Front matter (continued 3)

The girl resisted for a time, but finally, when she felt a large drop splash on her nose, her fears for her finery triumphed over her native modesty, and she let herself be persuaded against her will. Paddy calmly 'tossed' the loose stone wall, making a gap of a height sufficient to let her pass over it, and they took refuge under the ruined gable of an old church beside the road. The bracken grew thickly up to the foot of the crumbling wall; the overhanging ivy cast them into deep shadow.

'Ah, quit,' exclaimed the girl presently, in a tone half-angry, half-alarmed. 'Quit now, I'm tellin' ye. What for are ye squeezin' me so tight? For the love av Mary, Paddy darlin,' what are ye doin'? I didn't think it av ye,' and her voice died away in a murmur of passion.

When the shower was over, they rose and resumed their journey in silence, walking apart, one on the grass on either side, with the roadway between them.

When they had thus travelled a mile, the girl said timidly,—

'Pathrick.'

'Ay.'

'It's my turn to confess to Father Brady come Sunday.'

For another five minutes there was a silence, then the man said shamefacedly,—

'Norah.'

'Ay.'

'There's no call to say nothin' to the praste about yon. I'll tell him to call us for the first time in chapel on Sunday. Come an' giv us a kiss, darlin', an' make frinds agin. Troth it's all wan, whin we jine to be married so soon.'

PART II

THE BROTHERS

'Thramp it out, Paddy, thramp it out, ye scutt ye. D'ye call that buildin' a haycock? Putt a good head ahn it. Av ye lave the hay loose yon road at the edges, the first skift av rain will get in ondher it, an' go right to the heart av it, an' ye'll be havin' the whole clamjaffrey hatin' on us.'

'Ah! houl yer whisht, ye long-tongued divil, Mick. Give us a dacent lock at a time, an' don't go pokin' the fork in me eye. Ye nearly had me desthroyed yon time.'

'Fwhat for are ye buildin' it ahl crucked now? Ye've guv it a tilt to the North like a thrawler in a shkite av wund or a load of turf in a shough.'

'An' why for no, ye cantankerous owl' shkibareen. I done it for purpose, the way it might lane agin the blast that comes up them hollys. Av ye put a prop or two ondher it, it'll be as firrum as a house.'

'To blazes wi' ye, Paddy; ye've got too many consates in yer head ahlthegither. Make the butt livil and stiddy an' the top straight an' ye can't betther it. It's temptin' Providence ye are to send a lock of wund from behin' an' toss it on us.'

'Providence is it? Gahn! kape a civil tongue betune yer teeth. Ye have too much to say for yerself be half. Build a cock is it? Yous as can hardly tell a cock from a bull's fut. Stan' from ondher till I slither down.'

'Where's the ropes now? I'll hold ye that ye niver twisted them, an' divil a thrahook on the groun' to do it wid, nor so much as a sally rod to make wan.'

'Now ye're too fast enthirely, Mick. The ropes is ondher the wee grass cock at yer fut. Go to the other side an' catch a hoult av the ind when I toss it to ye. Are ye ready? Make it tight. Ah! lift man, can't ye? Put yer shouldher into it. An' now agin for the other wan. That's well done anyway.'

'What matther to have yon wee taste saved, when there's half av an acre shuck out, an' a whole wan in the swathe, an' it lukin' like a shtorrum av rain ev'ry minute.'

'Now quit lamentin'. God sees ahl, an' it's time to knock aff for dinner. It must be well ahn to one o'clock, the sun's straight over the tower an' the hill. Shtrike yer graip in the groun' an' come an' down to the well.'

'It's well ye minded to bring the dinner itself. I wouldn't putt it past ye to forgit even that. Where war ye last night? At the spriggin' camp, I'll be boun', stravaguin' about afther them girls.'

'Ay, divil a where else. But I'll be accountable to no man for me goin's.'

'There's no call to flare up now. It only shows ye've bin coortin' that Norah Sheehan agin, an' afther I've towl ye times out av' min' I won't have it. Maybe ye'll tell me where ye intind to putt her whin ye've got her.'

'You to hell with yer havin's. There's room in the house for ahl, an' I can arn bread for both av us. We're to be called in chapel come Sunday, so there.'

'Room in my house, divil a hate! An' where ud I be, I'd like to know?'

'Your house—I like that whin me father lift it betune us on his last deathbed. An' who's got a better right to live in it than me own wife an' no beholdin' to yous?'

'Ay, that's right enough betwixt us two, but not when other folks is by. Ye've got to prove it. I'm yer eldher brother, an' it's ahl mine be rights. Where's the paper ye have to show for it? an' my wurrud's as good as yours an' betther, so putt that in yer pipe an' smoke it.'

'You chatin' hound, you thry to best me out av me fair rights, an' I'll be the death av ye, so I will.'

'Them's nice wurruds to use to yer eldher brother, ye onnathural young limb. Though I wouldn't put it past ye to murdher me; ye've thried it before now. D'ye mind the day ye threw me aff of the cliff? But whether or no, divil a fut will that girl putt in my house. It's bin a respectable house up to now; an' if ye thry to bring her to it, out ye'll both go, you an' your trollope.'

'Say that wurrud agin, ye scutt. Say it agin, I darr you.'

'Ay, I'll say it as aften as I like, an' I say agin now to yer face, that neither you nor yer trollope will ever set fut on flure of mine from this out.'

'Then take that, ye ignorant fule. Ye wud have it. Maybe it'll larn ye to kape a still tongue in yer head,' shouted Paddy. In his rage the landscape swam blood-red before his gaze, he plucked the hay-fork from the ground behind him, and plunged it into his brother's chest. The sharp steel prongs drove through bone and muscle with a grinding sound, and stood out a handsbreadth behind his back. The base stopped with a thud against the breast-bone. There was a shrill scream, the scream with which the strong man's soul rends itself apart from the body; he rocked and swayed for a moment, and fell stiffly upon his back, his arms outspread. The handle of the fork stood erect, vibrating in the dead man's chest.

The young man put out his hand to grasp it, but it started away from him with a tremor, and he leaped backward, thinking it had come to life. What was that word? Murder. It appeared to be written in letters of brass across the heavens, and all the hills around were thundering it in his ears. For a long time he stood there with his eyes fixed straight in front of him, and the perspiration pouring in streams from his body.

'He dhruv me to it,' he muttered; 'he dhruv me to it.'

It had been coming to this for a long time between the brothers, though neither of them had seen it. The nagging tongue of the elder and the uncontrolled temper of the younger made them an ill-assorted pair. Once in boyhood Paddy, in a fit of anger, had pushed his brother off a cliff into the sea, and in an agony of contrition had leapt off after him. Neither was hurt by the fall, and they swam contentedly together to land, and there fought till neither of them could stand. Since then it had gradually been getting worse. A word and a blow was a daily occurrence between them, and latterly the blow was dealt with whatever instrument came handy. It had come to be only a question of sufficient provocation and a deadly enough weapon, and that was bound to happen which had now happened. This time no remorse would avail. His brother had gone where he could not follow him.

As the young man stood there beside his dead brother, a dull strange sense of the injustice of it all began to rise and swell in his bosom. He couldn't understand it. An ordinary quarrel, resulting in not quite the ordinary way, and two lives were sacrificed and a third ruined forever. God help poor Norah! It was not fair. What good did it do to any one? and why had he and Norah been selected for this thing to happen to?

After a long time he woke from his trance with a start, and keeping his eyes carefully turned from the pool of blood that was slowly drying in front of him, he ran swiftly to the house, as though to escape some temptation that was behind him. Quickly he put the horse in the cart, and standing up in it, drove at full speed to the town. Down the hill of the main street he rattled, as one of the neighbors said, 'as if the devil was behind him,' and pulled up with a jerk at the doctor's door.

'Docther dear, hurry for the love av God,' he said; 'ye're wanted badly out at Michaelstown, there's a man kilt.'

Then he walked across the road to the police station opposite, and said to the sergeant in charge, 'Me an' me brother was havin' wurruds in the three-cornered field behind the house, an' I've shtuck the graip into him. I'm thinkin' it's kilt him I have, an' I've come to giv' meself up.'

ORANGE AND GREEN

The crowd surged and muttered. It was extraordinarily still for an Irish mob. No man spoke to his neighbor, but all kept their eyes steadfastly fixed on the vanishing lines of the railway; nevertheless, through the whole mass there ran the troubled undertone, the uneasy stir of a ground-swell in the Atlantic. Every minute men came dropping in by twos and threes and took their places in the serried ranks, till the cut leading to the railway station of Lisnamore was packed from end to end with two banks of solid humanity, leaving a broad avenue down the middle. Each man, as he fell into his place, bent his eyes upon the horizon, and assumed the same attitude of tense and feverish expectation.

It was the twelfth of July, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. The manufacturers of the distant town of Belrush had selected the Northern day of rejoicing to give a holiday to their mill-hands, and by some unlucky chance the workmen had chosen to spend the day by the seaside at Lisnamore. Two train-loads of them were coming—six hundred Catholics and six hundred Protestants. So the Catholics of Lisnamore and the surrounding districts were now assembled in their thousands to express their disapprobation of the indecent presence of Orangemen in their town upon that day. Every fist held an ash-plant or a blackthorn stick, and every pocket was filled with jagged pieces of limestone.

Suddenly a rumor—a whisper—flashed down the ranks and died out like a sigh: 'The polis.'

The rhythm of disciplined feet crept upon the ear; and the dark-green tunics and brown rifle-barrels of the Royal Irish Constabulary rounded the corner and came into view. Amid a silence of death they marched steadily up the centre of the avenue—twenty-four stalwart men and their officer—and behind them rode the resident magistrate on his big roan horse.

Straight up the cut they strode, until they reached the mouth of the station-yard, and then came the order sharp and decisive,—

'Right wheel!—Halt!—Front turn!—'Tention!—Ready!—Fix swords!—With buckshot—Load!'

The policemen were now between the crowd and their approaching victims. The two lines of glittering bayonets rose aloft in the sunlight; and as the snap of the rifle breeches ceased upon the sullen air, the magistrate raised his voice and said in a dry, official tone,—

'I call upon this meeting to disperse.'

No one moved.

The magistrate then took off his hat, and, looking intently into the crown of it, proceeded to read the Riot Act, which he had printed on the lining. He gabbled through his duty with a meaninglessness born of frequent repetition.

When he had ended, the crowd laughed. But it was an ugly laugh, with the sough of a winter storm through it.

Fitzgerald, swift to recognize the temper of a mob, and loth to begin a conflict which, once started, no man might say how it would end, glanced hastily round him.

His eyes were attracted by an unexpected sight, and remained fixed. Round the corner of the road furthest from the station came a pair of horse's ears, and they were decked with orange lilies.

A big man standing opposite Fitzgerald in the crowd, the centre of a group of men in dark-blue jerseys, who looked like fishermen, followed the direction of his gaze, and exclaimed,—

'Troth, I wudn't be the man what's behin' them orange lilies for somethin'. The boys will tear him limb from limb.'

Slowly the ears lengthened into the shape of a fat cob, foreshortened by the turn, which paced sleepily along regardless of the throng; he drooped his head, overcome by the noon-day heat, and shook it from time to time at the flies, with a rattle of his bit. Behind the cob came a small phaeton, and in the phaeton was sitting a young girl; she carried a knot of orange ribbons on her whip, and in her breast a cluster of the lilies.

As the girl drove deliberately forward, she flashed indignant glances from side to side. Abreast of her, along the face of the rows, there wavered a ripple, as though each man had a mind to hide himself behind his neighbor's back.

'Holy Mother! it's Miss Kitty,' ejaculated the big man.

'Miss Desmond,' said Fitzgerald, with a gasp of relief.

Kitty Desmond was the daughter of the vicar of the town, and in spite of being a Protestant, was beloved by the peasantry for miles around. Even more than by the assistance she was always the first to render them and their wives, she was endeared to the men by her beauty, her high spirits, and her winning manner. She knew every man, woman, and child by name upon the countryside, and always had a friendly word and a cheerful smile for them. She was loved by the women, but the men worshipped her. She had an absolute recklessness and abandonment of temperament which dominated them. For, except when supported by others, your peasant is prone to be cautious. She was the only soul in the town that thoroughly knew them, and the only one that dared to cross them in their blackest moods. In fact, she was at heart a coquette, with the fearlessness of a coquette. She did not disdain to practise her fascinations upon the meanest of them all. She knew her power and enjoyed it, and they enjoyed it too.

She halted her pony now opposite the police force, and, standing up in the carriage, addressed the mob in her cheerful, audacious tones.

'Now, then, boys, you needn't think that I don't know what you are doing here; for I do. And what you've got to do is to go straight home. So, go!'

There was an automatic movement in the crowd, as the habit of obedience to her asserted itself, and for a moment the meeting was on the point of dissolving. But then the sullenness of their temper returned upon them: the men stood fast, shuffled their feet doggedly, and upon their brows gathered the brooding obstinacy of the Celtic character.

Kitty watched the success of her experiment flicker and die out. Then the blood surged hotly over her face and neck. She was not used to having her influence questioned, and here where it was needed, as it had never been needed before, it had failed. She was General enough to recognize that her best chance lay in a direct command. She had staked all upon a single throw—and lost.

She knew better than anybody there, even than Fitzgerald himself, the danger of the mood that could make these men resist her, and she grew sick with apprehension. For she could see no possibility now of averting a great riot, in which probably many lives would be sacrificed. For herself, she did not stop to fear, and at least she would utilize her woman's privilege and give them a piece of her mind.

As these thoughts flashed through her brain, she stood upright, still leaning upon her whip; then she began to speak again, but this time her voice was cutting, and her face was white and scornful,—

'And you call yourselves men?' she said; 'you gather here with sticks and stones, and lie in wait for unarmed and unsuspecting holiday-makers. If they were as many as you are, you wouldn't dare to touch them. You never have the pluck to fight unless you are two to one, or get the chance of kicking a man when he is down. If you want to fight fairly, why don't you throw away those sticks and stones, and use your fists like men? But you don't want a fair fight, not you. Shall I tell you what I think of you? I think you are mean, cowardly savages!'

She left off, gasping, with the tears of indignation in her throat, and a hoarse threatening murmur rose vaguely round her.

'Oh, you needn't think I am afraid of you, you miserable idiots,' she said, with infinite scorn. 'I only hope they'll—they'll knock hell out of you,' and she stamped her foot viciously.

'Ah, be aisy now, Miss Kitty,' implored the big man; 'shure, the boys are only afther a bit ov fun.'

'And is that you, Dan Murphy? You hulking scoundrel, and you dare to look me in the face? What business have you here, I should like to know?'

'Troth, Miss, I'd like nahthin' better nor to be ahlways lookin' you in the face. For it's fine an' purthy,' declared the giant, skilfully turning her flank.

Kitty's heart was softened by the blarney of the good-natured fisherman amid the prevailing rebellion of her subjects; she got out of the phaeton, and walking up to him, laid her hand upon his sleeve, and said,—

'Now, Dan, dear Dan, you'll get them to go away, won't you, for my sake?'

She looked up at him with a pleading gaze in the violet eyes beneath their fringe of long, dark lashes, eyes that had melted many a stouter heart than poor Dan Murphy's.

'Ah, now, Miss Kitty darlin',' he stammered, 'ye know that it's yersilf can do more wid the boys than any wan bar the praste, an' he's not here the day; foreby, he's backin' them up. Divil a hate wud they heed me. They'd as soon ate me as luke at me if I crossed them.'

'Dan, you're just a soft lump,' she spat the words at him spitefully, and returned to her seat.

Seeing that her mediation had failed, Fitzgerald now came forward and said, 'I am afraid this is no place for you, Miss Desmond, and I shall have to ask you to go home, if you don't mind.'

'But I do mind,' she replied pettishly; 'I'm going to stop here.'

'But,' said the D. I. perplexed, 'you can't. You forget what a difficult position you are putting me in. If any harm happens to you, your father will hold me responsible. And your presence here hampers me in the performance of my duty. For God's sake, be reasonable,' he concluded in despair.

'I am reasonable,' she replied in a defiant voice, 'perfectly reasonable. I don't stir afoot from here. If those brutes want to throw stones, they must stone me too. And if you want to shoot them, you must shoot me too.'

'But this is absurd,' replied the officer, angrily taking hold of her horse's head to turn it; 'I insist upon your leaving this at once.'

At his action a murmur arose from the listening crowd, and two or three voices cried menacingly,—

'Quit a hoult ov her, or we'll make yous. Ye can just let her be.'

She was their idol, and though, like all savage worshippers, they might trample her under foot themselves in the heat of their fury, meanwhile they would let no one else touch her.

Fitzgerald turned his eyes upon them, and regarded them tranquilly; it was no part of his policy to precipitate a conflict before it was absolutely necessary. Once it began, he knew that his handful of men would be immediately swamped. Meanwhile there were all the chances of the fickleness of an Irish mob, and every chance counted. But, on the other hand, it would be absolutely fatal to let them imagine he was afraid of them. He said to Kitty disgustedly,—

'Very well, I wash my hands of you entirely,' and strode gloomily back to his men. Then he drew his forces a little further off. She would be safer by herself.

Once more every one settled down to wait. A strained hush prevailed. The midges buzzed round the horse's ears. No sound broke the stillness but the rattle of a bit, the clink of a cleaning-rod, or the grinding of a rifle-stock in the roadway as a policeman shifted his position, except the vague rustle that is inseparable from the breathing of a great multitude of men. The white limestone dust, ground into powder beneath so many feet, hung in a halo about their heads; throats grew dry and parched; and close packed beneath the sweltering heat of the sun the crowd began to give up the strong odor of humanity. And still the train tarried.

At last it was more than ten minutes late, and a faint sprout of hope began to push its head into Fitzgerald's thoughts. He had telegraphed to the excursionists at the junction that the town was up, and advised them to return home. Perhaps they had taken his advice.

Hardly was the hope born before it was destroyed. A jet of smoke spouted upon the horizon; a cry went up of 'Here she comes;' and the grip upon ash-plants and blackthorns tightened.

'Mother av Moses,' said Dan, 'but yon's a powerful long thrain. There's two injins till it, wan in the middle. Av them's ahl Orangemin we'll cop a most thremenjeous hammerin'.'

The train steamed deliberately into the station, and behind the gates of the barrier there rose the clamor of many voices, and the tread of innumerable feet. Gradually the confusion died down, words of command could be heard, and the procession could be felt arranging its order.

Outside every man held his breath. There was only one question now left to decide. Would this first train contain the Protestant or the Catholic contingent?

Every mouth was opened, and every arm was raised—to shout if the green banner came forth, to cast if it were orange.

The gates were thrown open wide. And out of them came two banners. And one of them was green, and one was orange.

In the silence the clash of teeth could be heard, as the jaws of the crowd snapped with disappointment. But the arms still remained threateningly aloft.

Kitty drew her pony to one side, and the ranks of police parted in the midst and fell back upon either hand.

Down the centre of the avenue the bearers of the green and orange banners marched shoulder to shoulder, their eyes fixed vacantly on the horizon. Behind them came eight fife players; every alternate man had a green favor on his breast, and every alternate man an orange favor; they looked steadfastly in front of them, and strode forward with their heads on one side tootling for all they were worth. Next came two big drums; and one was decked with orange streamers, and one with green; the drummers walked side by side, and banged each more lustily than the other. Then more fifes and kettledrums, and lastly came the procession. Twelve men abreast with linked arms, green alternating with orange, with the even tramp of an army they marched resolutely forward, and looked neither to the right hand nor to the left.

The feeling of townsmanship had triumphed over religious difference; the two trains had joined; and the two processions had come forth mingled in one. To harm the Protestants now it would be necessary to attack the Catholics; and the two together made a formidable mouthful.

Still in dead silence down the centre of the avenue they went. And the mood of the crowd wavered to this side and to that. But when the banners had nearly reached the head of the cut, that sense of humor which is never far distant from an Irish mob rose to the surface, and a great wave of laughter broke and surged down the banks of men.

High above the tumult rose the roar of Dan's great bass,—

'Troth, they have the laugh ov us this time anyway. Three cheers for the Belrush boys.'

The crowd yelled, then broke and rushed in upon the procession, and smote the band upon the back until it had no breath left in it, and carried it away to have a drink. And they all trooped off to the shebeens and public-houses, orange and green together, and got royally drunk after their kind.

But now that the crisis was safely past, Kitty sat in her phaeton and wept as though her heart would break.

ANDY KERRIGAN'S HONEYMOON

'There's Andy Kerrigan, the crathur, in the yard,' said Anne the cook. 'He lukes just starved wid the could, an' it an Aist wind that ud cut ye in two, an' him just afther buryin' his wife the day.'

'Well, take him into the kitchen and give him some dinner,' said I, seeing what was expected of me.

'Did ye ever hear him tell how he come to jine an' marry her?' she asked, lingering at the door.

'No.'

'Thin ax him to tell yous. It's worth hearin'. For he's a cure all out, so he is,' and she departed.

Andy Kerrigan was a half-witted creature, a kind of handy man about town. He hung about the steps of the hotel, and did odd jobs, cleaned cars, and drove them occasionally when he got any one to trust him with a horse. Before her death his wife had taken in washing, and they rubbed along together in a hand-to-mouth style, which is not uncommon in Ireland, by the help of a little charity and an occasional relapse upon the 'Poor-house' when times were hard.

When I entered the kitchen a quarter of an hour later, I found Andy just finishing his dinner. He had a large bag of Indian meal beside him, and was sitting on a three-legged stool inside the wide open chimney-place in front of the turf fire upon the hearth; the hard black turves standing perpendicularly in serried rows sent forth a grateful heat.

'A power ov thanks to ye, sirr,' he said, 'for as good a male as iver I ate, an' may ye niver come to want yersilf. Your wans was always kind to the poor: many's the dinner I've had in this same kitchen, an' many's the day's whitewashin' I done till it,' he added, looking significantly at the smoke-blackened walls. For your Irish peasant never misses the opportunity of a stroke of business.

'Here's some tobacco for you,' I said hastily, to turn the subject, handing him a plug of Irish twist.

'Thank ye kindly,' said Andy, and at once bit a corner of it off and shoved it in his cheek.

'Don't you smoke?' I inquired.

'I do, I smokes an' I chaws. But chawin''s best. It's both smoke an' mate; a taste o' tabacca stays the stummick more nor anythin' else ye cud mintion. Many's the long day's wurrk I done on a plug o' that same twist.'

'And where did you get the bag of meal, Andy?'

'Ah, that, is it? Troth the Crowner gave it to me. Ye see it was this road. Me an' Mary Anne, that's my wife, was a wee bit happy-'like 't is a fortnight come Sathurday, an' we come to wurrds, an' I just putt her out av the dure an' left her there, an' it sames she caught a could an' niver rightly got the betther ov it. For she died o' Monday. An' the Crowner's jury they sat on her, an' tould me I was a crool husband; but I niver mint no harrum, it was just a bit ov fun. But the Crowner he sint me the bag o' male afther the funeral the day. They-do be say in' that in his house the gray mare's the betther harse, but I know nahthin' about that. On'y he sent me the bag o' male, so he did.'

'Yes, I heard you had lost your wife. That's sad news. You'll miss her greatly, I'm afraid,' I said, seeing that my scruples were wasted, and I needn't trouble to avoid the subject. The poor like to dilate upon their woes.

'Troth will I,' replied Andy with a heavy sigh, 'I don't know what I'll do widout her. She cud boil spuds wid any wumman I iver seen, cud she. An' there's more nor me that will miss her, now I'm tellin' ye; the town will be hard put to it for their washin', I'm thinkin'. Oh deary me, I'll niver git anuther wumman to come up to her, I'll niver git another Mary Anne.'

'I'm afraid not,' I assented, looking at the bent and wizened figure of the old man; then I continued, 'But I hear there's a story about your marriage. What is it?'

'Ah, there's none ava,' he protested, evidently pleased; 'it's nahthin' whatever, but I'll tell it ye. It was in the days when I was young an' soople. Ah, the days whin we was young, the days whin we was young, there's nahthin' to aqual thim. I'd just got me discharge from the militia at Lifford, an' I came prancin' into town fit for anythin' from murther to chuck-farthin'; there was nahthin' I cudn't do. I had a whole pun note in me fist, an' a consate of mesilf that I wudn't ha called the Quane me ant.

'Well, I come clattherin' down the Back Street goin' to buy the town wid me pun note, whin who did I see but Mary Anne Murphy drivin' the cows out ov Mrs. Flanigan's byre. She had no shawl to her head, an' her feet was as bare as the day she was born, an' I won't be sayin',' he added, with a reminiscent twinkle in his eye, 'that she was overly an' above clane. But the red hair of her—Ah, man, it blazed like the whins on all the hills on Bonfire Night!

'An' the notion just tuk me, an' I says to her, says I, "Good morra to ye, Mary Anne Murphy, will ye marry me?"

'"Do ye mane it?" she said.

'"To be sure I do," says I. "Why for no?"

'"Sartin sure I will," she says, says she.

'So she sput in her han' an' hel' it out to me, an' aff we wint togither to find the praste, an' left the cows to stravague aff to the field their own swate way.

'Father O'Flatherty he was havin' his breakfast whin we come in, an' I says to him, "Good-morra to you, Father, we're come to be marrit."

'"Marrit," he says; he was takin' a drink ov tay at the time, an' he splutthers it ahl over the flure. "Git out wid yer practical jokin' makin' me choke over me tay. Git out ov my house before I take me horsewhip to ye both."

'"Ah be aisy now, Father," says I, "it's not jokin' we are. We're in sober arnest."

'"Is it argy wid me, yer own parish praste, ye wud, ye onnathral varmint. I tell ye, I'll not marry ye, an' that's flat."

'"Thin be the powers," says I, "marrit or not marrit, I'll live wid Mary Anne, an' she'll live wid me, an' you'll be the cause of immorality an' scandal in the parish. Ye wull, won't you, Mary Anne?" says I.

'"I wull," says she, grinnin' ahl roun' her head.

'"Ye two divils," says the praste girnin' at us, "for that's just what ye are. Ye'll be sorry for this day, I promise you. I'll marry you, an' I cudn't wish worse to neither of you, for I don't know which is the warst. Ye're both as mad as leppin' sterks, but it's betther maybe to mix the blood nor spoil two dacint stocks. The Lord sind ye won't have no childher," says he, the ould haythin, an' we niver did to this day.

'So thin he calls the sexton, an' the foor of us proceeds to the chapel roun' the corner, an' us two was marrit.

'"Thank ye kindly, your Riverence," says I, "an' what may I be owin' ye for the job?"

'"Twenty-five shillin'," says he.

'"An' how many shillin' is there in a pun?"

'"Twenty," says he.

'"Mother av Moses," says I, "but mathrimony's the egsthravagint business all out. Here's me pun note, it's ahl I have in the wurrld, an' I'm thinkin' I'll have to be owin' ye the other five shillin'!"

'"Ah, I'll forgive it ye this time," says he. "But don't come here axin' to be marrit no more. I've had enough of ye."

'"Ahl right, yer Riverence," says I, an' out me an' Mary Anne goes.

'"An' what will we do now?" says she.

'"I niver thought o' that," says I, "but I s'pose we'd betther go on home to me mother, and see what she'll say to us."

'"D'ye think she'll take us in?"

'"Well, I know she'd be right glad to see me home from the sojerin': she's powerful fond av me, she thinks the sun rises an' sets on me elbow, but I'm not so sartain about yous. But we can only thry; she can't kill us anyway."

'"Where is it?"

'"Five mile out along the mountain road."

'"Luck's till us," says she, an' off we starts. But the further we wint, the more onaisy in me mind I became, till whin we came into the lane that led to the house, I says to Mary Anne—

'"Mary Anne, darlin'," I says, "I think it ull be betther for you to wait outside av the dure, while I break the news gintly. Av me mother's by her lone, it ull be ahl right; but av me sisther's there, too, it's the divil ahl out."

'As luck wud have it, the first sight I claps eyes on whin I come in at the dure is me sisther, Casey, sittin' in the chimney corner, the oul' catamaran, an' I knew there'd be wigs an' the green before ahl was done.

'"Arrah, Andy, me jewel, an' is it yersilf?" says me mother runnin' an throwin' her arms round me neck; "but it's a brave lad ye've grown, an' it's right welcome ye are home from the sojerin'. Troth it's a sight for sore eyes just to see ye."

'"Yis," says I, "I'm home, an' I'm not alone. I'm marrit. Come in out of that an' show yersilf, Mary Anne."

'Mary Anne came in, an' me mother an' me sisther just lets wan shriek, an' I shouts,—

'"Run, Mary Anne, run for yer life."

'They turned and grabbed the two three-legged stools they was settin' on, an' me an' Mary Anne cleared the flure wid wan lep, an' was out an' away down the back lane as hard as we cud tear, an' them two weemin gallopin' afther us an' screaming like hell's delight. But me an' Mary Anne was young an' soople, an' we ran like hares till we came to the edge of the bog. And thin I says,—

'"Houl' an," I says, "let me go first," an' I tuk the path across the bog that lay betwixt two big bog-holes.

'Well, me sisther, bein' the younger, comes first to the edge of the bog, an' she was that blind wid fury she cudn't see where she was goin', an' whin she come to the first bog-hole souse she goes intil the middle of it neck over crop, an' I caught a sight of her legs goin' up in the air wid the tail ov me eye, an' down I sits, an' thought I'd ha shplit.

'Well, whin we was sore wid laffin, we wint on back to the town, an' the last we saw of the pair of thim Casey was lyin' wid her arms on the bank of the bog-hole an' me mother haulin' at her ahl she was fit to dhrag her out.

'But whin we came to the town it was dhrawin' near han' night, an' there was the greatest goin's on iver ye seen. We was met at the head of the town by a crowd of the boys that was out lukin' for us; for the praste had tould on us, and they'd been sarchin' iverywhere for the bride an' bridegroom, they said.

'So they took an' cheered us, an' carried us roun' the town. An' they had the town band behind us, wid wan big dhrum an' six little wans, an' fourteen flutes, an' they banged and tootled till they cudn't bang nor tootle no more, an' the street boys yelled, and the dogs yelped, an' there was a noise thro' the town ye cudn't hear yersilf spake for the best part of an hour. Glory be! it was a weddin' fit for a king,' and the old man spat reflectively into the fire, as he looked back upon that crowning moment of his life.

'An' whin it was ahl over, "Mary Anne, honey," says I, "I'm hung-ry; I haven't had nahthin' to eat the day since me brackfast, an' that graspin' oul' praste has copped ahl me money, have ye iver a pinny?"

'"Divil a thraneen," says she, "but just wan ha'penny."

'"A power o' use that is to stay two hung-ry stummicks upon," says I, "but I tell ye what. We'll do things in style the night if we niver did before nor since. We'll have an illumination to light the way to our bridal couch."

'So we bought two farthin' candles, and wint to slape in the hay in Mrs. Flanigan's byre.'

'On the principle,' said I, 'of qui dort, dine.'

But that remark was lost upon Andy.

A PAUPER'S BURIAL

'Oul' Shan the Pote,' as the townsfolk called him, was a descendant in the direct male line of Shan O'Neill, the great rebel of Queen Elizabeth's day. He had a fine pedigree, but little else; for of all the possessions of his forefathers, all that remained to him was an old battered, silver punch-ladle and a silver-mounted dirk with a cairngorm in the hilt of it, which the envious-minded amongst his neighbors declared to be a bit of yellow glass. At such insinuations Shan used to wax mightily indignant, showing that he still retained his pride of birth; but on ordinary occasions that feeling was entirely subordinate in him to two others—his belief in his own genius as a poet, and his overflowing love for 'me daughter Kathleen, what's in Australey, the crathur.'

His actual position in the social scale did not quite coincide with his high ancestry and literary pretensions. He was a stone-cutter by trade, and had been for some years at one time in his life in my grandfather's service as odd man. With the partisanship of the Irish peasant, he thought that the latter circumstance made the family in general, and me in particular, his peculiar property, and used to treat us accordingly. When he was a young man, and the sap was still effervescent in him, he had been in the habit of going an occasional 'tear;' and once my grandmother, seeing the recumbent form of a man very drunk sleeping peacefully in the middle of the road in front of the house, and having a vision of carts jolting over him, called in the police to remove him to the lock-up. In the morning it turned out, much to her dismay, that the man she had thus given into custody was Shan, whom she was called upon to go and bail out again. That was the standing joke of his life. Whenever he saw her in his latter days he used to say, 'Ah, now, misthress dear, don't be ang-ery an' go an' give poor oul' Shan up to the polis, bad scran to thim,' and then he cackled vehemently at his own wit.

The last time I saw him was when I was a schoolboy of fifteen home for the holidays. He was then a little thin old man with deep wrinkles in his face, and long wispy gray hair that used to blow round his face in a dishevelled halo. I can see him now ambling along the street of the little town with his eyes fixed straight in front of him, with the inward gaze of the poet and the dreamer; 'moonin' down the road like a jackass wid a carrot in front of his nose,' his persecutors, the street boys, used to call it.

When he was more than usually elated by the recent appearance of some piece of doggerel of his in the poet's corner of the local rag, he would be heard crooning over to himself with a curious kind of sing-song lilt the words of his great poem, that had made his local reputation,—

When I used to point out to him that 'the rustlin' corn' was a pure myth of his imagination, as the cliffs of 'wild Kilcross' were as bleak a place as you would find in 'a month of Sundays,' and that not a blade grew anywhere within a mile of them, he used to reply, 'Ah! whisht now, can't ye? If them wans haven't got the sinse to plant a lock ov oats, is it me as ye'd blame for it? Ahl that the likes av thim has a mind for is shpuds.'

But his favorite haunt where I could always find him at need was in the churchyard under the shadow of the square, ugly tower of the barn-like church, amongst 'the beautiful uncut hair of graves.' At that time he did very little work, and used to spend the greater part of his day there stringing rhymes together, while he renewed the inscriptions upon the old weather-beaten stones, and made them once more legible; for the lapse of time and lichen-growth make those memorials of us in stone hardly more enduring than human life itself. There I used to seek him out with offerings of snuff, to get him to tell me those stories of the ancient grandeur of his race which I loved to hear; for youth has always a tinge of snobbishness, which is at the root of that hero-worship common to all children.

But Shan's mind was fixed on other things. He would parry my inquiries by bringing out a roll of old newspaper cuttings, which he always carried about with him, and use me as an audience for the lack of a better, spreading the precious morsels out on the flat tombstone on which we were sitting, and holding the fluttering paper down with a thumb on each corner as he read them aloud, although he knew every word by heart. Or he would say, as he chipped away at his labor of love with deft strokes of the hammer on the head of his chisel,—

'Tell ye how I knew that oul' ladle really belonged to the great Shan O'Neill, is it? Well, this is the way ov it, d'ye see? Min' the shparks, sonny, or they'll be fly in' in yer eye. While I'm thinkin' ov it, did I iver tell ye the shtory of the road Kathleen an' yours kim to be thegither. It was whin yous was a wee fellah, a weeshan roun' roll of fat in yer perambulator, an' ye kim down to the big meady wan day whin they was puttin' in a shtack of hay; I mind it was the year afore I got the toss off of the cart of hay, an' tuk harrum in me innards, an' I was niver the same man afther; an' ahl the quality from the big house was there havin' a picnic, an' Kathleen she was a bit slip ov a gurl ov thirteen at the time, an' she kim to help carry the tay. Well, yous an' she made great frien's, an' ye rouled in the hay an' covered aich other up till many's the time ye were shtuck be the forkers ahl but. An' whin they tuk yous home in the evenin', Kathleen she started to roar an' to cry afther yous, an' there was no houlin' her; we thried ahl we knew to quiet her, but deil a hate wud she quit, an' her mother was fair moidhered wid her, an' at last she ups an' takes her in unner her shawl, an' walks her ivery fut ov the road up to the big house, an' lan's her in there at ten o'clock ov night, an' she ups an' says, says she, to the misthress, as bowl' as ye plaze, "Mam," says she, "ye've made Kathleen here that conthrairy, yous an' that babby ov yours, that there's no houlin' her. I'm fair broke wid her, so I am. So I've brought her up till ye, an' ye must just kape her, for I can do nothin' wid her." An' the misthress she laughs an' says, says she, "Well, if I must, Biddy, I shuppose I must. Must is a harrud worrud," says she; an' so Kathleen she shtops from that day out in the house an' luks afther yous. I min' well she used to wheel ye in the perambulator, an' many's the time she shpilt ye in the shtreet, but devil a hate did yous care, ye just rouled in the gutter, an' laughed till she picked yous up agin. An' she shtayed as long as yous was there,—she was terrible fond ov yous; it bet ahl iver I see. But when yous was eight year oul', an' she was goin' on near han' twinty, an' a fine han'some soople lass she was too, glory be! They tuk an' sint yous away to school in England, an' she was that lonesome afther yous she was neither to houl' nor to bind, an' she just tuk a notion, an' she ups an' she emigrates to Australey. An' she was there in service for foor year, an' she wint wid wan and wid another, an' no wunner, for she was the purtiest gurl in the foor baronies, an' at last she marries a squatter-fellah out there, an' now I hear tell she has a grand carriage an' servants galore to her back. But she doesn't forgit her oul' daddy, she's not the wan to go for to do that; but she sinds me enough ivery month to kape me at me aise like a lord wid lashins ov tobaccy, an' shnuff, an' tay, an' shugar. But ahl the time she thinks a power ov yous till this minit, more be a dale, I'm thinkin', than ov her oul' man himself, as she calls him. Many's the time she's axed me to go out till her, but I wouldn't lave the oul' place even for her; I'll lay me bones, plaze God, where I spint me youth. May the saints purtect her, and may her children stan' by her as she has stud be her oul' father an' mother.'

At this point in the story the old man always found it necessary to see in which direction the clouds were blowing, and I took diligently to making out the rest of the inscription upon which he was at work. He told his story all in a breath, and always in the same words, as a parrot might, from long habitude. It was the old story of Irish emigration. Sons and daughters, not content with a fare of potatoes and tea and a futureless outlook at home, drift off one by one as they grow up to different parts of America and Australia; there they form new ties, and forget the old folks at home and all they owe them. In this case one of the daughters did not forget her debt; and, as rarely happens in this world, it was the most prosperous and best beloved of all who was thus mindful of her old parents and supported them in their age.

It was seven years before I revisited the sleepy little town, and I had heard nothing of old Shan for a long time. The day after my arrival I went for a drive on a hired car; the Jarvey was the same old character that I remembered from my youth up, but I had outgrown his failing memory; the mare was the same old screw, only a little grayer and scraggier than of old. She was painfully climbing the steep hill just outside the town, when she suddenly stopped in the middle and turned round her head to look at us.

'Ah, luk at that now. She says she's tired, the crathur, an' wud like a rist,' cried her compassionate driver with the familiarity of a privileged class. 'Shure yous is in no hurry. What 'ud ail ye?' and he got down and put a stone behind the wheel to keep the car in position, while we surveyed the view.

Opposite and behind us another hill rose steeply, even more precipitous than the one we were on, which had proved too much for the mare—a green knoll crowned with the gray old church, its summit fenced with the back wall of the churchyard. Along the strip of level ground on the dividing line, from which the twin hills sprang, wound a gray ribbon of dusty road; and as we watched, a singular procession crawled slowly along its length below us. Four old men in the light blue workhouse uniform painfully bore a long oblong black box upon their shoulders; behind them followed two old women, also in light blue. It was a pauper funeral.

'Luk at yon now. Troth, there's a sight ye wudn't see the like ov anywhere outside of the foor baronies, an' mebbe ye might niver see agin,' said the driver, with a complacency in this unique local spectacle evidently bred by the remarks of previous strangers.

As he spoke the procession halted at a stile, from which a footpath sprang straight up the hill to an opening in the shoulder of the churchyard wall: it led to the portion of ground outside 'God's Acre' allotted to those outcasts, who, by venturing to die within the walls of the 'Poorhouse,' forfeited that last right of miserable humanity, a resting-place in consecrated ground.

The old men rested their burden on the stile and grouped themselves round it.

'What are they doing now?' I asked.

And the driver replied, 'They're fittin' the rope till it. Them oul' flitters isn't fit to carry a heavy corp, lit alone the coffin, up yon brae, the crathurs, so they tie a rope till it and dhrag it up.'

The group opened out and resolved itself into its parts as it slowly climbed the hill. First came two old men bent double, each straining at a loop of rope passed over one shoulder and across their chests; behind them jolted the coffin, to which they were harnessed, over the uneven ground; next came the other two men as a relay, ready to relieve their comrades when tired; and behind them the mourners, the two old women.

I now noticed that the path was composed of three parallel lines upon the green sward. On each side was a footway, worn smooth and bare by the feet of the men and the following mourners. In the middle was vaguely outlined a strip less distinct where the grass was beaten down like a pock-marked field of oats after a rainstorm, and was thinned and straggling like the hair upon a head beginning to grow bald. That was the mark where the coffin was dragged.

'Whose funeral is it?' I asked, with a pitying sigh at this outrage upon the dead.

'Oul' Shan O'Neill's,' came the startling answer; 'he was a stone-cutter, and a gran' han' at the pothery; he cud write a pome as fast as another man cud mow a fiel' ov hay. Troth cud he!'

'But I thought his daughter kept him.'

'Holy Post-Office, how did ye come to know that?' exclaimed the driver, in surprise at the unexpected extent of my information; 'that was Kathleen, the wan dacint wan ov the whole bilin'. She kep' him till a year ago. But thin she lost ahl her money in wan ov thim banks in Australey, and the other childher' wudn't give no help, and so the oul' man come on the parish, an' he niver hel' up his head from that day out, and now they're buryin' of him.'

And so the descendant of all the O'Neills was haled at the end of a rope to a pauper's grave.

THE GAUGER'S LEP

There was agitation in Kilcross. For years the fishing industry of the place had been deteriorating. Steam-trawlers owned by English and Scotch firms in Liverpool and Glasgow had gradually come to infest the bay, and tugs came twice a week to relieve them of their takings. The primitive appliances and means of transport of the native fishermen had left them unable to cope with this competition; so that it was with difficulty they could get their fish sold, and often it was left to rot on their hands. Further than that, the huge beams of these new-fangled engines disturbed the bottom of the bay, raked up the spawning beds, and interfered with the habits of generations, so that no man knew where to look next for the fish.

But all that was going to be altered now; the press had taken the matter up and interested itself on behalf of this distressed class; busybodies who saw an opportunity of gaining a cheap notoriety for themselves wrote to the papers and caused questions to be asked in Parliament. The result was that relief works had been undertaken in the shape of a boat-slip, with a jetty to protect it from the weather, and to form a harbor for incoming boats. Up to this time the open beach had been their only landing-place, and dragging the heavy boats, over the rough shingle every time they were launched or taken out of the water had not tended to increase their lasting qualities; while often, when it was at all rough, it was impossible to land at all, and a sandy cove further round the coast had to be sought out. So now, with a placid gratitude to Providence, all Kilcross was sitting on the shore watching the first stone being laid.

For weeks afterwards the new works afforded great employment for eye and tongue to the inhabitants of the little village. In the reunions on the beach or round the fires at night in the cottages, there was no other subject of conversation but 'the gran' new kay;' and when there was nothing else to do, the large square stones lying about came in handy to sit upon and smoke a pipe while watching the masons at work. Some of the men even went the length of earning an occasional day's wages by helping to transport the stones to their resting-places; but the general opinion was that, when everything was being done for them, it was unnecessary to jog the elbow of Providence, and that such sustained energy as regular work entailed could not be expected of a people used to the precarious calling of the sea.

Presently the works were finished, and the idlers' occupation was gone. The particular busybody who took the credit to himself for all that had been done, broke a bottle of champagne over the new pier and made a speech. The fishermen quite believed him when he told them that they were very fine fellows; but with the narrow shrewdness of their class, thought that he was rather a fool to take so much trouble over other people's affairs that did not concern him, for they did not know how it served his interest to do so.

On the following Sunday morning, a lovely day in the late Donegal summer, when the women and the younger men were preparing to set out for chapel, the word went round that 'the fish is in the bay,' and in a moment all thought of devotions was abandoned. First there was seen a dark-blue ripple on the surface of the water, coming rapidly nearer, and shot with flashes of silver in the sunlight; this was caused by the 'sprit' or small herring-fry leaping out of the water to escape their natural enemies. Above them hovered screaming flocks of gulls; every now and then one of these would mount to a height, and sheathing its wings, would drop with a splash like a stone into the water, emerging with a small fish in its beak. Hard upon the track of the 'sprit' followed shoals of shehans, glascon, whiting, mackerel, herring, and pollack; after them came porpoises, dolphins, and seals; conger-eels twined themselves among the wrack along the rocks lying in wait for the fry; and even a whale was seen spouting in the offing. The larger fish devoured the smaller, only to be themselves devoured in turn by others.

In a moment the nets were got out and the boats launched. The women and boys remaining on shore armed themselves with baskets and seine-nets. With these they rushed into the water up to the waist and lifted out baskets full of the fry and even of the mackerel, which sometimes ran themselves up dry upon the beach in their eagerness after their prey. A shoal of mackerel entered the mouth of the little harbor, and a seine-net being quickly stretched across the entrance, not one escaped.

That evening there were rejoicings in the little village. Enough fish had been caught in that one day to salt down and last them through the winter, leaving a handsome surplus to hawk through the inland towns and villages. The whiting had been caught in such numbers that no one had any use for them, and they were left to rot in heaps upon the shore, until the country people came with carts and drew them for manure. But the old men shook their heads, and said it was a bad sign for the weather; they had never known so plentiful a take, and the fish must be flying before some prodigious storm.

Upon this occasion the croakers proved right for once. For when the people awoke two days later, they found that the first of the equinoctial gales was upon them before its usual time. The clouds were scurrying in huge banks across the sky, and the sea, turned leaden-gray, was running violently shorewards, beaten flat by the furious force of the wind, and breaking upon the beach with a low moaning sound. As the day progressed the wind abated slightly and allowed the waves to rise, and they roused themselves in their might and beat upon the devoted pier. For a time their efforts were unavailing, for the back that it presented to them was encased in concrete and proof against assault; but at last a huge roller launched itself over the top of the pier and fell upon the stone-work in its centre; the mortar, impregnated with the salt air and the spray, had never had a chance to dry and get properly hard; the force of the water, gripping the edges of one of the huge stones in the centre, whisked it from its feeble hold and carried it hurtling into the sea beyond. The waves laughed, exulting in their success, and hurled mass after mass into the breach thus begun, churning stones and mortar up in a circular whirlpool, until by evening there was a huge round hole in the new pier reaching to the bed-rock beneath.

Meanwhile the sights and sounds of wrecks at sea were beginning to be apparent. Minute-guns were heard in the offing, the reports almost drowned in the rush of the storm; a three-masted vessel went ashore on the opposite side of the bay under the lighthouse upon St. John's Point, and could be seen rapidly breaking up. Masts of vessels, beams, and pieces of wreckage began to come ashore, brought by the set of the currents and the force of the wind. All the fishermen were gathered upon the beach apathetically watching the destruction of the quay, from which they had hoped so much, and on the look-out for prizes.

'What's yon?' presently said Big Dan Murphy, the leader of the group, pointing to a dark object tossing among the surf. They formed a line joining hands, and he dashed in and pulled it ashore. It proved to be a cask of rum.

'Lend a hand, boys,' he said, 'to take it up to me shanty, an' we'll have a sup the night whin ahls over.'

Nothing further came ashore, and the night saw a dozen men gathered in Murphy's hut. The village stood a little back from the beach in a dip of the land that sheltered it from the boisterous fury of the Atlantic gales; but Murphy's hut stood alone on higher ground and nearer the sea, the sentinel and outpost of the rest.

The men sat round the open turf fire upon the hearth, each with a tin porringer in his hand, and the cask in their midst.

'It's well that the ould gauger's gone,' said one with gloomy satisfaction, 'or he'd be pokin' his ugly nose into this. He always kim down on the night ov a storrum to say what had kim ashore.'

'They say,' replied another, 'that this man is worse agin. New twigs swape clane an' he's for iver drivin' aroun' the counthry wid his trap an' his little wee black pony.'

As he spoke there was a knock at the door, and the gauger stood in their midst.

'How's this, boys?' he said. 'What have you got here? Your name's Dan Murphy, isn't it?'

'Ay, till the bone breaks,' returned Dan briefly.

'Don't you know that this doesn't belong to you? Flotsam and jetsam belongs to the Crown and the owner of the land upon which it is washed ashore.'

The other men looked anxious, Dan dogged.

'Findin's is kapin's,' he said; 'I niver hear tell that the open baich belonged to no man. I pulled yon barrel out ov the say at the risk av me own life, an' I've as much right to kape it as any man else, an' what's more, I mane to kape it.'

'I've heard of you, Dan Murphy,' replied the gauger sternly, 'and you'd better not give any trouble. I'm not the kind of man to stand any nonsense. I seize this rum in the Queen's name.'

In an instant he was on his back on the floor with two men on top of him; but the red-bearded gauger was a strong man and a bold, and struggling fiercely, he gave vent to a shrill whistle. The door burst open, and in rushed six policemen, whom he had brought, expecting resistance. The biggest of them made at Big Dan, but found more than his match; the giant stepped lightly aside, and catching his assailant as he passed by the scruff of the neck and the waistband, he swung him round with the impetus of his own rush, and hurled him back through the door the way he came.

Then seizing an axe that stood in the corner, he shouted above the uproar, 'If us is to git no good ov it, no man else will neither,' and he brought down the axe on the head of the cask, smashing it in and overturning it.

The rum gurgled placidly out of the hole, and ran in little streams about the floor, forming a pool round the gauger where he lay on his back, and soaking into his clothes; above him the fight raged fiercely, the men whirled close-locked in the narrow space of the hut. Presently a rivulet of rum meandered gently into the fire upon the hearth, and immediately the floor of the hut was intersected by rivers of blue flame. The rest of the combatants rushed stamping and swearing out of the hut. The gauger still lying on his back could not see what had occurred; and thinking that the others were escaping, he grappled his two assailants more fiercely to him, so that they could not rise. In a moment he was an island in a lake of fire, the flames lapping his sides, fastening upon his clothes, and licking his beard. With a yell of surprise and pain he released his opponents, who fled shouting from the hut. He rose and rushed after them. But the flames had caught, and were fanned to fury by the gale. He threw himself down and rolled upon the ground in agony, but they had got firm hold of his rum-soaked clothes, and relit in one place as fast as they were extinguished in another. At last he could bear the torture no longer, and uttering shriek on shriek, he rushed headlong down the slope a pillar of towering flame, and threw himself over the cliff into the sea a hundred feet below.

When he was pulled out a few minutes later he was a mere mass of charred cinder, hardly bearing any resemblance to humanity, and with only a few sparks of life left in his body. Before he could be carried to the nearest hut he was dead.

For their share in his death Dan Murphy and the other two men received long terms of penal servitude, and the scandal consequent upon the incident cast a blight over the little place. No further relief works were undertaken. The jetty is now in ruins, but a hundred yards off along the cliffs there is a spot still pointed out as 'the gauger's lep.'

THE GILLIE

The snow had been lying for several days, when I woke one morning and found my windows covered with the delicate tracery of hoar-frost. 'What a day for snipe-shooting!' I said, and jumping out of bed, sent a message to Hughie M'Nulty to come up at once, that I wanted him for a day's sport.

Hughie was a professional angler, who gained a good living during the summer months by acting as guide and assistant to rich English salmon-fishers, and hibernated for the rest of the year by the help of any odd jobs he could pick up. He was my constant companion on my vagrant shooting excursions, and a livelier, more talkative, or more interesting companion could not be wished for. He arrived, buttoning up his coat, before I had finished my breakfast; and after he had cut some sandwiches and filled my flask with whisky, we set out together.

'Now, Hughie,' said I, before getting clear of the town, for I knew of old his little weakness for cheating the revenue, 'have you got a game license yet this year?'

'Troth, Misther Harry, ain't I own keeper to Misther Donovan ov the Castle, an' d'ye think the likes ov him wud begrudge me a dhirty license?'

'I doubt you're too emphatic, Hughie, to be quite truthful. If you like to confess while there's time, I'll get you one. But, remember, if you get caught by the gauger without one, I'll not be responsible, and you'll have to clear yourself as best you may without my assistance.'

'God sees that, if it's not the truth that I'm tellin',' said Hughie, and we turned off the road into the fields.

Presently my companion remembered he owed something to his dignity, and began: 'I tell ye, surr, ye were lucky to git me the mornin' at ahl, at ahl; ivery wan was fur havin' me ahl to wanst. There was Misther Donovan sint down for me, jist afther I got yer message, wantin' me to go and shoot cock with him on the island in the lough; and there was Misther Fitzgerald, an' Dennison, an' Kilpathrick, an' Dawson, an' Gorman—they was ahl jist ravenin' for me; but I wudn't disappint yer ahner for one av thim, an' I jist ups an' towld thim so.'

'You've made a bad shot this time, Hughie; you should name some one that I don't know. I was playing cards last night with all those gentlemen, and I know that not one of them can go out shooting to-day. Mr. Donovan has gone up to Dublin this morning; Mr. Dennison is going to the fair at Enniskillen; Mr. Fitzgerald is on duty; Mr. Kilpatrick has a case coming on at the Court-house; and the other two can't leave the Bank on a market day. You should really be a little more careful of your ground, Hughie.'

'Ah, kape wide, can't ye, an' houl' yer whist. Ye'll be havin' the burds as wild as hawks, an' we won't git inside of an ass's roar ov thim the day. Ye might as well have brought thim dogs ye wanted, scuttherin' through the snow, if this is the road yer goin' to kape jabberin'. There, what did I tell ye? Auch! Begob, I thought he was clane away,' and Hughie ran forward to pick up our first snipe.

'Now, I'll take ye to a place that's jist swarmin' wi' them this weather. D'ye know the ould bog of Tubbernavaicha—the well in the bog, that manes—foreninst the face of the hill beyant? No?—well, that's the place ye'll fin' them.'

When we came to the old bog we recognized the fact by finding the surface sinking beneath our feet, and the icy water oozing into our boots; otherwise, there was nothing to mark it from the surrounding country beneath its winding sheet of snow. As we got further and further out the ground became more and more tremulous, and we sank to our knees at every step, but luckily for our comfort the frozen mud and snow had caked into a hard mass a foot below the surface; the whole bog shivered and sank at each fresh step as we crashed through the thin upper crust of ice, but we did not go through the solid mass below, and it rose buoyantly again beneath us like a life-buoy in the sea. But still we did not come across any birds.

'This bates ahl, this bates ahl,' Hughie kept muttering to himself. 'Not a burrd in the whole bog; but there's just the wan wee spring in the middle that we're comin' to. Luk out, surr. Ah, well shot! Ye'll soon larn to shute av ye kape on. The way he wint straight away behin' us I didn't think ye cud turn to git a shot at ahl, an' yous shtuck up to yer knees in the dirt. But we're in luck the whole time not to be in deeper; for I've seen the time I've thramped this bog an' it's cum up to me arrum-pits in every part ov it, an' I've had to sweem the pools with me gun over me head. Troth, we'd be friz enthirely av we had to do the likes ov yon the day.'

'Well, Hughie, I don't think much of your hot corner. Can't you do better than this?'

'Well, ye see, it's this way, yer ahner, in the harrd weather the burrds takes to the springs av runnin' wather. I thought the bog wud be saft enough for thim still, but I was mistook. But we've got thim now, anyways; for I was on the jayological survey what cum down here from Dublin 'tis three year cum Michaelmas: I helped to hould the tapes, an' av I didn't larn nothin' else, I larnt the springs to fin' the snipeses through ahl the counthry roun'.'

As he spoke a snipe got up in front of him, and flew slowly and hungrily away along the surface of the snow. Hughie blazed both barrels at it with no effect. 'Ah, I knocked a hatful of feathers out av that boy, anyway,' said he, looking after it indignantly; and as it was just topping the wall of the next field, I brought it down with a fluky cross-shot. He walked forward and picked it up in disgusted silence, and didn't speak another word for a good half hour.

At the end of that time we walked into a wisp of eight, out of which we got a brace each, and Hughie's good humor was restored. 'Did ye see the way them two of mine wus shot?' he said; 'the wan that wint towerin' straight up in circles, an' thin shut his wings an' fell with a whop that wud have shuck the breath out av his body av he'd had any lef, was shot through the heart; the other wan flew a wee bit wid his head thrown over his back an' his wings fluttherin'. I knew he wudn't go far; he just soothered down slantways wid his wings straight out—he was shot in the head. Ah! isn't it just like thim, the divils, to rise like that ahl av a plump; why cudn't they cum wan be wan, singly an' giv' a dacent man a chanst at them? Mother av Moses! but I laughed, yer ahner, when ye wiped me eye a while back foreninst the stone wall.'

The laughter had not been perceptible, but this was making the amende honorable, and to show there was no ill feeling I handed him the flask to take a drink. 'An' what about lunch, surr?' he said, as he handed it back.

'We'll go up to the top of that hill and have lunch now.'

'What for wud we climb the brae? There's nothin' up there batin' a rabbud mebbe.'

'I want to see the view.'

'Auch, the view,' said Hughie, in high disdain; he did not see why any one should go out of his way to climb a hill when he could stop comfortably at the bottom.

Arrived at the top, the wide prospect below us repaid me at least for the journey. The country spread white and glittering before us until it met the gray line of the sea upon the horizon, the faint undulations of the stone walls looking like infants' graves, and the few hedges and trees on the bare landscape draped with waterfalls of snow.

Hughie, on more practical thoughts intent, searched out a well of spring-water and unpacked the sandwiches out of the game-bag. Just as we began to eat, a bird flashed round the corner of the wall and flew straight away from us down the hill. 'Shute, man, shute,' cried Hughie, dancing with excitement; I crammed my sandwich into my mouth, and seizing my gun with one hand, let it off vaguely from the hip.

'What's the good in telling me to shoot and scare the bird when it was out of range already, you idiot?' I said.

'Oh, niver min' the range. What's a pennorth ov powdher? Ye shud ahlways shute at a wudcock if it's in the same parish wid ye. Ye'll niver git another chanst,' and he pointed to where the bird was winging its way with the steady flight of an owl across the open to the opposite hill.

'Tell me, Hughie,' said I, when we had settled down to our lunch again, 'why don't you learn a trade to work at in the winter, and then all you earn in the summer would be clear profit? You must earn a good deal then if you only had constant employment to keep you going the rest of the year.'

'Ay, I do that. I arn me guinea a day an' live on the fat ov the lan', but the best ov the saison is on'y for two months, an' the rest is slack. Whin I wus a bhoy me father sint me to Ameriky to larn a thrade, an' he giv me the time ov day in me pockit; but I kim back agin widout it, an' niver a tatter but the clothes I stud up in, an' thim in rags, an' since thin I niver thried to larn a thrade agin. Ye see, it's this way, surr, some rivers is early, an' some is late, an' what wid wan an' another there's fishin' for them as likes it from the beginnin' ov March to well-nigh the ind of October, an' that on'y laves foor months ov the year empty, tho' I'm not arnin' reglar ahl the time. Sometimes I've gone over to Glasgy an' Liverpool in the winter an' dhrew me thirty shillin' a week workin' on them stamers; but as soon as the time cum roun' I started to hanker afther the oul' life; there's no life like it. I'd give the swatest song that iver wumman sung for the song ov the tight line to the music ov the reel, so back I kim. I kin fish an' I kin shute, an' what more do I want?'

'That last is a matter of opinion,' I said, 'but the sarcasm was too English, and passed harmlessly over his head.

'Why don't you marry and settle down?' I continued, 'and you'd soon get regular work.'

'Marry, is it? Me? I'd luke a nice gomeral, wouldn't I, wid a parcel ov childher trailin' at me tail. Me, I've got as much call wid a wife as a pig wid a side-pocket. The whisky's done, an' none to be had nearer nor Biddy M'Intyre's shebeen, two mile away, an' it on'y putcheen; but putcheen's none so bad whin there's nothin' else handy, an' the hollys roun' her house is just crawlin' wi' snipeses.' And Hughie turned the flask upside down regretfully.

I took the hint, and said, 'Very well, then, we'll make for Biddy's. But how is it that there's a shebeen left in this part of the country? I thought that the priests had stamped out the illicit liquor trade hereabouts.'

'Ay, so they have. But, ye see, Biddy's a Protestant, an' can snap her fingers at them.'

'Then there's some advantage in being a Protestant, after all.'

'Ah, what's a sup of putcheen to a quiet min', av yer a Protestant ye have to bear the load av yer own sins instid av the prastes bearin' it for you, an' givin' ye a wee bit penance ivery now an' thin. Av I was yous I couldn't lay quiet in me bed for thinkin' ov me sins.

'Talkin' ov Ameriky,' continued Hughie, for once started talking he never stopped, 'there's Annie M'Gay kim back from it Friday's a week that fine that ye wudn't know her. I wus seein' her yistherday, and axed her if her tay wus to her taste, an' she ups an' says, says she, "The shuperfluity ov the shugar has spoilt the flavoracity ov the tay." Boys, but she's the gurl wot can use the gran' long wurruds,' and Hughie rolled the syllables over again lovingly in his mouth.

'That minds me,' he continued, 'ov a day we had yestherday's a month. It was a fine day, the Duke of Donegal was havin' a shutin' party, an' me an' twinty others was the baters. A broilin' day it was, an' we got a drouth on us ye cud cut wid a knife. The Duke he's a fine hospitable man, an' he giv us a barrel of porther for lunch, an' as much as we cud ate wi' lashin's an' lavin's to spare. An' we finished the porther betwixt us, an' was fair sighin' for more. Whin we kim to Farmer Gavigan's, an' he axed us in an' giv us whisky all roun', beautiful whisky it was, it wint down that soft, like mother's milk. But the head-keeper he hears of it, an' he comes up rampin' an' ravin', an' he says, says he,—

'"Farmer Gavigan," he says, "I'm surprised at yous, givin' these men whisky on the top ov porther, an' thim just foamin' for a fight."

'"An' why wudn't they fight?" says Farmer Gavigan; "ducks will go barefut."

'"Troth, they'll khill other."

'"Ah, lit them khill away," says he; he's a fine raisonable man is Farmer Gavigan.' And Hughie licked his lips at the luscious recollection.

'D'ye min' the day,' he went on, 'that ye caught the salmon on Lough Legaltian?'

'No, and you needn't start any of your lies about it, for I never caught a salmon in my life.'

'Ah, thin it was yer brither; it's all wan. Boys, ye shud ha' bin' wid us the day him an' me caught the big throut. There was a big sthorrum on the lough that day, an' we wus blown clane aff ov the wather, an' dhruv five mile down the lough to the far end ov it. About half-way down yer brother he shtuck in the throut while throllin' the flies afther the boat, an' if it hadn't bin for him we'd ha' bin ahl drownded for shure. The waves wus that big, an' kep follerin' that fast, that they'd hav overtuk us an' swep clane over the boat, for we didn't know how to row fast enough, but that throut started on ahead, an' sind I may die if it's not truth I'm tellin', but he towed us afther him as if he'd bin a whale.'

'It must have been a good strong trout line that you had that day!'

'Ay, the best; ov our own sellin'. It was that light an' thin ye cud see through it ahl but, but ye cud houl a man up be it. Well, when we got into the shelther of the bay at the far ind I started to gaff that throut, but he wus so big I cudn't lift him into the boat. Yer brother had to git a catch ov him be the gills an' be the tail an' help me to take him in. An' whin we came to weigh him he was a hundred an' ten pound, every ounce of it, an' he wus foul-hooked be the tail.'

'Why not make it the even hundredweight at once?'

'Now ye think it's jokin' I am, but I'm not, an' I can prove it to yous, that same. For I had the head stuffed, an' it's in me chimbly at home this minute.'

'All right, I'll come in and see it to-night on our way home. I should like to see that head.'

'Ah, now ye spake ov it, I mind me I sint it on'y yistherday's a week to the Fisheries Exhibition in Lunnon.'

'I thought so. It's a wonder I never heard of that trout from my brother.'

'Ah, him is it? He's got as much mouth on him as a cod.'

'Damn,' said I, 'there's the third snipe I've missed since lunch, and I didn't miss one at all before that. My eyes are all watering.'

'I'll tell ye what it is, Misther Harry; it's them specs ye hav on. They catch the glare ov the snow. When yer eyes was fresh ye saw everythin' distinct agin the snow; but now they're tired ye'll see nothin'. So ye may jist giv up.'

'I suppose that's it. I know that last night I did a thing I never heard of being done before. I shot a snipe by moonlight.'

'Now ye're sayin'.'

'It's a fact, you unbelieving Jew; you're so accustomed to hear lies roll out of your own mouth that you don't know the truth when you hear it. I was coming back in the evening about eight o'clock, and there was bright moonlight; as I was passing through that rushy bit at the head of the town a snipe got up in front of me; I got it clear against a snow bank, and bowled it over as clean as if it had been daylight.'

'It's as well we're at Biddy's now; I'd as lave hav a dhrink afther that. Bring out the putcheen, Biddy.'

The old woman brought out a large earthenware jar from underneath her bed, and taking down a couple of delf mugs off the dresser, handed them to us.

'Will you have a half-un or a whole-un?' I asked.

'A whole-un, to be shure, an' another on the top of that. Here's luck, more power to yer elbow. There's no call to be puttin' wather in it; it shpoils the flavor an' lits out the hate.'

The flavor was a strong taste of turf smoke, and the spirit was so fiery that it nearly rasped the skin off my mouth and throat on its way down.

'An' whin yous hav done that, I'll larn ye a wrinkle. Just put a glass of the crathur in aich ov yer boots, an' ye won't know yersilf; it'll kape yer feet that warrum an' yer boots that aisy. It's ivery bit as good as dhrinkin' it an' betther, an' it'll save yer inside in the mornin'.'

I did so to try the experiment.

At that moment the old woman caught sight of an approaching car, and exclaimed, 'Auch, wirra' it's ruined I am, I'm desthroyed enthirely. Here's the gauger comin' up to the dure wid a polisman beside him, an' me niver to notice him attendin' on yous jintlemen,' and she made a grab at the jar to hide it.

'Never mind that; it's too late now,' I said, 'and I'll see you through. Come in, Gillespie, and have a drink with me.'

'I don't mind if I do for once,' replied the gauger; 'a man wants something inside him sitting on a car in a day like this. It is the coldest day I ever was out in. But you must have that stuff outside the house the next time I come this way, Mrs. M'Intyre.'

Meanwhile the policeman and Hughie had foregathered in a corner, and were having a drink together; but the effect of the whisky made itself rapidly apparent, coming upon the change from the biting air outside to the stuffy atmosphere of the hut. Presently their voices became raised, and we heard the policeman saying,—

'Stan' up agin' me, is it? ye little gingerbread whipper-snapper ye. I'll tell ye what I'll do; I'll put down me five pound agin' yours, an' I'll box you for twenty rounds, an' sweem yous a mile, an' run ye five, the best man to lift the hard stuff.'

'Box? is it yous?' said Hughie scornfully. 'D'ye see that little roun' button on the top ov yer saucepan? I'll putt ye on that an' twirl ye roun' for half an hour, see that now,' and he put his leg behind the crook of the other's knee, and giving him a push on the chest, sent him toppling his full length on the floor.

Hughie looked rather frightened at the success of his wrestling trick, as the policeman rose quivering with passion; but remembering he was in the presence of his superior, the latter touched his cap and contented himself with remarking, 'Wait till the next time I catch ye, me bould buck, dhrunk in the streets, or by your lone in the counthry, an' I'll giv ye a bastin' ye won't forgit, I promise ye.'

I thought by this time it was time to go, and saying good-day, went out. As I went out I heard the policeman say to Hughie, 'By the way, me boys, suppose ye let us see your license now.'

'License is it?' said Hughie; 'what wud I want wid a license? I haven't fired a shot the day. Shure, this is the masther's second gun I'm carryin',' and he came scuttling after me.

'Oh, but them polis is botheration,' he said, when he reached me; 'there's too many ov them in the counthry be half; ye cud feed the pigs aff ov them ahl winter an' not fin' the differ.'

From that point home was a straight walk in along a hard level road, and we swung briskly along in the frosty air.

'Not bad walking,' said I, as we entered the outskirts of the town, 'four miles in three-quarters of an hour.'

'Walkin', says you,' replied Hughie, with impartial justice, 'it's not us at ahl as did it; it's the putcheen. It's a powerful strong walker is putcheen. Thank ye kindly, Masther Harry,' and Hughie touched his cap, put his hand in his pocket, and walked away.

'THE FINAL FLICKER'

Charlie Vaughan sat playing chess with his sister, as they had played it every night these thirty years. They belonged to the yeomanry class, a class that is mostly English or Scotch by extraction, and has few Irish characteristics. In the narrow circle of their lives on the lonely farm there was not much room for variety; they did the same things at the same hour of the day from one year's end to another.

As bedtime drew near they began to quarrel. She said that he had taken his finger off a piece before altering his mind, and moving it back; he denied it, and they quarrelled. The same quarrel had occurred every night in all those years. They loved each other dearly, but the game wouldn't have been a game without its quarrel. She swept the pieces off the board in a passion, and he wandered gently off into the night to see that all the gates about the farm were locked and the house securely barred.

To-night he was not quite in his usual mood. Perhaps the quarrel had been a little more real than usual, and had jarred upon his nerves. The subtle seduction of the moonlight moved him. He felt a void in his life, a vague craving for sympathy, for something which he had never known. After a time he identified the feeling as one which had occurred periodically to him before. It was a yearning for one sip of the wine of life before it was too late, a sense of weariness, of discouragement at the thought that he had never known that joy which is every man's birthright once in his lifetime, the joy of knowing the full meaning of a woman's love.

Now he remembered the incident that had started the train of thought. He had been making a move, and his eyes fell upon his hand, and he had recognized with a strange outwardness for the first time that it was the hand of an old man, the fingers bent and gnarled, the nails dull, the muscles corrugated, and the veins dried up and withered. If he was ever to know more about women than he knew now, it behoved him to act quickly ere his manhood had quite died within him.

Once or twice before he had awakened to the same fact, but never with such urgency as now. Even still he was the wreck of a fine man, and there had been a time when he might easily have found favor with women, but he had let his chances slip. A bookworm and a dreamer, he had let his youth slide by before he knew that it was gone. His manhood he had spent beneath the rule of his elder brother. Once he had asserted his right to an individual soul, and fallen in love with a woman, and she was ready to reciprocate his love. But when he went and t told his brother, the elder replied: 'You can marry if you like, but as sure as you do, out you go out of my house. There's not enough on the farm to keep more than the three of us. I've never married, and I don't see why you should.'

For the moment his manhood rose in arms, and he determined to go out into the world and make a place for himself; but he put it off and put it off, and his brother was twenty years older than himself, and it seemed a pity to lose his chance of the farm, so the time never came, and he grew old waiting for his brother's death, and the woman that he loved grew old too.

At last his brother died, and he went to her and asked her to marry him, but she said: 'I loved you well once, and would have stood by your side if you had had the heart to make a fight for me. I've waited for you all these years, but now it's too late. I'm too old to change,' and she died also, and they were never married.

After her death he was numbed for a time, for he had so little that the loss of even the placid affection of their later years made a great gap in his life. Then the farm began to go wrong; he had not the practical head to manage it as his brother had managed it; and though he worked as hard as ever, what had formerly sufficed to keep the three in comfort could now barely support the remaining two. In truth, weakness of character had been his bane all his life, and would be to the end. He had not the strength to carry any purpose to its appointed goal. He was strong neither for good nor for evil. He was cursed with the curse of Reuben, 'Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.' But he knew that he was weak, and it was very pitiful.

To-night, after shutting up the house, he went to his bed; and as he lay awake there through the watches of the night, his desolation came home to him and ate into his heart, and he pitied himself exceedingly.

About three o'clock, the darkest part of the night, he rose and wandered restlessly out into the garden, and sat alone there with the 'night of the large few stars, the mad naked summer night,' till its fascination entered into his marrow and stirred his placid soul with a strange disturbance.