the unfortunate female, on whom it had thus pleased Heaven to pour out the very dregs of the phial of human wretchedness. He was not mistaken, and the tale was told with so much feeling, and in a manner so ingenuous, as to impress Amherst with the most favourable opinion of the narrator. This is no time, however, to perplex the reader with his curious phraseology, and numerous circumlocutions. The story shall therefore be given in as concise a form as its nature will admit.

John Morley was an industrious man, who rented a small garden in the suburbs of the neighbouring village. By hard labour he maintained his wife and family on the produce of it. He had had several children, but he lost them all except one boy of eight or ten years old, and the younger one, with whom we have already been made acquainted.

It was now about eight or nine months since Miss Delassaux was proceeding to the raceground in a sort of open phaeton, driven by a Neapolitan coachman, and followed by two outriders, one of whom was Cornelius O'Gollochar, the narrator of the story we are now telling. As

the equipage was driving down the lane, where Morley's cottage presented its smiling front, covered with vines and creepers, and where a broad gilded sign, with "FRUITS IN THEIR SEASON," invited passengers into the neatly dressed walks, and trim arbours of his garden, his eldest boy was crossing the way with a sackful of young cauliflower plants on his back. His head was so completely buried in his burden, that his ears were deafened by it, and the vehicle was upon him before he was aware of its approach. O'Gollochar, though he was riding behind, saw the whole transaction perfectly, and some minutes. before it took place, shouted both to the coachman and the boy; but to no purpose, for the ruffian, who must have seen the lad as soon as he appeared, drove on with as much indifference as if the way had been perfectly clear.

A shocking scene ensued. The boy was knocked down. His distracted

father sprang from But his attempt was

the cottage to his rescue. vain. The villain swept onwards like a whirlwind, and crushed the lad to death under the wheels. The miserable father was struck by the pole, thrown down, and his body so dreadfully

bruised, that he was carried senseless to his bed, and never afterwards arose from the horizontal position. On moved the gay vehicle as if nothing had happened. Its mistress, arrayed in all the splendour and magnificence of unbounded wealth, her thoughts filled with dreams of conquest, scarcely seemed to notice the accident, as it was called. But when the carriage came to the stand, poor O'Gollochar was missing. He had remained behind to give all the assistance he could to the unfortunate sufferers, and compassion kept him so well employed, that he did not rejoin the lady all that day, and, consequently, incurred her severe displeasure.

On the Coroner's inquest there were no witnesses who could throw a proper light on the matter except O'Gollochar. The other groom was not present, having been sent on to select a good place for the carriage to draw up in. Morley himself was incapable of speaking, far less of attending. Miss Delassaux denied having seen the occurrence so as to form any judgment of the circumstances. Antonio the Neapolitan protested, and was ready to swear, that the whole was accidental, and that he did not even know till after

wards that any such thing had happened. But the sturdy Irishman strenuously insisted on giving a very different complexion to the case; he even went so far as to declare, that there was something very like design in the manner in which the boy's death had been produced, and hinted something of a quarrel that had taken place between the Italian and Morley a few days before, arising from some insolence of the former to the latter on the occasion of a little entertainment given by the Italian to some of his female acquaintances in Morley's garden. But the Neapolitan was Lady Deborah Delassaux's favourite servant, and had accompanied her and her niece from Naples to England. Very great exertions were used therefore to have him cleared of all blame. O'Gollochar's evidence was done away by the circumstance of his having had a trifling dispute with Antonio, though, in fact, there was hardly a single individual, either amongst his fellow-servants, or in the neighbourhood, who had not quarrelled with him. In short, the result was a verdict of "accidental death," and honest O'Gollochar was punished for his resolute conduct,

by being turned off, and threatened with a prosecution for perjury.

The ruin of the Morleys was complete. The garden the unfortunate man had rented, which, until that fatal day, had been his pride and his support, was the property of a wealthy hop-merchant who resided in London, and who had no feeling but for his own pocket. Unable to do any thing for its culture, he was not only obliged to give it up, but to quit his cottage, whence he was carried to a more humble dwelling. There he continued to waste away in body, and to suffer the most excruciating torments, too plainly proving that he had received some desperate and incurable internal injury.

It is unnecessary to detail how his slender stock was consumed. Where there were apothecaries' bills to pay, mouths to feed, and no hands to labour, it soon vanished away. Even his furniture was sold piecemeal, and when his wife was confined of her infant, she could hardly be said to have a bed to lie on. In fine, he and his family were compelled to quit their house, and were reduced to the necessity of creeping into the wretched habitation we have described on the