ring is a fish unknown. To know what a salmon is, see him taken from the net; then exercise your own discretion as to culinary operations. Would you know the flavour of a mackarel, disengage him from the snoud*-split, pepper, and grill him instanter. But do you really want to luxuriate-would you double distance Sir William Curtis, and put Lucullus to the blush, go to an Irish fishing village in the herring seasonorder of that fish, fresh from the boat, any number you are man enough to demolish. Have that esculent hitherto ungrown in England, namely the potato, raised from the ridge, and cooked by the fish-wife; beg, borrow, or steal, a pat of butter from the churn: dine, return thanks, and if ever afterwards you bear callipash or callipee in your presence, I write you down a Goth, and pray sincerely that you may be dyspeptic for a fortnight.

The season changed-and a wet autumn was followed by signs which are believed in Ballycroy to herald an early and severe winter. Snipes became abundant on the moors, and their lean condition proved, poor birds, that they had crossed the sea, and experienced a rough passage in the transit. A few couple of sheldrakes appeared upon the estuary. Barnacles came in flights-and, in smaller arrivals, we saw wild-geese in twenties and thirties, winging their way, wedge-like-the leader in front-to the mountains. Grey plovers descended from the hills by hundreds; and in one paddock, and we suspect much to the alarm of the "milky mothers" there depastured, we brought down, with two barrels, thirteen of these, in our opinion, among the most delicious birds that appear at the table. The moors had nearly become impassable, for at every stride you sank to the knee in blue mud, having all the tenacity of bird-lime. The floods occasionally interrupted our communications with that part of the world, designated by the name of Christendom; while the sou-westers, days together, blockaded our domicile for, if we opened the hall-door, an easy task enough, we required the assistance of a couple of men or women, "good and true," to close it.

Indeed, every domestic consideration induced a determination on our part to "move on." Our lady wife announced officially, that her supplies would not stand another fortnight. Our butler, Mr. Lewis, returned the effective strength of his sorely reduced bin, at five bottles. The last wedder of half a score was skinned, and hanging in the larder. The kitchen couples, that six months before had groaned under a load of bacon and hung-beef, exhibited a solitary ham. The establishment became rebellious; the cook swore that she could not trust a skillet on the fire, but it was invaded by a shower of soot; the house-maid hinted at giving warning; all were crippled with rheumatism or bad colds; and, being a dutiful master, I made up my mind to give in.

My second year's sojourn in Ballycroy, however, had well nigh terminated with a domestic tragedy. From some agrarian disturbances, conflicts between the whiskey distillers and the excise officers, and an enormous influx of criminals, chiefly deserters, who sought and received a shelter in these wilds, the district became feverish and unsafe. October was well advanced-and the lengthened nights being favourable to

* The snoud is the fine line appended to the stronger one, extending from twelve to fifteen feet beyond the plummet. Of the mode of using it we will speak hereafter.

the operations of these outcasts, added to the insecurity of the country I began to fancy that it was time to pack up and be off to a garrison town, and two occurrences during the early part of the week confirmed me in my resolution. On a desolate space of moorland, traversed only by a pathway, but directly in view of the lodge, an unfortunate peddler, whose trade was to interchange his hardware and printed cottons for the home-spun and hand-knitted hosiery of the country people, had been savagely murdered and robbed of the little earnings of an industrious life. He was well known to us. Many a night he was fed and sheltered under the same thatch: he was quiet and obliging; brought the latest news of what was passing in the interior; executed the spider-brusher's order for a new ribbon with attention; and "sped the soft intercourse from soul to soul" by the conveyance of amatory epistles between a very pretty nurse-maid we possessed, and a young blacksmith, who declared in every of his missives, that he was dying for her by inches.

The second inducement to go into winter cantonments was, in our opinion, more personal. It was a letter that we received, with the next town's post mark, not remarkable for its caligraphy; nor were the sentences grammatically constructed; but the beauty of letter-writing it embodied—namely, in few words conveying the intents of the communication. It merely intimated that the sooner I ordered my coffin the better-coffin being spelt with a single f-while my correspondent modestly sank his patronymics-appending as signature a neat penand-ink sketch of a scull and cross-bones.

The peddler's murder had fevered the establishment and I do not blush to confess that I did not exactly approve of the pleasant prospect of being "pickled and sent home." There was undoubtedly "snug lying," as Sir Lucius says, in Ballycroy; but still, I had no wish to have my loss and virtues chronicled in the Dublin Evening Post.

I always, in that land of Goshen, had loaded pistols at my bed-side; and on receipt of this familiar and pleasant epistle, I put in the corner an additional supply to my nightly artillery, namely, a couple of double guns, their charge being BB. Still my garrison was not defensible. The shortest centre-rear-rank-man of a battalion would be tall enough to clap a lighted peat in the thatch; and, as far as the habitation went, in ten minutes I might sing or say, Fuit Ilium! There was not a shutter to a window; every bed in the house was on a correct level for a blunderbuss; and a muslin curtain is a poor repellant of a handful of slugs. The peddler's murder had disturbed the household; and the morning's notice to quit-not the tenement of Aughniss, but the tenement of clay-had made me a little fidgetty. I went to bed, slept, found small advantage from "nature's sweet restorer," inasmuch as I dreamed that my anonymous correspondent was standing beside the window, with a very respectable-looking musket in his hand. I awokeI am no hero-extremely nervous-and, by heaven! a heavy foot came towards the window very deliberately, trampling over the now full-grown cabbages I slipped out of bed, placed myself beside the window, with Purday and double B, ready to anticipate the intended compliment. On came the unknown-tramp, tramp, tramp! Glory to the prophet! it was a cow; one of my vagabonds having left the garden-gate open. If ever a sinful man was foredoomed to undergo a night of alarm, I

was the offender. Again I went to sleep-and sound as a watchmanwhen an arm laid upon my shoulder roused me.

"Who's there?"

"It's me-Biddy, the cook."

"And what the devil brings you here?"

"Speak low, for God's sake. There's a robber in the kitchen." I hopped out of bed.

"A robber?"

"There is. May the Lord protect us! He has a white sheet round him, and a pistol in one hand and a carving-knife in the other. Oh Lord! I'm kilt—and I'm sure by this time poor Ellen's massacreed." "Is the fire lighted?"

"It's purty bright. Lord! what a blackavised villain !"

I left Biddy to keep her mistress company-slipped stealthily along the passage-a pistol in each hand. I glided like a ghost along the corridor, and through the door ajar peeped slyly in; and there stood, and large as life, the white-shirted delinquent. Suddenly the turf embers scintillated; within four yards I covered him dead; the click of the pistol-trigger suppressed by my finger in the cocking, and a steady selection of half a foot above the hip-bone being the portion of his person I intended to favour with half a dozen swan-shots. Again the turf-fire sparkled out still lighter. His back was turned; but I remarked that in neither hand was the lethal weapon with which Biddy had armed him. I changed my deadly purpose instantly, jumped into the kitchen, put a pistol to his breast, and swearing "awfully," as Uncle Toby says they formerly did in Holland, announced that a movement of hand or foot on his part would be considered on mine as a passport to eternity. He spoke not, but looked wildly round. The supposed White-boy was-our butler, Mr. Lewis.

The natural question was, "What the deuce had brought him there?" and, with some trouble and much patience, we learned that a bad cold had turned into quinsey over night; that the power of speech had departed, and his nocturnal visitation was neither robbery nor murder, but to get the cook to concot some whey.

To what, had the pressure on the trigger been very slightly increased, would have sent a butler to his account, and made an excellent paragraph for the local newspapers, a farcical termination followed.

I hastily repaired to my dormitory, that I might relieve the alarm of my lady wife; and, on Biddy ascertaining that she had been put in fear and terror by the affliction of a fellow servant-she being, what they call in Ireland, an "independent spirit"-waited for no explanations, but hurried to mark her indignation, and that personally, too, upon the offender. A great movement in the kitchen ensued. Mrs. Downey, a good cook and most determined virago, had assailed the pantler, who, in parliamentary language, could not "explain." The housemaid, divesting herself of fear and the bed-coverings, joined in the assault; and when I returned to the rescue, I found my man worse than Lear's when "i' the stocks," stuck into a corner, and both the kitchen ladies, with fists and tongues, pitching into him by turns.

"Oh! you eternal thief, to come and scare my life out, and I in the situation that I am. If my husband, Mick Downey, doesn't murder ye within a week, by this book I'll have ye transported the nixt assizes.

"And ye common malefactor, to frighten the seven senses out of a growing girl like me!"

Ellen, the "growing girl," was seventeen past; stood five feet six ; was what the French call en bon point; or what in Ireland they call "a wopper."

"What can ye say for yerself?" roared the cook.

"God knows what his designs were!" exclaimed the housemaid. "What brought ye to the kitchen at this hour?"

"Or to the bed-side of a girl, and that's myself, that never had a blast?"*

Somebody had stirred the fire in the mean time, or the fire had stirred itself; for a bright gleam lighted up the kitchen.

"If anything happens me as a married woman, I'll lave my death upon ye.

"Or to awake an unprotected female-Oh, murder!-like me," the spider-brusher screamed in; "would your own dog acknowledge ye, good or bad?"

"Why don't ye speak, ye thief?"

"He's dumfoundered through his villanous intentions," said the "growing girl."

Troth! ye'll spoil a market," observed the cook,

“An' if I walked ten miles, I'll go to see him hanged," added the housemaid.

Actuated by common humanity, I came to the rescue; and, had the scene and costume of the company been sketched, it would not have required a large outlay in an artist's colours. The alarmed ladies were in the Nora Crina line, perfectly en deshabille; and, as they pitched into the unhappy butler, there was nothing, from a superfluity of raiment, to impede their operations. I do not think either my butler or myself, in our existing attire, would have been admitted to a levee. A quinsey may apologize for a departure from the code of toilet directions propounded by Moses and Son; and an Irish gentleman, when it is intimated to him that there is a highwayman in his kitchen, seldom stops to arrange his hair. In fact, we were all guiltless of purple, and fine linen predominated.

"Ladies," I said, "moderate your tongues. A man who has lost his voice cannot enter into explanations. Not a felonious design was harboured or intended. Make that dummy" (I pointed to Mr. Lewis) "a bowl of whey, and bless Heaven that you did not qualify him for a post mortem examination, and throw me for deliverance upon God and my country for effecting, by leaden remedy, a very summary, but certain cure for a sore throat.'

*

*

*

To any body who had sufficient health, and a fancy to undergo the attendant slavery that the wild morasses of Ballycroy in winter would impose upon him, his gun would bring back a prolific return. A slight and parting episode, connected with this "ultima Thule," will best illustrate the fact.

One morning, a man presented himself to me-touched his hat, as a soldier does his chaco when saluting a superior, and the following colloquy ensued.

* In Connaught parlance, a stain on her reputation.

"Who are you?"

"A deserter," was the reply.

"You are come to surrender, I suppose?"

“No, please your honour; I am come only to borrow a gun."

I looked at the man; and the impudence of the request made me burst into an uncontrollable roar of laughter.

"Whom do yon want to shoot-me?"

"No, feaks! I want to kill some barnacles for

afterwards ask you to get me out of trouble."

your honour ; and

I measured the fellow's outer man attentively. He answered the description of one of the blackest sheep upon my list, as recorded in the Hue and Cry, and to a T.

"Have you a cut across your left hand?"

"What a guess your honour made!" and the fellow expanded a paw whose palm was regularly bisected.

"Well, of course, as a magistrate I must commit you."

"Troth, you need not take the trouble.

Hand me the gun, and lave

me in pace and quietness for another fortnight. It's honor bright be

tween us; and I'll go to jail then, if you like to send me."

"Your name's Frank Delany."

"Be goysty! your honour's half a witch."

"Will you come in and surrender, if I let you go?"

"By this book I will ;" and Mr. Delany kissed his hat--and a shocking bad hat it was—with as much reverence as if it had been the great toe of Saint Antony, or a back tooth of the blessed Ursula.

"Go, and get yourself some breakfast from the cook, and I'll talk to you afterwards."

The Irish are a queer lot. An English magistrate would hesitate to enlarge a self-admitted criminal; but the jurisprudence of the countries is not alike. On the banks of silver Thames (lucus a non lucendo!) John Bull boasts that his cottage-a building of the altitude and proportion of a windmill-is his castle; and, according to his account, and also by a fine and poetic figuration, the winds may whistle through it, but the king not gain admission. Let the occupant, however, try a very simple experiment-dip a little into debt, and although we will ensure him against royal visitations, we would not undertake to give our warranty that he will not have the pleasure of a morning call from Messieurs Slowman and Levi. In Ireland, matters were then better managed; a law-process was escorted by a troop of dragoons; and over the Shannon, for which Dick Martin, as in duty bound, blessed God, the king's writ was not so valuable as a last speech delivered at the Old Bailey. We, "the king's poor esquires," took awful liberties at times, and bound and loosed as we pleased. I believe these departures from Burns' directions for the conduct of Justices of the Peace were far from injurious; and, on looking back to a twenty years' practice, and also, I may add, an extensive one in the administration of the law, I feel assured that, when occasionally I abused the " king's press, I did so to the great detriment of attorneys, and the decided benefit of the body politic.

In an hour, Mr. Delany and I had concluded an honourable compact; he engaging, upon parole, to surrender on demand; and I furnishing him with a capital pigeon-gun, a horn-full of powder, half a stone of shot, a glass of whiskey, and a shilling,