BRIAN O'LINN.

CHAPTER I.

Ballyporeen.-Notice of myself.-The Yellow Gentleman. His arrival, conversation, and departure.

BARRING Bannagher, -and everybody knows that Bannagher bates the devil,-give me Ballyporeen!" observed an agreeable gentleman, who had roofed the royal mail in my company from the Irish capital. "If you would see the town in all its glory, choose the market-day, and should it be Margymore,* why, all the better. For courting, I'll back Ballyporeen against the world; and if you have a fancy to try the temper of your twig upon a scull, and ascertain whether bone or blackthorn is the harder, take a tender steak at the Cat and Bagpipes," with a couple of stiff tumblers afterwards to assist digestion, and then, if it's the heel of the evening, slip fair and aisy into the crowd. You'll not be long thereif you have any luck-until ye meet some pleasant personage trailing his cotamoret after him, and requesting anybody and everybody to tramp upon the same. Why, then, all you have to do is to put your toe delicately upon the hem of the garment, and if one you is not down before a dog could hear a whistle, why, never believe myself, Dan Delany, although I kissed calfskin to the same. And now, God bless you, if it's possible !”

of

Such was the valedictory observation of my fellow traveller, as on a beautiful morning in June, the royal mail, at seven A. M., rattled into the town of Ballyporeen, through a street composed of mud-walled cabins, and held in joint-tenancy by bipeds and quadrupeds, men, women, and children,-pigs, ducks, and donkeys. For hours, I had been amused with the racy and natural wit then

* The large market.
† Anglice, great-coat.

indigenous to an Irish coach-box-and occasionally laughed heartily at guard, driver, and outsides, as they tilted good-humoredly with each other; and certainly the contrast forced upon me between "the leathern conveniency" I was perched upon, and the better-appointed English stage, was awfully against the latter. I have, in my wanderings, sat beside a "bacon-fed knave," held in road parlance, to be a spicy coachman." For sixty miles I never could extract from him aught more extensive than a monosyllable; and throughout he journey, the beer-swilling beast was niggard of speech, as if he had been a probationer from La Trappe.

Irish drivers are now defunct-and Pat

Daly was almost an ultimus Romanorum. He, poor fellow, who could not bear a go by on the road of life, speedily followed his brethren, and "tooled" bis last stage. He died in his vocation; for, having goodnaturedly consented to the inside passengers' playing a game of blind-hookey for a round of tumblers, in a hurry to retrieve lost time, and bothered by thirteen Johnnies* and a foggy night, poor Pat slipped off the highway into a quarry, made smithereens of the royal mail, and broke his own neck into the bargain.

The entrance to Bally poreen is steep-and, though a wheel was locked, we came down the street at a spanking pace.

"Pat," said I, "from what this gentleman tells me, the Ballyporeen boys must be a pleasant set. Might I inquire, are the fair sex as agreeable?"

"Ah! then, upon my conscience," returned the driver, "there's some good-looking trouts in the same place. Would your honor wish to see a trifle of them ?"

I graciously assented, and Mr. Daly continued,

"As this is Sunday, they'll be preparin' * Small glasses of whiskey.

to go to mass. Well-no matter--ye must | Tweed by moonlight, and transferred a Scot take them as they come. They'll hardly tish herd to the pastures of Northumberland. wait to finish their toilette, as the ladies call I believe that half my forefathers fell in raid t. Corney, jewel," he said, turning to the guard, "give us a tearin' blast of that ould tin trumpet.'

"The guard replied instantly by a "loud alarum" while Mr. Daly in a voice of horror exclaimed, "Oh Jasus! the child! the child!"

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or battle; and I am pretty certain, by an authenticated record, that a couple were hanged on Harribee Hill, for a trifling infraction of meum and tuum. In a word, they were a busy and a thriving race; and, while they prudently confined their operations to cattlestealing, they prospered as they deservedbut, suadente diabolo, they began, forsooth, to dabble in politics. In "the fifteen" they joined, unluckily, the losing side and in "the forty-five" they sustained a loss of half a dozen of the best sheep-farms from Norham to Netherby. Gradually the good old times wore away, and even the borderers for lack of encouragement, became honest, and exchanged the spear for the sickle.

I was bred up, half sportsman and half

send thirty yards of silk across the Tweed, kill a grouse clean at fifty paces, ride respectably over a country, and, in short, ex hibited general accomplishments, which it would ill become me to enlarge upon.

It is almost unnecessary to observe that, in taking the census of an Irish cabin, the "two-year-oulds" may be fairly averaged at half a score, and, consequently, that the alarming outcry of Mr. Daly brought the whole establishments of the street to their respective doors, "in most admired disorder," -each and every affectionate family being under an assurance, that some young Astyanax," of their own had been immolated by the royal mail, as effectually as a faithful sheep-farmer-and at one-and twenty could devotee is crushed by the car of Juggernaut. All flocked out in desperate haste-and several of the ladies in that classic costume, which painters assign to Diana and her nymphs, when the rash huntsman interrupted their ablutions. One unhappy matron trampled My father farmed six hundred acres-the on a clutch of ducklings, then reposing on land was his own-and, as he had no rent her threshold in false security; while her to pay, he enjoyed rural comfort in its fullest next-door neighbor bounded into the street, with flushed cheek and bloody razor, to raise, as terror whispered, the mangled remains of a first pledge of love and heir-apparent to his property. All were in dire commotion-and yet no mutilated babe could be discovered, while a horse-laugh from the coach rendered it quite evident, that Mr. Daly had turned out a half-dressed community under false pretences.

and "

Before, however, the irritated ladies could obtain a supply of paving stones, Mr. Daly was out of range, while, in a sort of hurried duet, "Oh, bloody murder! my ducks!" 'Oh, holy Moses! my chin!" ended in a full choral burst of "May the divil smash ye'r neck, Pat Daly !-oh! ye ruffin of the world!" But on rolled the coach, and in a few minutes we pulled up at "The Cat and Bagpipes."

When I apprise the gracious reader that I am an Englishman by birth, and neither a a tourist nor a bagman,-have no intention of carrying a railroad through Connemara,am not a member of the Association, nor an envoy from Exeter Hall,-care not a brass button were Thresham Gregg seated in the stocks, and Tom Steele taking gentle exercise upon the treadmill, he may very naturally inquire, what the devil brought me to Ballyporeen? A shrewd question, by the mass! and one which a short biography of myself will best resolve.

I was born on the English side of the border, and am descended from as stout a family as ever slipped twenty horsemen across the

extent. The succession being confined to me, my sire eschewed a lieutenancy in the Durham Militia, and, like the elder Norval, Kept myself, his only son, at home."

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It was late in October-I had made a long excursion through the moorland, filled the game-bag amply, and reached home late on a fine clear frosty-feeling evening, when I was informed that a stranger had arrived a couple of hours before, and very unceremoniously had invited himself to supper. Had he been young and well-favored, my sisters, two blooming borderers, would not have been particularly displeased at the intrusion; but, by general consent, he was described to be an antiquated dwarf, "as ugly as original sin, and by no means so agreeable." My curiosity was raised-and, when I had exchanged my wet garments for dry clothes, I hurried to the supper-room, and there found the intruder seated with my father, and perfectly at home.

On a hasty examination, I decided that the young ladies' picture of the stranger was by no means over-colored; for a plainer speci men of the lords of creation I never looked upon. He was a thin, shrivelled, bald-pated dwarf, scarcely five feet four, his diminutive proportions being encased rather in parchment than human skin. His cheeks were hollow, his complexion yellow as a kite's claw: his arms singularly long, fleshless, and sinewy; his face was nearly beardless, and his eyebrows turned the wrong way. In short, the tout-ensemble of his outer man

was so extraordinary, and his attitude so grotesque as he sat confronting my father, with one long lean leg crossed upon the other knee, that I could scarcely restrain a burst of laughter. There was something also irresistibly comic in the perfect ease in which the little fellow seemed to feel himself, as, turning a superficial glance on me, he casually remarked,

"A son of yours, eh ?" My father bowed.

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"I would have introduced you to each other," replied the owner of the mansion, "did I but know by what name I should designate the gentleman who has honored us this evening with his company."

cross the Tweed, Border-fashion, without submitting to any impertinence from the exciseman, were paraded-and the old gentleman brewed a stoup of stiff toddy with a skill and despatch which proved at once that he "eschewed thin potations," and was utterly unconnected with Father Matthew and the "Temperance Shop over the way."

There is not a better key to unlock the human heart than a tumbler of hot Glenlivet. The stranger felt and owned its influenceand after he had combined a second glass and discussed the same, I fancied he did not look so like a man recently recovering from an attack of jaundice, as he did when we sat down to supper. In the ensemble of his ugli ness a redeeming feature had been overlooked. His eyes were black, piercing, and in

"Oh!" returned the saffron-faced stranger, "any you select will do. I would rather, however, it were not Brown, Smith, telligent-and I never saw so much expresor Robinson-they're common, and I am sive power as their searching glances occarather particular." And, taking a silver sionally gave to the little gentleman's rebox from his coat-pocket, as large as a tra- marks. veller's dressing-case, he dipped his lean and bony fingers in, and refreshed himself with an extensive pinch of that pleasant and pungent preparation of the weed, to sentimental ears described as 66 high toast," and by the vulgar intitulated "Irish blackguard."

I looked aside at my father, and my father looked aside at me, and the telegraphic communication on both sides made the simple inquiry, "Who the deuce can the little fellow be?" Need I observe, that the facility with which a question is asked is sometimes in correct ratio with its difficulty of solution -and on the present occasion the remark held good.

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“The evening smacks of frost," observed our agreeable visitor, as he inserted the poker between the bars, and your seal-coal fire is not amiss." Then after a hasty glance at an antiquated watch, he modestly insinuated a hope that our supper hour was tolerably early.'

This doubt was quickly solved. My sister Mary opened the door, advanced into the room, and announced that the evening meal was served. Instantly the stranger skipped briskly on his legs, and presented one of his long lean arms to the young lady. Courtesy obliged her to accept it-and the little gentleman moved jauntily from the apartment, with the prettiest girl on the border by his side, taller than himself by half a head, and her peach-like cheek contrasting awfully with a countenance which seemed to have committed larceny upon a lemon-box.

"Elliott is an old name in these parts," quoth the guest.

"Yes," returned my father; "and an honorable one, too."

"Humph!" observed the little man, a definition of honor depends so much on taste, that it is difficult to understand the meaning of the word. The lawyer, who saves a criminal from the gallows by a quibble, is reputed a credit to the profession. An Irishman, who levants with a friend's wife, and shoots any kinsman or brother who may have the impertinence to express displeasure at the same, in the parlance of that peaceful and prosperous country, is reputed a broth of a boy. Here, in olden time, when the eighth commandment was as much respected as a gauger's commission, the best cattle-lifter was consequently the best gentleman-and I presume, at that trick, the Elliotts were pretty handy."

My father colored. To question the respectability of a lineage on which, like most Borderers, he prided himself so much, was to offer a mortal affront; and it is doubtful whether the rights of hospitality would have shielded the unbidden guest from an indignant outburst, had not the host's eye made a hasty survey of the offender's outer man, and led to a conclusion that in one of thews and sinews like his own, it would be infra dignitatem, to quarrel with a thing which looked liker an anatomical preparation than substantial flesh and blood.

"It may, sir," he said, "be your good Touching the supper which our farm-yard pleasure to undervalue the family from which and my gun had afforded, the stranger was I am sprung-but I think that good taste graciously pleased to express his approba- might have hinted that any place should tion-and, his bodily dimensions taken into have been selected but the roof-tree of an account, his performance was most respect- Elliott, to sneer at the ancestors, he regards able. The cloth in due time was removed; with reverence and pride. Yes, I am proud the ladies as in duty bound retired; hot water of the Border-blood that flows through these and real Glenlivet which had managed to veins-and of a name with which brave

deeds and true faith are associated. When look requested my opinion touching the prodid an Elliott desert a friend in his extremity? priety of ejecting the visitor from the winor when prove false to his King's summons, dow, and sending him to lodge with the whether it were a George or James that de- larks. I disapproved, however, of summary manded his good services? When my great- proceedings--and the yellow rascal thus great-grandfather—” proceeded

"Never mind the story about Black Archibald, I know all the particulars. By the way, after the fifteen" when they hanged him at Carlisle, they paid him a handsome compliment. They stuck honest Archie's head over the Scotch Gate-a favor seldom conferred on any but nobility."

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Well, sir," returned the host, "his father's fate did not deter his gallant son from declaring for the young Chevalier."

"And what did Dick Elliott gain by his loyalty?-A double operation upon the vertebræ of the neck by hemp and steel. After tucking him up at Tyburn, his countenance was transferred to London Bridge to strike terror into Jacobite delinquents."

My father and I interchanged looks. The yellow dwarf knew as much of the family history as ourselves.

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By the way, I take it that Dick's son was your father?" and the little gentleman coolly extracted his box from its pocket, and refreshed himself with a pinch of blackguard. My father assented by a nod.

"He was a plain, easy-going personage, never was accused of setting fire to the Tweed--and the amount of his information lay in the qualities of stots and gimmers. If my memory be correct, his sister Janet eloped with an Irish recruiting-sergeant, who passed himself upon her for a captain of dragoons."

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"If I may safely trust to memory—” "Oh! d-n your memory!" murmured my father. I overheard the side-remark distinctly, but our pleasant visitor either did not or would not.

"They called him, I think, Dick-no doubt out of compliment to the gentleman who had been accommodated with a Tyburn tippetand by all accounts, had Master Richard been permitted to reach maturity, he would have made a public departure from the world, or a voyage at the expense of the country. The simple summary of his history ran thus correct me should I be in error-I like to be as accurate as possible—-”

"Curse your accuracy!" was, sotto voce,, ejaculated by my unhappy father.

"Well, Dick filled the parson's pipe with gunpowder--grand and unexpected explosion-reverend nose damaged by the sameperpetrator flogged-in revenge, set fire to his father's stack-yard-bolted from homeembarked at Berwick in a collier-vessel cast away, and the young imp drowned. Part of the story is incredible."

"And pray may I inquire, as you seem to take a lively interest in the fate of the illconducted and unfortunate youth, what portion of the story do you consider not authentic?"

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My dear sir," returned the dwarf, “the youth was no more drowned than I wasmy faith in proverbs is unbounded-and rest assured that one predestined to pass through the hangman's hands, could not be smothered by all the water in the Solway. But it grows late, and I think I'll toddle to my bedroom. I hope you breakfast early. My general hour is eight-and I want to be on the move by times to-morrow.'

Great was the mutual astonishment of my sire and myself. For two centuries the devil a man had been hanged in the family that this lemon-faced scoundrel was not as fully acquainted with the particulars as if he had attended the execution; and the only female escapade within recollection, was so perfectly at his finger-ends, that one might have supposed he had been a subscribing An attendant and a light were summoned witness to the marriage certificate. To the the little gentleman coolly bade us a good remark, anent Aunt Janet and the cursed night-but when he reached the door-way a Irishman, my father answered by a broad sudden thought appeared to strike him. stare-while the little fellow made a deep dip into tumbler number two, commended the Glenlivet, and continued his agreeable remarks.

"If my recollection holds, you had a couple of brothers older than yourself. The elder, who was a roving blade, broke his neck riding home, Bacchi plenus, from the tryst at Dryburgh. He! he he!" and the dwarf indulged in an unearthly cacchination which he fancied was a laugh. "An Elliott's neck appears to have always been the most sensitivo member of the body corporal."

My father looked at me-the purport of the inquiry was not to be mistaken-that

"Young Swankey" he said, addressing me, "cold grouse and turkey eggs are no bad preparations for a journey-you take the hint ? Do let it be sharp eight. Hope the bed has been regularly slept in-damp would be the death of me!" and so saying he disappeared..

"I wish to heaven you were over the neck in water!" ejaculated my father as the door closed; "and if you could be drowned—a thing I doubt I'll give you choice of Till or Teviot. Now, Frank, who or what do you fancy this fellow is ?"

"Upon my soul, my dear sir, your ques→ tion is a puzzler. But as far as I can