the fugitive. Of every crime held lethal, his companion, as it was believed, might have been safely accused. In fact, two more atrocious malefactors had never a price placed upon their heads. I had been using vigorous exertions to effect their apprehension-and they had resolved to quit my bailiwick, and seek some safer concealment.

Bad as he was, Campbell had refused to consort with them; and when his alliance with me was bruited over the country, rumour falsely added, that their betrayal into my hands, was promised in return for my favour. In this belief, the last act of their felonious career, before they should take their departure from Ballycroy was to be the murder of Campbell and myself.

Late on the last evening of his life, the doomed man set out at dusk, to reach Newport in the night, and hold a consultation with the lawyer I had retained to conduct the defence of the unfortunate man, in whose fate I had taken a lively interest. By some undiscovered means the intended journey and its object became known. The loneliest of the mountain-passes is called from some former scene of blood by the ominous name of Craig-na-moina (the bloody rock). That fatal defile Campbell was seen to enter; but he never left it living. Two shots were heard by a peasant boy, and my unhappy henchman was found perforated with a dozen slugs and bullets-any of the numerous wounds sufficient to rob the victim of his life.

On the third evening after the murder, a travelling stocking-man entered the lodge, and asked for a turf to light his pipe with. I passed accidentally through the kitchen, and a meaning look and sign, made to me unobserved by any of the servants, told me that the stranger had some secret to communicate. I gave him a speedy opportunity-walked carelessly behind the offices-he promptly followed, and his intelligence was important. Within an hour, he had seen poor Campbell's murderers, seated in the inner room of a sheebienhouse, not a mile's distance from the lodge. He saw them distinctly through a crevice in the window-shutter, as they sate carousing at the fire. They seemed in full security, and their arms, five or six stands, were laid upon a bed in the further end of the apartment.

To select half-a-dozen of the police-provide myself with weapons --and start for the murderer's haunt, was but the work of a few minutes-and in a quarter of an hour we reached the hostlerie.

Our approach had created no alarm, and unsuspected I reconnoitered the room. My orders were to burst in at once, and overpower the villains before they could resume the weapons which fortunately they had laid aside.

Nothing could have been more promptly and successfully executed than the surprise; and before daylight broke, the scoundrels were lodged in the county gaol-and in three months after they exchanged time for eternity, dogged and impenitent to the last.

It will only remain for me to say, that the main incidents of this wild tale are authentic, and that, however numerous my other sins of emission might have been, the recording angel had no cause to register against me in heaven's chancery, any accusation for neglecting the widow and orphan of

JOHN CAMPBELL, THE HOMICIDE.

THE BATTLE OF NOVARA.

BY THE

A TALE.

BARONESS BLAZE DE BURY.

CARLO and PEPINA had been brought up together. He was some five years older than her; she was barely nineteen. Carlo had one sister, Teresina, and they were orphans. Pepina, with her brother Gaëtano, rejoiced still in their mother; their father had died whilst they were children. These two families inhabited Vignall, a small town, or village rather, not far from what a distinguished female writer of our times calls the "gloomy and truly antique town of Novara. Neither of them was rich. Childhood had passed away, and Carlo and Pepina had grown up side by side," like Allan Ramsay's "twa oaks," without counting the years that had turned infancy into youth, or the change that had been made by those years in themselves. Carlo was one of the handsomest among the young men of the canton, and no contadina of all Lombardy, Piedmont, and Savoy to boot, was more lovely than Pepina.

"How very beautiful she is, Carlo!" said Teresina one day to her brother, as they met on their road home from church, Pepina leaning on Gaëtano's arm (Gaëtano was a soldier, and was for the moment en congé on account of ill health).

Carlo looked up at his sister's words, and for the first time seemed struck by their truth.

"Well!" said he, in a thoughtful tone, "I believe she is beautiful.” Teresina stared at her brother. "Did you never remark it before?"

asked she.

"I am not sure that I ever did," was the reply, and Carlo was a little pensive all the way till they reached home.

The winter of 1848 was a troublesome one in the North of Italy. The old opposition of the Lombard aristocracy began to show itself once more in Milan, and the greatest, highest names were again inscribed upon the banner of revolt. The conduct of the King of Sardinia had, within the last few months, attracted the attention of his neighbours, and there were not wanting many who began to conceive hopes of possible aid from Piedmont in the event of an open struggle with Austria.

The Revolution of February in 1848 broke out in Paris, and the downfall of Louis Philippe's throne echoed through every land of Continental Europe. By the side of the nobles of Milan rose now another party, till this period kept almost entirely in the background-the ultra democrats, represented here, as in every other country, by the noisy and the needy. The alliance that would alone have been a cause of ultimate failure, was made between the class, which, once victorious, was from its very nature, conservative, and the overthrowers; and Milan beheld its streets bristling with barricades. Towards the last days of the month of March, the Imperialists were driven from the capital of Lombardy, and the insurgents solicited aid from their neighbours of the Peninsula, to right and to left. Charles Albert answered the appeal, and putting himself at the head of his army, marched

* Lady Morgan.

into the Lombard territory, sending forth, on the 23rd of March, the famous proclamation to the Lombardo-Venetian populations, in which he repeated l'Italia farà da se.

Politics did not much preoccupy our villagers of Vignall, and the question of mere Italian independence left them pretty indifferent; but when their own king, Charles Albert, joined the Lombard cause, then indeed they began to speculate upon what might be the end of the war which was likely to ensue; and some there were among them -above all, Pepina's mother-who did not think the sovereign's conduct quite commendable, and who, in the vain-glory of the name of Spada d'Italia, did not exactly find a compensation for what looked to her marvellously like an ungenerous advantage taken of a very ancient ally's embarassments. Monna Lucia would shake her head when her son tried to awaken her patriotic pride at the behaviour of the King ; and, to say the least, she persisted in it that a great imprudence had been committed, and that Charles Albert might be made to repent of it all, Spada d'Italia though he was.

Gaetano was furious at the idea of being prevented from joining his regiment, for he was still very ailing, and altogether unfit for service; and the joy of his mother at finding herself possessed of her son, under any pretext, joined to her contentment at his not fighting for a cause which she could not be brought to regard as honest, found no echo in the young soldier's breast.

"We have nothing to gain from a victory of the Lombards," Monna Lucia used to say. They are troublesome neighbours at best; and if the ambition of our king lead him to the project of uniting us all together, Piedmontese and Lombards, under one crown, he will find himself mistaken, and we shall see what it will cost us. I am old enough to remember all the different foreigners whom our country has seen, and from whom it has suffered; and I tell you, children, a Croat or a Frenchman is better than an Italian any day."

It was one evening in the month of May. Pepina had gone to fetch in her goats. The sun was spreading a last golden glow over the earth as she climbed the hill where she was used to lead forth her dumb companions to their daily pasture. Of the three she had left there, two only were to be found. Pepina's favourite, a white goat which she had fondled from its birth, and which followed her about like a dog, was missing. To the trunk of the tree where she had bound it, there still hung a piece of cord that seemed to have been violently torn in twain. "Ciola! Ciola!" called Pepina-it was the abbreviation of Picciola, the name of her favourite. At first the call was unanswered, but, at the end of a few moments a distant and dismal bleating caught her ear. Leaving the other two, she hurried on in the direction whence the sound came, and soon was made aware of the danger that threatened Ciola. At about the distance of three or four hundred yards, a deep crevice in the hill-side gave passage to a little stream that came dancing down the declivity, and making as much noise as though it were ten times bigger. On the side of the chasm opposite to that on which stood Pepina, was the goat, but in a position that sent despair to the heart of its mistress. It had contrived so to entangle the long end of the cord it dragged after it amongst the underwood upon the brow of the crag, that (at the first step it had taken downwards towards the stream) it had found itself in danger of being strangled. Every effort it made to remount only pulled

the cord tighter, and its sole resource was to bleat, which it did lustily.

"Oh, Ciola! Ciola!" exclaimed Pepina, wringing her hands; "what am I to do? Ciola, carina, how can I save you?

A rustling was heard in the trees behind the girl, but her grief and her preoccupation for her goat were too great to allow her to remark it. The crag, at the side where she stood, was too steep to allow of any one descending it so as to reach, in that way, the opposite side; and, higher up, to the right hand, the little ravine was almost choked up with chestnut trees.

"Pepina!" suddenly cried a voice, as it appeared almost from the clouds. "Pepina!" She looked up, and from the flowering branches of a chestnut tree, the face of Carlo looked down upon her.

"Don't be afraid for Ciola," cried he; "I will let her loose," and, with these words he disappeared amongst the boughs.

Pepina's heart beat-she did not herself know why; and, as she watched Carlo's passage from branch to branch, until he at length let himself drop upon the opposite side of the ravine, close to the goat, she did not quite understand why all of a sudden Ciola's safety seemed to her of comparatively small importance. Still, she was very happy when she saw her loosened favourite bound down the side of the rock, jump over the stream, and clamber up the crag whereon she herself stood. Pepina stooped down to caress the goat, and snatched from her mouth a large bunch of rose-coloured chestnut blossoms, which she had seen Carlo give her, and which the goat had not yet had time to eat. Ciola, loth to be deprived of what she thought her right, clamoured for the flowers, and plucked persistingly at the sleeve of her mistress' arm wherewith the latter held what she refused to restore.

Pepina seated herself upon the edge of the rock, and putting one arm round her favourite's neck, rested her own delicate brown cheek against the long silky-white hairs of the goat. Why did not Pepina go home? what was she waiting for? why did her heart still beat, and why, over her brown cheek, was there suffused a glow as brightly rose-coloured as the flowers she held in her hand? The sun had sunk behind the hill, and the short twilight would soon be over. Pepina "Naughty Ciola! for shame!" said she, as the goat, ever on the watch, succeeded at last in snatching one flower from the branch, which now the girl brought nearer to her bosom.

rose.

"I can gather you another," said, behind her, a voice which trembled imperceptibly.

"Is that you, Carlo?" asked Pepina, dropping the chestnut flowers from her hand, and blushing still more deeply; "how could you ?— it was so dangerous !—it was

"

"Let me put them in your hair, Pepina," said he, picking up the fallen branch, and unable, from his own emotion, to rejoice in her evident confusion.

Timidly did his hand approach her pretty head, which bent forwards, as it were, involuntarily to his touch. Very awkward was Carlo. "I cannot fix them," murmured he.

"Not so," objected, gently, Pepina; "not so!" and she raised her hand-it met his. The eyes of both were cast downwards, but the hands of both were joined, and, in a second, Pepina was clasped to Carlo's breast.

"Tamo tanto!" It was all he could say.

"Ed io!" It was all she could answer.

The moon had risen and was shining brightly when Carlo and Pepina thought of returning home. At their feet lay Ciola, eating complacently the last of the rose-coloured chestnut blossoms, which had dropped from her mistress' head.

Monna Lucia wondered where her daughter had staid so long. Gaëtano knit his brow thoughtfully as he saw his sister enter the house, followed by Carlo. The latter walked up to the spinningwheel of Pepina's mother, and taking his beloved by the hand"Madonna," said he, as he knelt down upon a low stool at the feet of the aged dame, "I will have no other wife than Pepina; Pepina will take no other husband but me; give us your blessing."

The blushing girl threw her arms round her mother's waist, and hid her face in her mother's lap. Monna Lucia gave up her spinning, crossed her hands upon her daughter's bending head, and, whilst two large tears rolled over her furrowed cheeks, she breathed a loud and fervent benison on the youthful pair.

"A brother's and a soldier's benediction go with you, Carlo," said Gaëtano, holding out his hand to his new brother-in-law; "but in such times as these, I would rather be betrothed to a good sword, than to the fairest maid in all Italy."

And thus were Pepina and her Carlo affianced.

Ten months went by, and it was once more spring. Many causes had prevented the marriage of Carlo and his beloved, but the event was now fixed to take place upon the 25th of April, the day on which Monna Lucia herself had, in by-gone years, espoused her own husband. Early in March there was again a talk of war, and fresh levies of troops were raised. One evening Gaëtano entered his mother's abode as the frugal board was spread for supper. His step was more elastic, his look gayer than usual. Carlo and Teresina were of the party.

"Mother," said the young soldier, "I am come to say good-bye to you all. I start to-night."

Surprise and alarm were the characteristics of every exclamation to which this announcement gave birth.

"But, my son," argued his mother, "in your state of health you will not be received into your regiment."

"All that is settled, mother, I go as a volunteer-they are received at all times. This is no moment," he continued, with kindling eye, "to leave the King's service, and if I, too, should one day take a wife to myself" (here was a half glance at Teresina) " she will have the satisfaction of feeling that I shrank from no duty when it came to the push."

Carlo bit his lip and passed his hand gloomily over his brow, as he marked how Pepina, through her tears, looked with involuntary pride at her brave brother.

When Gaëtano took a definitive leave of his family, Carlo announced his intention of accompanying him a short way. He returned late to his own home, whither Teresina had gone hours before. Pepina hardly closed her eyes all night for wondering what had become of her affianced, and from a vague presentiment that would not let her rest.

When, on the 12th of March, 1849, Charles Albert denounced the armistice at Milan, amongst the volunteers who had obeyed the King's call to arms were Gaëtano and Carlo.

On the 23rd of March, the day rose dull and dim, grey clouds veiled