as far as your own goodness sint you before now, it'll be seven years before they come back again; eh, do you smell anything?—ha, ha, ha!"

"The big boshthoon hot me fairly, begad," observed the Dandy. Aside—"The divil's own tongue he has."

"Bad cess to you for a walkin' bonfire, an' go home," replied the Dandy; "I'm not a match for you wid the tongue, at all at all"

"No, nor wid anything else, barrin' your heels," replied the Rouser; "or your hands, if there was a horse in the way. Arrah, Dandy?"

"Well, you graceful youth, well?"

"You ought to be a good workman by this time; you first lamed your thrade, an' thin you put in your apprenticeship—ha, ha, ha!"

"Faith, an' Rouser I can promise you a merry end, my beatity; you'll be the only man that'll dance at your own funeral; an' I'll tell you what, Rouser, it'll be like an egg-hornpipe, wid your eyes covered. That's what I call an active death, avouchal!"

"Faith, an' if you wor a priest, Dandy, you'd never die with your face to the congregation. You'll be a rope-dancer yourself yet; only this, Dandy, that you'll be undher the rope instead of over it, so good night."

"Rouser," exclaimed the other. "Rousin Redhead!"

"Go home," replied the Rouser. "Good night, I say; you've thravelled a great deal too far for an ignorant man like me to stand any chance wid you. Your tongue's lighter than your hands (In Ireland, to be light—handed signifies to be a thief) even, and that's payin' it a high compliment."

"Divil sweep you, Brien," said Dandy, "you'd beat the divil an' Docthor Fosther, Good night again!"

"Oh, ma bannaght laht, I say."

And they accordingly parted.

"Now," said Ned, "what's to be done Dandy? As sure as gun's iron, this limb of hell will take away the Bodagh's daughter, if we don't do something to prevent it."

"I'm not puttin' it past him," returned his companion, "but how to prevent it is the thing. He has the boys all on his side, barrin' yourself and me, an' a few more."

"An' you see, Ned, the Bodagh is so much hated, that even some of thim that don't like Flanagan, won't scruple to join him in this."

"An' if we were known to let the cat out o' the bag to the Bodagh, we might as well prepare our coffins at wanst."

"Faith, sure enough—that's but gospel, Ned," replied the Dandy; still it 'ud be the milliah murdher to let the double-faced villin carry off such a girl."

"I'll tell you what you'll do, thin, Dandy," rejoined Ned, "what if you'd walk down wid me as far as the Bodagh's."

"For why? Sure they're in bed now, man alive."

"I know that," said M'Cormick; "but how—an—ever, if you come down wid me that far, I'll conthrive to get in somehow, widout wakenin' them."

"The dickens you will! How, the sarra, man?"

"No matther, I will; an' you see," he added, pulling out a flask of spirits, "I'm not goin' impty-handed."

"Phew!" exclaimed Duffy, "is it there you are?—oh, that indeed! Faith I got a whisper of it some time ago, but it wint out o' my head. Biddy Nulty, faix—a nate clane girl she is, too."

"But that's not the best of it, Dandy. Sure, blood alive, I can tell you a sacret—may dipind? Honor bright! The Bodagh's daughter, man, is to give her a portion, in regard to her bein' so thrue to Connor O'Donovan. Bad luck to the oath she'd swear aginst him if they'd made a queen of her, but outdone the counsellors and lawyers, an' all the whole bobbery o' them, whin they wanted her to turn king's evidence. Now, it's not but I'd do anything to serve the purty Bodagh's daughter widout it; but you see, Dandy, if white-liver takes her off, I may stand a bad chance for the portion."

"Say no more; I'll go wid you; but how will you get in, Ned?"

"Never you mind that; here, take a pull out of this flask before you go any further. Blood an' flummery! what a night; divil a my finger I can see before me. Here—where's your hand?—that's it; warm your heart, my boy."

"You intind thin, Ned, to give Biddy the hard word about Flanagan?"

"Why, to bid her put them on their guard; sure there can be no harm in that."

"They say, Ned, it's not safe to trust a woman; what if you'd ax to see the Bodagh's son, the young soggarth?"

"I'd trust my life to Biddy—she that was so honest to the Donovans wouldn't be desateful to her sweetheart that—he—hem—she's far gone in consate wid—your sowl. Her brother Alick's to meet me at the Bodagh's on his way from their lodge, for they hould a meetin to-night too."

"Never say it again. I'll stick to you; so push an, for it's late. You'll be apt to make up the match before you part, I suppose."

"That won't be hard to do any time, Dandy."

Both then proceeded down the same field, which we have already said was called the Black Park, in consequence of its dark and mossy soil. Having, with some difficulty, found the stile at the lower end of it, they passed into a short car track, which they were barely able to follow.

The night, considering that it was the month of November, was close and foggy—such as frequently follows a calm day of incessant rain. The bottoms were plashing, the drams all full, and the small rivulets and streams about the country were above their hanks, whilst the larger rivers swept along with the hoarse continuous murmurs of an unusual flood. The sky was one sheet of blackness—for not a cloud could be seen, or anything, except the passing gleam of a cottage taper, lessened by the haziness of the night into a mere point of faint light, and thrown by the same cause into a distance which appeared to the eye much more remote than that of reality.

After having threaded their way for nearly a mile, the water spouting almost at every step up to their knees, they at length came to an old bridle—way, deeply shaded with hedges on each side. They had not spoken much since the close of their last dialogue; for, the truth is, each had enough to do, independently of dialogue, to keep himself out of drains and quagmires. An occasional "hanamondioul, I'm into the hinches;" "holy St. Peter, I'm stuck;" "tun—dher an' turf, where are you at all?" or, "by this an' by that, I dunno where I am," were the only words that passed between them, until they reached the little road we are speaking, of, which, in fact, was one unbroken rut, and on such a night almost impassable.

"Now," said M'Cormick, "we musn't keep this devil's gut, for conshumin' to the shoe or stockin' ever we'd bring out of it; however, do you folly me, Dandy, and there's no danger."

"I can do nothing else," replied the other, "for I know no more where I am than the man of the moon, who, if all's thrue that's sed of him, is the biggest blockhead alive."

M'Cormick, who knew the path well, turned off the road into a pathway that ran inside the hedge and along the fields, but parallel with the muddy boreen in question. They now found themselves upon comparatively clear ground, and, with the exception of an occasional slip or two, in consequence of the heavy rain, they had little difficulty in advancing. At this stage of their journey not a light was to be seen nor a sound of life heard, and it was evident that the whole population of the neighborhood had sunk to rest.

"Where will this bring us to, Ned?" asked the Dandy—"I hope we'll soon be at the Bodagh's."

M'Cormick stood and suddenly pressed his arm, "Whisht!" said he, in an under-tone, "I think I hard voices."

"No," replied the other in the same low tone.

"I'm sure I did," said Ned, "take my word for it, there's people before us on the boreen—whisht!"

They both listened, and very distinctly heard a confused but suppressed murmur of voices, apparently about a hundred yards before them on the little bridle—way. Without uttering a word they both proceeded as quietly and quickly as possible, and in a few minutes nothing separated them but the hedge. The party on the road were wallowing through the mire with great difficulty, many of them, at the same time, bestowing very energetic execrations upon it and upon those who suffered it to remain in such a condition. Even oaths, however, were uttered in so low and cautious a tone, that neither M'Cormick nor the Dandy could distinguish their voices so clearly as to recognize those who spoke, supposing that they had known them. Once or twice they heard the clashing of arms or of iron instruments of some sort, and it seemed to them that the noise was occasioned by the accidental jostling together of those who carried them. At length they heard one voice exclaim rather testily. "D—n your blood, Bartle Flanagan, will you have patience till I get my shoe out o' the mud—you don't expect me to lose it, do you? We're not goin' to get a purty wife, whatever you may be."

The reply to this was short, but pithy—"May all the divils in hell's fire pull the tongue out o' you, for nothin' but hell itself, you villin, timpted me to bring you with me."

This was not intended to be heard, nor was it by the person against whom it was uttered, he being some distance behind—but as Ned and his companion were at that moment exactly on the other side of the hedge, they could hear the words of this precious soliloquy—for such it was—delivered as they were with a suppressed energy of malignity, worthy of the heart which suggested them.

M'Cormick immediately pulled Duffy's coat, without speaking a word, as a hint to follow him with as little noise as possible, which he did, and ere many minutes they were so far in advance of the others, as to be enabled to converse without being heard. "Thar Bheah Duffy," said his companion, "there's not a minute to be lost."

"There is not," replied the other—"but what will you do with me? I'll lend a hand in any way I can—but remember that if we're seen, or if it's known that we go against them in this—"

"I know," said the other, "we're gone men; still we must manage it somehow, so as to save the girl; God! if it was only on Connor O'Donovan's account, that's far away this night, I'd do it. Dandy you wor only a boy when Blannarhasset prosecuted you, and people pitied you at the time, and now they don't think much the worse of you for it; an' you know it was proved since, that what you sed then was thrue, that other rogues made you do it, an' thin lift you in the lurch. But d—n it, where's the use of all this? give me your hand, it's life or death—can I thrust you?"

"You may," said the other, "you may, Ned; do whatever you wish with me."

"Then," continued Ned, "I'll go into the house, and do you keep near to them without bein' seen; watch their motions; but above all things, if they take her off—folly on till you see where they'll bring her; after that they can get back enough—the sogers, if they're a wantin'."

"Depind an me, Ned; to the core depind an me."

They had now reached the Bodagh's house, upon which, as upon every other object around them, the deep shadows of night rested heavily. The Dandy took up his position behind one of the porches of the gate that divided the little grass—plot before the hall—door and the farmyard, as being the most central spot, and from which he could with more ease hear, or as far as might be observe, the plan and nature of their proceedings.

It was at least fifteen minutes before they reached the little avenue that led up to the Bodagh's residence; for we ought to have told our readers, that M'Cormick and Duffy, having taken a short path, left the others—who, being ignorant of it, were forced to keep to the road—considerable behind them. Ned was consequently from ten to fifteen minutes in the house previous to their arrival. At length they approached silently, and with that creeping pace which betokens either fear or caution, as the case may be, and stood outside the gate which led to the grass-plot before the hall-door, not more than three or four yards from the porch of the farm-yard gate where the Dandy stood concealed. And here he had an opportunity of witnessing the extreme skill with which Flanagan conducted this nefarious exploit. After listening for about a minute, he found that their worthy leader was not present, but he almost immediately discovered that he was engaged in placing guards upon all the back windows of the dwelling-house and kitchen. During his absence the following short consultation took place among those whom he left behind him, for the purpose of taking a personal part in the enterprise:

"It was too thrue what Rousin Redhead said to-night," observed one of them, "he always takes care to throw the post of danger on some one else. Nowit's not that I'm afeared, but as he's to have the girl himself, it's but fair that his own neck should run the first danger, an' not mine."

They all assented to this.

"Well, then, boys," he proceeded, "if yez support me, well make him head this business himself. It's his own consarn, not ours; an' besides, as he houlds the Articles, it's his duty to lead us in everything. So I for wan, won't take away his girl, an' himself keepin' back. If there's any one here that'll take my place for his, let him now say so."

They were all silent as to that point; but most of them said, they wished, at all events, to give "the dirty Bodagh," for so they usually called him, something to remember them by, in consequence of his having, on all occasions, stood out against the system.

"Still it's fair," said several of them, "that in takin' away the colleen, Bartle should go foremost, as she's for himself an' 'not for huz."

"Well, then, you'll all agree to this?"

"We do, but whist—here he is."

Deeply mortified was their leader on finding that they had come unanimously to this determination. It was too late now, however, to reason with them, and the crime, to the perpetration of which he brought them, too dangerous in its consequences, to render a quarrel with them safe or prudent. He felt himself, therefore, in a position which, of all others, he did not wish. Still his address was too perfect to allow any symptoms of chagrin or disappointment to be perceptible in his voice or manner, although, the truth is, he cursed them in his heart at the moment, and vowed in some shape or other to visit their insubordination with vengeance.

Such, indeed, is the nature of these secret confederacies that are opposed to the laws of the land, and the spirit of religion. It matters little how open and apparently honest the conduct of such men may be among each other; there is, notwithstanding this, a distrust, a fear, a suspicion, lurking at every heart, that renders personal security unsafe, and life miserable. But how, indeed, can they repose confidence in each other, when they know that in consequence of their connection with such systems, many of the civil duties of life cannot be performed without perjury on the one hand, or risk of life on the other, and that the whole principle of the combination is founded upon hatred, revenge, and a violation of all moral obligation?

"Well, then," said their leader, "as your minds is made up, boys, follow me as quickly as you can, an' don't spake a word in your own voices."

They approached the hall-door, with the exception of six, who stood guarding the front windows of the dwelling-house and kitchen; and, to the Dandy's astonishment, the whole party, amounting to about eighteen, entered the house without either noise or obstruction of any kind.

"By Japurs," thought he to himself, "there's thraichery there, any how."

This now to the Dandy was a moment of intense interest. Though by no means a coward, or a young fellow of delicate nerves, yet his heart beat furiously against his ribs, and his whole frame shook with excitement. He would, in truth, much rather have been engaged in the outrage, than forced as he was, merely to look on without an opportunity of taking a part in it, one way or the other. Such, at least, were his own impressions, when the report of a gun was heard inside the house.

Dhar an Iffrin, thought he again, I'll bolt in an' see what's goin' an—oh ma shaght millia mattach orth, Flanagan, if you spill blood—Jasus above! Well, any how, come or go what may, we can hang him for this—glory be to God!

These reflections were very near breaking-forth into words.

"I don't like that," said one of the guards to another; "he may take the girl away, but it's not the thing to murdher any one belongin' to a dacent family, an' of our own religion."

"If it's only the Bodagh got it," replied his comrade, who was no other than Micky Malvathra, "blaizes to the hair I care. When my brother Barney, that suffered for Caam Beal (crooked mouth) Grime's business, was before his thrial, hell resave the taisther the same Bodagh would give to defind him."

"Damn it," rejoined the other, "but to murdher a man in his bed! Why, now, if it was only comin' home from a fair or market, but at midnight, an' in his bed, begorra it is not the thing, Mickey."

There was now a pause in the conversation for some minutes; at length, screams were heard, and the noise of men's feet, as if engaged in a scuffle upon the stairs, for the hall-door lay open. A light, too, was seen, but it appeared to have been blown out; the same noise of feet tramping, as if still in a tumult, approached the door, and almost immediately afterwards Flanagan's party approached, bearing in their arms a female, who panted and struggled as if she had been too weak to shriek or call for assistance. The hall-door was then pulled to and locked by those who were outside.

The Dandy could see, by the passing gleam of light which fell upon those who watched beside him, that their faces were blackened, and their clothes covered by a shirt, as was usual with the Whiteboys of old, and for the same object—that of preventing—themselves from being recognized by their apparel.

"So far so good," said Flanagan, who cared not now whether his voice was known or not; "the prize is mine, boys, an' how to bring ma colleen dhas dhun to a snug place, an' a friendly priest that I have to put the knot on us for life."

"By —-," thought Duffy, "I'll put a different kind of a knot on you for that, if I should swing myself for it."

They hurried onwards with as much speed as possible, bearing the fainting female in a seat formed by clasping their hands together. Duffy still stood in his place of concealment, waiting to let them get so far in advance as that he might dog them without danger of being heard. Just then a man cautiously approached, and in a whisper asked, "Is that Dandy?"

"It is—Saver above, Ned, how is this? all's lost!"

"No, no—I hope not—but go an' watch them; we'll folly as soon as we get help. My curse on Alick Nulty, he disappointed me an' didn't come; if he had, some of the Bodagh's sarvant boys would be up wid us in the kitchen, an' we could bate them back aisy; for Flanagan, as I tould you, is a dam-coward."

"Well, thin, I'll trace them," replied the other; "but you know that in sich darkness as this you haven't a minute to lose, otherwise you'll miss them."

"Go an; but afore you go listen, be the light of day, not that we have much of it now any way—by the vestment, Biddy Nulty's worth her weight in Bank of Ireland notes; now pelt and afther them; I'll tell you again."

Flanagan's party were necessarily forced to retrace their steps along the sludgy boreen we have mentioned, and we need scarcely say, that, in consequence of the charge with which they were encumbered, their progress was proportionally slow; to cross the fields on such a night was out of the question.

The first thing Flanagan did, when he found his prize safe, was to tie a handkerchief about her mouth that she might not scream, and to secure her hands together by the wrists. Indeed, the first of these precautions seemed to be scarcely necessary, for what with the terror occasioned by such unexpected and frightful violence, and the extreme delicacy of her health, it was evident that she could not utter even a shriek. Yet, did she, on the other hand, lapse into fits of such spasmodic violence as, wrought up as she was by the horror of her situation, called forth all her physical energies, and literally give her the strength of three women.