Ireland is the only part of the world that I have ever seen, where a joke or a pun, be it ever so bad, is felt at once by everybody. It is a signal of mental freemasonry that assures the listeners you have nothing worse in your composition, and is sufficient to thaw the sociability of a native on the bleakest bog in the frostiest night you can meet him. A few jokes transformed my guards into comrades. They showed me how to choose the firm spots in the bogs; to avoid the well-heads, so deceitfully green in their beautiful hair-grass; to steady myself on the tummocks by a long step and a short one, sailor-wise; to distinguish the firm keebe sod by the radiating position of its rush grass, all the stems growing flat to the bog, as if to form a safe stepping spot for the human foot; and to discriminate between the colours of ice that rested on stone, on moss, on hard peat, and on deep water. Finding that I still floundered on, my friend with the spinning-wheel offered to exchange burdens, which I gratefully acceded to. My convictions were every moment increasing that this stout young fellow (who stepped so steadily, and swung the table over his head as unconcernedly as if it were an umbrella) was my foster-brother and favourite companion in all my boyish sports and rambles. I was bursting with impatience to inquire after my family and friends, as well as to secure his good offices towards my release; but as yet I dare not confide in him, and still less in his companion, who, for what I knew, might be co-heir with Paddy Skibbereen just behind us. Further, I knew nothing of the Fraughan Rock; another family of O'Learys might dwell there, and then there are such strange resemblances! To cut short my suspense, I resolved to hazard an essay in the black art, confiding in my countryman's national taste for the supernatural; so addressing the carbineer

"Your's is a fortunate shadow in the moonlight,” said I. "Indeed! Do you read fortunes abroad by shadows?"

"Yes; the Brahmins taught me on the banks of the Ganges. I can plainly see that your's is not a drowning shadow."

66

Aye! Murtagh's the divil at divin' entirely," said his compamay-be the shadow 'oud look more nat'ral hangin' up to

nion; dry!"

It was the first time that I heard the expected name. I now went

on with more confidence.

"You have escaped drowning twice. Stay still a while till the horses come up, and let me stand in your shadow. Now let us both look at the moon, and I'll describe the pictures I behold passing over its bright face.-Two boys shooting sea-birds in the middle of a little bay. They sit in a frail unsteady boat that dances on the waves as light as a cork, devoid of keel or rudder, and seemingly a long shallow open-work basket covered outside with skins?" Aye! A nievogue. True enough, Sir."

66

"Whist, Murtagh! Don't be letting out the sacret. Let's hear what he can make out by himself. I've purty sharp sight, an' can only see the ould woman that stole her naabour's gooseberry-bush just as usual. May-be she stole a nievogue or a corracle too!"

"There-the gun is fired by the elder boy-it kicks-he falls back -his elbow makes a hole in the skin-the water rushes in-he

H

- 'tis filling the boat,

and it sinks as they

thrusts his handkerchief and heel into the hole he bales out the
water with his hat- the other paddles to shore with fearful haste
the water gains on them
throw themselves on shore!"
""Tis a true picture!
escape, if you plaase?"

I'll nivir forget it!

Well, Sir, the other

"Look up again. 'Tis a mountain glen, through which the dark red water slowly creeps for a space, expanding into a pool ere it finds an outlet-the bottom is black with weeds consolidating into boga rock rises beetling over the lazy pool-two hawks are wheeling and darting through the glen, while two boys are endeavouring to climb the rock and rob their nest-one stands on the branch of an old holly-tree that grows out of the rock just over the water's edge, the other mounts on his shoulders — the enraged hawks buffet him with their wings - he heeds them not he draws out the nest and nestlings. Ha! 'tis a mountain gust. Fern, furze, heath, grass, reeds, and leaves, are dancing aloft in the whirlwind that sweeps the glen- the water is caught up a fairy circle rushes over the face of the pool the very hawks are spun around. in the unseen eddy. The nest and young ones are carried off in the blast-the young robber is shaken from the rock and falls headlong into the black gulf beneath him the waters close over him they are broken again on the surface they are heaving with life, but the struggle is at the bottom amidst mud and tangling weedstheir victim rises not! His comrade jumps down after him he clings to the holly by one hand, and with the other drags up- Murtagh!"

66

Aye! God bless him! A minit longer and I'd lie there for ever. Well! the Brahmins are a wonderful far-sighted people! An' to think of paintin' Tralee Bay and the Hawk's Glen of Owenbeg on the moon! 'Tis like foretellin' the 'clipses, or seein' the stone that fell from the sky in Tipperary eleven years ago-too much to believe if one could help it."

"Nothin' is impossible to God, Murtagh," said his comrade; "an' it's a sin to disbelieve one's own eyes an' ears. Budt you nivir tould me of your 'scape in the Black Pool Why? and who pult

you out?"

"Who budt Masther Richard himself (God preserve him, alive or dead!)-dead most likely, as there's no tidin's of him at all at all! As kind and dacent a young gintleman as ever wint to be shot at by the Frinch, or to die of a liver complaint under the broilin' sun. Bud I nivir like to spake of that struggle with the weeds, where my head was stuck in the mud. Ooh! it makes my flesh creep. Don't mintion it, Tom."

speak unob-
asked Tom

As we continued our route, I was doubly anxious to served to Murtagh; and, in pursuance of my plan, O'Sullivan if he had any curiosity to learn his fortune. "Yes avick. I'd be plaased to larn what death I'll die, an' whether I'm to have a dacent funeral, an' who I'll be married to, an' whether I'll have luck in a wife?"

"Well, keep still again for a minute, 'til I stand on your shadow up the death-scene.-I see a troop of horses heavily laden,

and call

of armed men, and a prey of cattle, slowly passing across a mountain moor in the frosty moonlight-an old man's stiff'ning body is borne on his own door by four of the party-"

"I see so much myseff, avick, widthout looking at the moon!" "Hush! or you'Il spoil the picture-The party arrive at their resting place the body is laid out to be waked-a young girl sits at its head-a man who carries a pitchfork and churn-dash tied together, and a box under his arm, sits at its feet to watch it—”

"That's myself and Biddy, poor crathur!"

"The man takes a handful of something white from the box, and lays it on a plate on the breast of the corpse-" ""Tis salt, man!-I have it here."

66

"The keg is broached-the man drinks-all but the girl drink." Very nathral. How could I watch widthout a dhrop? "Hush!-There's a fight amongst the men-the keg is staved in the midst of them-the watcher starts from his seat and flourishes his pitchfork - he strikes amongst the crowd the leader interposes to disarm him, and is stabbed by the pitchfork-he draws a pistol and shoots the rioter, who falls dead on the corpse he had been watching. The body, warm and bleeding, is flung into a bog-hole, and covered in without a sign of prayer or a stone to mark it."

"By Gor, that's a cruel ugly picthur entirely," said Tom, as we resumed our march, "an' its too thrue! I niver could bear the whiskey! An' so I'm a dead man afore the watchin' is over and the wake begun! It's a mighty hard fate this of mine,-bad luck to the whiskey, and the captain that's so ready at his trigger! We must all die budt to be thrown half-alive into a bog-hole widthout wake or mass!-by the powers, I won't stand it, an' so you may tell the moon and the saints above!'

:

"Were you at your duty' lately, Tom?"

"Not since last Easter, Murtagh, at the station at Farnaford. Where's the use of goin' whin Father Bryan tould me that I must forgive ivery one, good an' bad? An' tho' I promised to forgive an' forget every mother's son, except that bloody ould Palatine Philip Burgess, that took a shot at me unknownst, with his long Queen Ann, an' swore agin me after for running away-yet he wouldn't absolve me. An' tho' I made oath on the holy Evangelists to bear no ill will to the foreign thief after I'd taken one shot at him-only one, hit or miss-yet Father Bryan wouldn't forgive me, or let God forgive me; so its no use goin."

Try him agin, Tom, dear; who knows what you may be able to do wid the fear of the bog-hole before your eyes, and the fear of God in your heart beside. An' sure there's Father Maurice that will be at Abbyfeale this blessed night, that I'd rather confess to than to Dr. Troy himself. An' while your goin' there you'll be out o' the way of mischief; and whin you get there, you can fill the 'bacca-box again. There's the path to the left, down-hill all the way, by the banks of the Feale."

66

By the pow'rs, that's thrue!" cried Tom, slapping his thigh. "I'll leave this dash an' salt-box at the first cabin 'til I return to yees

The sacrament of Auricular Confession in the Roman Catholic Church.

And

at the Fraughan Rock.-Say, I ran after a stray sheep." away he went with the speed of one, and was soon out of sight. "Murtagh O'Leary!" I exclaimed; "do you forget your fosterbrother Richard?"

The poor fellow threw off his table, threw himself on my neck, pressed me and the spinning-wheel to his heart, and finally upset us both in his ecstacy.

"Oh! Masther Richard!" cried he, picking me up; "is this yourseff come back to uz at last? It's myseff that longed to see you, an' it's the mother of uz, that'll be proud and happy. (Sure I'll carry the wheel myseff.) Budt, whisht!-Don't let on for your life who you are; and don't know me or the mother at all at all. You're safe while you're not suspected."

66

You fear my fellow-prisoner, Skibbereen ?"

Aye! budt he's no more a prisoner than myseff." "Nor the Scotchman?

You'll see

Have neither

"Hush! He's no more a Scotchman than you are. an' hear enough soon-budt don't speak to him. hand, act, or part, in his sayings or doings; or we may niver bring you down alive from the moors to the gay ould father an' mother at Castle-Diarmid."

We now found ourselves on the brink of a steep declivity, from which we could survey a moorland valley of the wildest character. We were journeying northward, and while the opposing mountain masses basked in unbroken moonlight that revealed every undulation of their surface, our descending path lay through comparative darkness. The new view which opened on us was so truly picturesque that I laid down my spinning-wheel to admire it, and forgot for a while, in the beauties, the dangers of the scene. Both sides of the valley were covered with heath, excepting where torrents had torn away the moory soil in perpendicular furrows,-leaving exposed seams of rugged rocks, more bare and isolated towards the depths of the glen, where all the ravines united to form a scene well suited to impress the mind with images, alternately "terrible as the waves and sterile as the desert." Ön the opposite range the heathy surface that lay unscathed between the torrent tracks had received a various colouring from the frost that heightened the interest of the scene. Near the sheltered bottom, the brown tints of autumnal decay still contrasted strikingly with the bleached river-rocks which lay beneath;-but higher on the side, the icy influence of the region became more apparent,-the sombre heathy hues brightened up with snowy smiles,-higher still the moonshine sparkled back to us with irridescent gleams, and highest of all the light was reflected from a crown of unsullied snow.

Whilst gazing on the noble expanse, Murtagh impatiently exclaimed, "Masther Richard! for the love of the Vargin, don't stop gazin' this-a-way! Did you never hear of the faries of Mullogharierk, an' how they entrance people to stay admirin' fallin' stars an' rainbows that they freeze to the hill side, till they steal away the sowl and the sinses thro' the eyes, an' leave the corpses of unfortunates cold and stiff;-to be brought home in the mornin' on a door, like poor Luke Lenahan (God be marciful to him!); an'

'tis little use getting masses said for a sowl in fairy land. (Lord save uz! this is Friday night!) Sure I met my own second cousin Tim Bantry, the herd, out one night that he had been hunting for sheep all over Mullagharierk ;--he'd just sat down for a while on the snow to rest himseff an' admire the face of a rock that shone with ice, as he thought, on the opposite hill,-but 'twas a looking-glass that the good people had set up to blind his eyes; (Masther Richard dear! I wouldn't spake of this on such a night, if I didn't care more for you nor myseff;) — an' there I found him so spell-bound that I couldn't rouse him; -an' when I took him on my back an' brought him home, and brought him to with snuff an' pottheen an' warm blankets, we found that the good people had taken the life out of his ten toes! I suppose if I hadn't carried him off then, he'd have lost every thing one after another. Plase follow me, Sir, before the

cattle come to trample the frost into puddle."

The party had hitherto crossed the mountain in separate paths, every one choosing the best he could find for himself or his horse; now the steep and broken descent obliged all, except the incorrigible sheep and their whipper-in, to wind their toilsome way in single file down the bed of one of the torrent paths. The water was reduced to a thread at present, tho' a broad gravelly space, thro' which it trickled, bore testimony to the magnitude of its flood at other seasons. By stepping over the little stream at every two or three perches, sometimes walking in it between narrow rocks, and occasionally ascending the banks to avoid accompanying the water in its miniature rapids and cascades, we all contrived to convey our loads and bodies unbroken to the bottom. We then crossed the main stream, the cattle, thro' a shallow pool that fell over the edge of its lower boundary into the ugliest looking chasm that ever moonshine failed to illuminate, the men over gigantic stepping stones that stood in row, like ill-assorted human double-grinders with gaps between. Turning up the stream for a little way, we found ourselves on the first road that in any respect deserved the name. It ran along the tops of those naked crags which I had descried from the heights, imprisoning the diminutive river within their huge blockade, an infant playing in a giant's grasp.

"Aye, Sir!" said Murtagh, to whom I pointed out the apparent disproportion; "'tis so just now,-but wait till the thaw an' the spring rains come! not a stone in the Feale's broad bed will be left uncovered! "Twill be one tangled skein of dark red water an' dancin' foam as white as snow, as far as you can see above and below. When a thunder shower falls in June, the stream swells in five minutes to such a height that those caught in the rain at either side must stay in it, or venture a leap across one of the three rapids where the waters run at a hell of a rate, an' whirl along loose stones like so many corks;-an' each pass is worst of the three for somethin' or other. The edges of the rock at the Divil's hop' (that looks for all the world like a bridge wantin' a few kay-stones) are as slippy as glass in the rain-then the sheep-trap' slopes down at both sides to the chink in the middle, so that, tho' its an easy leap, one must run with full force down the face of one rock to be carried up at the opposite side, or back he sliddhers like pottheen down a