property and certain habiliments which were enumerated at length. The fugitive threw himself for protection upon the ladies; and when was lovely woman cold to humanity's appeal? The "free and accepted" secured the levanter's right arm-the loo-party laid hold of the left one-both struggled for the prize--and the person of Peter bade fair to be equally partitioned; when, fortunately, he with the sword appeared upon the field of battle, bearing orders from the Right Worshipful to surcease; and, as Mr. Clancy had not courage to meet the devil like a gentleman, it was intimated, by that high functionary, that he, Peter, had free permission to go to Pandemonium as he pleased.

and the dragoon pushed back the offered coin.

There was something in this short episode in humble life that interested me--and I listened to the conversation.

"Hang it !" said the sergeant," you must not be cast down-a smart lad like you can never come astray. Why, you're the regular length for a footman--and, with a little fugleing, would show off a silver-headed cane and smart livery to perfection."

"I'll wear no livery," said the youth," but that which has been refused me.'

"And may I be spiflicated!"-I wonder in Heaven's chancery whether the phrase was held to be an oath, and booked accordingly, against the sergeant," May I be spiflicated, if that doting omma dawn shall cross your luck, my darling boy; and before six months you shall be astride a horse at one side of a gateway in Whitehall, if there's a vacancy in the Blues.'"

The youth expressed his thanks, and asked further information.

With the evasion of the fugitive, the rites and ceremonies of the enlightened craftsmen suddenly ended. The green curtain was removed the sentinel disappeared-the lobbies gradually became endurable-sulphur gave way to simple peat-smoke-and even an asthmatic gentleman might have taken a turn through the corridor without the risk of suffocation. How Peter Clancy put in the My third cousin, by the mother's side," night I cannot tell; but a more hilarious com- returned the dragoon, "is trumpet-major in pany than the "dear brothers of the mystic the regiment. I'll give you a letter to him, tie" never kept an inn in an uproar till bless- and, though I have not seen him these ten ed sunshine. At five A. M., Denis announc-years, he'll pay attention to a blood-relation. ed that the gentlemen were settling the bill; You'll just have to slip fair and asy across to and at six I ventured to bed, and made up London." for broken rest by reposing until mid-day.

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"I have heard of that place," returned the rejected one. "Is it not a long way off? and I have but three shillings in the world!”

While sitting at breakfast, I observed a sergeant of light dragoons pass the window with a fine-looking lad whom it was evident he intended to make "food for powder," and that the youth was a consenting party to the same. After an absence of an hour, the noncommissioned officer and the recruit return-interrupted the conversation. ed--they stopped--in both faces disappointment was apparent--and as the casement was open, I overheard the conversation which ensued.

Before the sergeant could reply, one of those pleasant occurrences indigenous "To the land that gave Patrick his birth,"

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Reject me!" exclaimed the youth, and his cheek crimsoned with anger. Reject me, because I have a mark or two on my legs from kicking football! Is there a horse in your regiment I won't back, or a boy of my own inches I can't throw? And, for a scrape or two upon the shin, am I to be rejected as unfit to be a King's man?"

"Too bad, by -," returned the sergeant. “The stupid old fool, who is as fit to be staff-surgeon as I am to be first chambermaid to the Lady-Lieutenant, when he's drunk passes everything short of cripples, catches it at head-quarters, and then for a fortnight afterwards refuses every man he examines."

"Well-I am regularly bothered," said the youth, with a sigh: "I never dreamed that I was not man enough to make a soldier. Here is your shilling, sergeant."

"And may the devil blister the palm of the same sergeant, if ever it enters the same!"

If there be any visitation more afflicting to an Emeralder than all besides to which the flesh is heir, it is to endure, with ordinary patience, the audacity with which Cockney tourists and Scotch impressionists fabricate their apocryphæ of that unhappy land, and attempt to delineate character which none but a born-Irishman can comprehend. I crossed Channel with one of these impostors, and he casually intimated at breakfast, that he purposed to enlighten the reading public with his experiences during a fortnight's sojourn in the worst-used land in Christendom.

"You treated yourself of course, with a rowl to the Rock?" observed a Dublin citizen.

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"Had a spolecine in Donnybrook ?" added a second.

"Took a pinch of blackguard at a country wake off the person of the departed?" said a gentleman from Connaught.

“Danced a jig at a dragging home?" "And drank scalteeine at a pattern ?" continued another of the company.

an

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Now, these remarks being conveyed in unknown tongue, were responded to, by

"Gentlemen, I really do not understand you."

Then, permit me to intimate," quoth the trans-Shannonite, "that you know as much of national character, as a donkey does of his descent by the mother's side."

Everybody acquainted with Milesian life, will recollect how often he has been astonished by the sudden outbreak of an Irish row. Sir Lucius O'Trigger-nomen venerabile!--judiciously remarks, that in England an affair is so eclatted, that people cannot fight in peace and quietness; and among the lower classes, so much unnecessary verbiage must be delivered before the first blow is given, that an Irish shindy will be over before an English set-to has commenced.

and, prepared as I had been by the gentle man who had roofed the mail in my company from the metropolis, his laudatory notice of the pleasant town of Ballyporeen fell infinitely short of what it merited.

The fight, which had exhibited an alternation of success as fresh adherents of the houses of Montague and Capulet came into action, at last declared against the Sweenies, and they reluctantly gave ground. In the front rank of the Blake brigade, the rejected recruit was conspicuously seen-and his performance elicited general applause from Trojan and Tyrian. Several elderly amateurs, whose years forbade their taking part in active operations, but who regarded the faction-fight from the inn steps with that It was the market-day, and the principal lively interest, which might be expected from mercantile operations of Ballyporeen were veterans who, in their day, had cleared many transacted immediately beneath my window. a fair, and been a small fortune to the village Frieze, coarse linen, yarn, and earthenware, bone-setter, these experienced gentlemen seemed to be the articles in commercial de- were loud in their commendation of this mand—the former commodities being dis- promising youth. What might have been played on benches, and the latter paraded on the result or the duration of a combat, whose the ground, which was littered with straw in fortunes changed as fresh actors figured on respect to the fragility of the article. In- the stage, it is impossible to calculate, for, deed, an exhibition of crockery on the street sudden as the fight commenced, as suddenly appeared to me anything but discreet. But, was it terminated. At once the arms of the in Hibernian calculations, fortune is always belligerents were paralyzed by a loud alataken into consideration; and when an Irish rum; "Mind yourselves, boys, dear! Oh! whip places the tying of his wheel upon the murder-here's the peelers-may the devil edge of a quarry, the salvation of your neck welcome them!" At the annunciation of from dislocation is satisfactorily accounted that dreaded body, previous animosity gave for, by the scoundrel telling you with a grin, place to a mutual wish on both sides to evade "it's himself that has the best of luck!" If the penalties of law-Sweeney and Blake the delft-dealers, whose merchandize was ex- consulted safety by inglorious flight-and hibited beneath my window, had calculated" Sauve qui peut !" which, on the authority on the protection of the blind goddess, verily, on this occasion, their edifices were erected upon sand.

Without the interchange of a word, two men, whose meeting seemed purely accidental, commenced a furious combat. In half-a-minute one of the belligerents was beaten to the ground; but before the conqueror could raise an Io Pean for his victory, two strangers dashed the crowd aside, and assailed him fiercely.

of Napoleon, ended the shindy at Waterloo, was re-enacted at the rookawn at Ballyporeen-for the closing order of the day there was "Devil take the hindmost!"

A melancholy incident clouded the finale of this pleasant passage of arms. The deep interest which had absorbed the attention of combatants and lookers-on, had prevented the insidious advance of "that green banditti"-as poor Burns would have termed the Irish police-from being remarked, and the "Mother of Heaven!" exclaimed the cavalry were actually charging, and the fixrejected recruit, snatching a blackthorn as ed bayonets of the footmen making, a derrière, he spoke from the hand of a looker-on. painful demonstrations on the persons of di"Two upon one in a christian country!" vers concerned, before danger was even apand quick as lightning he was actively en- prehended. But one egress was opened for gaged with the stouter of the twain. Hur- escape; and alas! that led direct over the rah for the Blakes!" was answered by a space before my window, on which the unshout of the "Sweenies for ever!" With happy delft-merchants had arranged their marvellous alacrity, the kinsmen and ac- crockery and chrystal. On rushed the quaintances of both these respectable fami- crowd; and fearful were the exclamations lies responded to the call to arms-and in of the proprietors of porcelain. A man, with less than five minutes, at least thirty couple a bayonet behind him and crockery in his of combatants were busily engaged. Loud front, seldom halts between two opinions. was the clatter of cudgels, as saplinge ncoun- Within a couple of minutes, jug, mug, and tered crab-tree-divers good men and true tumbler, were reduced to smithereens—an saluted their mother earth-the swearing uncracked plate would have been accounted was awful, as it was formerly in Flanders a curiosity in Ballyporeen—and a tea-cup

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The youth fixed his dark eyes on mine, as remarked the rejected one in the hour of tri- if to read the object of the question. umph, and I watched him in that of his reverse; and I must say, that had the staff-life. I can walk forty miles a-day for a surgeon seen him as I did, bound over half- fortnight-and I suppose that less than that a-dozen delft-crates like a harlequin, his time would bring me to London.' soundness in wind and limb would never "Good steady action that," observed the have been questioned and the King, God non-commissioned officer, " for a lad declared bless him! have been provided with a gal- unsound by an old ass, who can tell a splint lant light dragoon. from a spavin."

I had taken a lively interest in the unknown-felt for the disappointment he had suffered-watched his reckless gallantry in the faction-fight-and had listened with deep sympathy to the brief but touching confession of his destitution. I rang the bell-desired Denis to summon to my presence the "That from the bottom of my heart, will sergeant and his young companion-and in I do," returned the candidate for military a few minutes both were introduced.

"I have overheard your conversation. It appears your wish to become a soldier has been disappointed by some real or imaginary" cause, which incapacitates you from sustaining the hardships attendant upon military life."

land was frequently visited by smugglers | termination of the secret interview, the body from France and Holland; and when they of a female, carefully wrapped up, was depofailed in debarking their contraband cargoes sited in the headsman's boat, and a fine child upon the mainland, on these wild islands they six months old placed in the priest's arms, were generally more successful; and there while a parting injunction was given by the the interdicted articles remained in safe con- skipper, that the corpse should be decently cealment until opportunity permitted their interred, and the infant carefully attended to. being transmitted to their original destination. Something private passed in a whisper, the The islanders were faithful to the trust re- headsman pushed off with his dead and living posed, the smugglers generous in return, freight, the lugger filled her sails,-the and thus a mutual interest bound each party haze of night soon shut the smuggler and the to the other; and fifty years ago, when, "few boat from each other's view,-and, with a far and far between," some desperate traveller different cargo than they had expected to ventured into Innisturk, although an egg or bring back, the islanders returned to their an ounce of mutton were not obtainable for lonely rock. love or money, he might have drunk himself rich in every cabin he pleased to enter with cognac or schiedam,-smoked the soothing weed by the half-bale,-or, where he given unhappily to thin potations," enjoyed white sugar and suchong; the only difficulty being where to find a teapot.

The skipper's orders were faithfully executed. The child was consigned to the care of a fisher's wife, who had recently lost her own infant; and the body of the female, who was supposed to be the crphan's mother, was laid out with every form used at a peasant's wake. In arranging the corpse, before it It was late on an evening in October, when was committed to its last resting-place, the the island we have just described was star- woman who performed the funeral offices, retled by the report of a gun, and the exhibi- marked the peculiar fineness of the stranger's tion of a bluelight. In a moment, like bees linen. On the bridal finger was a plain gold disturbed, the occupants of every cabin hur-ring; and from these circumstances, the ried to the only harbor by which a landing en Innisturk can be accomplished. A narrow chasm in the precipices which shut the island in, trends inwards for a hundred yards, and terminates in a sandy cove, to which the lofty rocks that wall its sides form a secure breakwater. As this opening looks eastward, and the prevailing winds are westerly, the harbor is generally open to fishing-boats; and, on the evening in question, the winds were light, the water smooth, and no difficulty was found in pulling off to a large lugger, which was seen in the haze of night, standing off and on a few miles distant from

the shore.

smoothness of the skin, and the delicacy of the features, the islanders concluded that the deceased belonged to a superior grade of society; but all about her was doubtful, and mere conjecture.

The unknown female was interred in the island cemetery; and fortune seemed determined to shroud the deserted orphan in an impenetrable mystery Of his lineage and name the skipper might have been informed, or, more probably, the priest in confession had been entrusted with the secret. If such were the case, it perished with the twain. A few weeks after this singular occurrence, the holy man died of a malignant fever; and soon after, intelligence reached the island that the lugger had been run down in a fog off the coast of Holland, and every soul on board had found a watery grave.

If the islanders expected that their rock was to be made the depository for a contraband cargo, they suffered a grievous disappointment, for that had been already discharged, and the lugger had visited the is- "Never was an orphan," continued the reland for a different purpose. The heads-jected recruit, " more hardily brought up, or man was taken into his cabin by the skip- more wildly educated. When able to run per; and after a brief interview a boat was about, I was removed from the fisher's hut to despatched in haste for a priest, who fortunately happened to be officially employed in Innisturk, and whose instant services were required to shrive somebody on board the ugger, who was reported "in articulo mor

tis

The call was promptly obeyed, and the churchman introduced to the cabin, and left alone with a stranger, who was at that moment about to exchange time for eternity; for ere half an hour had elapsed, the priest announced that the spirit had departed. The skipper and the headsman again retired to the cabin, where they remained closeted for another hour with the churchman. At the

the headsman's cabin; and it is but justice to my protector to say, that whether he had received any consideration from the drowned mariner for my future maintenance, or that humanity alone induced him to support friendless child, I was kindly taken care of. I throve apace. The islanders are short of stature; and at twelve years old I was taller than my foster-brothers by the head. I rowed, swam, climbed rocks, fished, sailed a boat, better than any boy of my own age in Innisturk. In the accomplishments my education was comprised. I knew not a letter of the alphabet and had scarcely seen a printed book, save the priest's breviary, when that