-

with those best of ignitible materials-seasoned logs and good turf; at the back, a well-furnished cupboard, in which glasses and decanters, brightened by constant use, hold a prominent place. A table in the centre, covered with a crimson cloth, upon which stand an oddly-assorted mixture — a whiskey-bottle (corked, we must add, in justice to the lady) — a couple of tumblers and glasses a work-basket filled with various-coloured muslins and ribands some half-finished baby linen a weekly newspaper — an Italian iron a dirty pack of cards scattered about a pill box-and some labelled phials, fresh from the apothecary's. There sits Peggy at her solitary employment; her busy fingers plying her nightly task of preparation for a domestic event to come; and her scarcely audible voice humming to beguile time one of the melancholy popular airs of the country. Occasionally she pauses from her sad labours, and looks vacantly at the progress she has made. Her eyes, never beautiful, but peculiarly soft in their expression, are red, perhaps with weeping. Then a low sigh breaks out from her lips, she makes a violent effort to rally, snatches up her work hastily, and resumes the tedious toil with unconscious rapidity. She looks like the victim of circumstances out of which she cannot escape. If she be unhappy, she is fascinated by a charm that will not permit her to murmur. She dare not complain; she would neither be credited nor comforted by the multitude. Even her relatives, those who love her best and most truly, would shrink from her appeal. She is doomed to suffer without hope. Her crime admits of no worldly consolation. The tempter is the dispenser of salvation; and were she to denounce him, fearful would be the punishment inflicted on her, through the agency of her superstition and her ignorance. It is midnight, and a vulgar outcry at the door announces the return of Father Macdermott. But he does not come alone - he is accompanied by Mrs. Martin. Peggy hastens to admit them, and, in the next moment, she feels the embrace of her despairing mother.

"Is the kettle schreeching hot?" demands the priest.

"It's only boiling its life out, waiting for you these three long hours," answers Peggy.

A silence of a few minutes ensues, during which the priest, whose celerity in these matters is proverbial, has mixed two tumblers of strong punch, one for Mrs. Martin (nothing loth), and the other for himself.

There sit the group, enjoying their bitter dissipation - the mother of a lost girl, the priestly seducer, and the ruined victim of unholy passion! "I'm afear'd," exclaims Mrs. Martin, "that the Bible people know all about it, Peggy. It was only the other morning that they were axing down at the school whose child it was that the nurse was taking such care of. That would be certain destruction to us all, avourneen!"

"Ah! then, what are you teazing yourself about?" replies Father Macdermott. "Ar'n't the Biblicals our sworn enemies? Sure I'd rather they'd say it than not; for our people wouldn't believe a word of it then. It would be all set down to their spite and malice; and the 'ssociation would take it up and prosecute them for slander, and Peggy would be a made woman ever after the world over. Who d'ye think would dare to accuse me of it? Wouldn't I excommunicate them, bell, book, and candlelight, and bring the murrain on the cattle of them? Don't you know very well, with all your foolishness, that it wouldn't be wishing them all their souls and bodies are worth to put such a charge upon me? Who cares what they think, when I know they dare not speak out one word against their priest! Take your cordial, Mrs. Martin, and leave the rest to me."

*

Is the sketch overdrawn? Perhaps so. But is there a vital truth in it?

-

Perhaps so again. Something must fill the void of the priest's loneliness, "the niece" is the solitary human joy of his home, and until universal nature shall have undergone some revolution yet incomprehensible to our senses, she is likely or the suppressed emotion she represents to continue so, wherever the victory over the organisation of man has not been wholly and finally won. And who or what is to blame for this? The priest? No. The system which assumes a fabulous power of controlling humanity, which imposes impossible obligations, and which, embraced with an unreflecting zeal, is thus sometimes violated with a desperate and audacious confidence. Thank Heaven, the Catholics are now upon a civil equality with the Protestants, and both are equally open to animadversion, without endangering a political principle by a wanton provocation of bigotted prejudices.

Our next sketch is of another cast, to the full as exaggerated as the last, but not wanting in a similar point of utility. It is illustrative of the familiar addresses of a country parish priest, of the true Milesian stamp. Such pastors generally speak the Irish language fluently, are accustomed to the habits of the peasantry, and render their knowledge subservient to the improvement of their influence. Their appeals are generally filled with images skilfully adapted to the capacities of their hearers, and derived, with a just poetical feeling, from the ordinary modes and customs of the people. This somewhat grotesque piece of rigmarole may be entitled

THE PRIEST'S DREAM.

"Don't be making such a noise over there, shutting and opening the door while I'm preaching. It's hard for the word of God to be spread amongst ye, when it's chewing tobacco and spoiling your mouths ye are, instead of listening to me. Shut your teeth, Jemmy Finn, or the flies will get down your throat, and bother your stomach entirely.. Now, can any of ye tell me what's the reason that, when you've nothing to eat, which God help you, is no fault of your own, - you don't die for want of nourishment? There's a puzzler for you, Jem Neale, big as you are!

"Now just turn that problem in your heads, while I'm seeing whether the water is drying out of my new coat; sure enough it's the only one I

have.

[A pause of wonder in the chapel, while the priest descends from the altar to see after his coat. It is evident, from the confusion visible in the faces of the audience, that the problem is a poser. The priest returns.]

nose.

"Well, there's never a one among ye can find out the reason of the life that's in you, in spite of the starvation. Sure, that's the use of the priest, to show you what you can't see of yourselves. Did you ever hear of the moving bog? It walked over Cavan and Armagh, dripping rain the whole way; and sorrow a clod of turf on it but belonged to the Orangemen. The cause of that is as plain as the blossoms on Pat Duggan's ugly You never knew of a moving bog of real Catholic turf. No such thing. And that's the reason why the starvation doesn't kill ye. But just try your hands upon the Bible-turn over to the Methodists—and then see how a mouthful of cold wind will do for your breakfasts. Once you think of fasting and turning Protestants, you're done for as neat and clean as if Ould Nick was drilling you through and through with a red-hot poker. Doesn't that expound to you the source of the eating and gormandizing of the Brunswickers? They eat and drink hearty, you see, because they know well enough, the spalpeens, although they won't acknowledge it, that the true faith isn't in them, and that if they didn't feed like crammed fowls six times a day, and double as much on a Sunday, they'd pinę away into

the clay under their feet. But that isn't the way with the true church. The faith keeps you up. Didn't the Saviour of the world starve himself forty days and nights to show you the way to glory? And sure there's many a one of you didn't pass bite or sup for months upon months together, and the never a worse are you for it in the end. There's nothing can kill a Catholic but his own bad works. The soul of me doesn't know but you'd all live for ever, only for something or other that happens to ye just as you're nearly perfect, and whips you off with a flea in your ear. Och! then, if you could only mend yourselves, what a beautiful race of blackguards ye'd be, that would want neither the meat nor the buttermilk, and that'd be as ould as the hills, every morning ye'd see the grass growing. There ye'd all be on the day of judgment, as hearty as a hive of bees, with your grey hair twisted down into breeches and top-boots to cover your dirty hides. Shame upon ye, that won't be Methuselahs every one, when you know you could live if you liked it until there wouldn't be a living soul in the world but Alderman Bradley King, cocked upon the back of an ass, to direct you on the road to purgatory. Think o'that, and pay your dues, and there's no fear o'you.

"You remember, the other day, that the Biblemen challenged us to come to the fore in regard to the Scriptures. They wanted, you see, to prove as clear as mud that the notes were written with the wrong end of a pen, and that they had as much right to the Old and New Testament as we that had them from the beginning, and that only lent them out o' charity to the Protestants, just as Molly Kiernan would lend her pitcher to Kitty Nowlan, expecting she'd return it when she'd done with it. But the Protestants made a bad use of the loan, and got other Scriptures made from the pattern, just as you would get false keys made to pick a lock; so now they trump up their spurious books to us, that have the real books of our own, and that never had any other. It's no wonder we are careful of them, for we were treated so badly when we lent them in pure friendship, that it would be no sin in us to burn 'em altogether, for fear we'd make such born fools of ourselves again.

You know I didn't go to the meeting, boys; and may be you thought it mighty odd that I staid at home, and let Father Andy go in my place. But I'll soon show you the meaning of that; although one priest at a time is enough for a regiment of saints, and Father Andy is no bad fist at controversy. Indeed, Father Andy, you needn't look down at your shoes as if the strings wanted tying; for it's a vicar you ought to be, and I a bishop, if every body had his rights.

"It was a dream I had that kept me from going. Now when a priest condescends to dream, you may be sure there's something going to happen. The ass doesn't bray unless there's to be rain; the corns on your little toes pinch you for rain too: and the ducks wander about as if they were after swallowing love-powders, when the weather's going to be uncommon hot. And just like that is a priest's dream, only with this difference that the wonder o' the world, instead of a paltry puddle of a shower, or a splitting heat, is coming upon you. A priest wouldn't waste his time dreaming for rain, hail, or snow, or fine weather, or any thing o' the kind, for he can get them at any time for the bare asking o' them, - no, he dreams for a vortex, or a cornucopia; and them are mysteries that you know nothing at all about. "The night before the meeting that was last Tuesday- (how is your head now Father Andy?) we were sitting, Father Andy and myself, settling all the points that were to be unravelled the next day. I don't know how it was, but for the soul of me I couldn't persuade myself but that there was a drop of Protestant poison in the whiskey-you know they stop at nothing

-so I was resolved to see it out; and then, if I found they had poisoned me, to work a miracle upon myself that would frighten them out of their wits. With this pious resolution, Father Andy and myself penetrated to the very bottom of the only two or three bottles we had; and then, as well as we could, considering the poison, went to sleep. You may be sure that I was determined that if I awoke and found myself dead, not to lose a minute until I'd bring myself to life again, extract the poison, and send it in a letter to Dr. M'Hale.

6

"I wasn't over an hour in bed, when I thought I heard some one calling 'Father Murphy!' That's me,' says I; who wants me?' 'Only a friend of yours, Father Tom,' says the voice. It's lucky you're come,' says I, thinking it was daylight, for if you'd been five minutes later, you might be groping for me at the fair of Athy.'

"With that I thought I sat up in my arm-chair, for I had no notion that I was fast asleep in bed; and who do you think it was that was standing beside me? You may save yourself the trouble of guessing, for you couldn't guess who it was if you were to get a new set of eyes, and think until you were stone blind. It was a beautiful young angel, spick and span new out of heaven; and such an angel as I, that have seen bushels of them, never saw before.

"The top o' the morning to you, ma'am !' says I, for she was a lady, one of the ould sort - it's welcome you are to me this blessed day.' "Father Tom,' says she, shaking me by the hand as friendly as if she knew me all her life, I want you to come out and take a walk with me.' "And what 'll you take, ma'am,' says I, before you go?' for as I was beholden to her for her goodness, I was bound to treat her respectfully.

"Never a word she said to that; but putting her finger, that was as white as a shaving, and as taper as sparrow-grass, upon her little mouth, she shook her head, and walked on before me. There she went without making the least noise, just as if her feet-for, like yourselves, the angels never wear shoes were made of velvet. Well, I thought I'd follow her in the same manner; but, as if there was an evil eye over me, the first step I took I tripped up an old basket that was lying on the ground, and the angel turning one look at me, as much as to say, 'What's coming over you that you're making such a clatter, father Tom?' shook her pretty little hand at me, and then, with a beautiful laugh all over her face, walked on again as if nothing at all had happened.

"I needn't tell you what strange places we went through. It isn't for you to be losing your senses, thinking of green fields, where every daisy was a two-and-sixpenny bit, and the cowslips were all gold guineas. It isn't for such as the likes o' yee to be thrusting your dirty faces into the parlours, and the pantries, and the barns, all slated with loaf-bread, and the floors all washed clean with Cork whiskey (it was so plenty in the place), nor to come. asking my leave to taste the shins of beef and the bull turkeys that were waiting to be eat up on the tables, that the angel and I saw as we went along. But where do you think we got to at last? Now I'll hold a noggin of melted butter to a farthing candle that you think we went down to Tim Murphy's, to spend the day playing nine-pins. There ye're out; the angel wouldn't offer to cross the threshold of the door, for fear of spoiling her Spanish leather dancing-pumps that she carried in her hand, in the regard that she wouldn't spoil their shapes on her feet. As to nine-pins, the angels never play at any thing but backgammon and the five-fingers *; and it's themselves that'd give you the whole pack of cards, and beat you as hollow as St. Patrick beat the sea-serpent off the rock of Cashel.

A popular game of cards amongst the Irish, known also by the name of five and ten.

"It is wonderful how murdering fast the same angels can walk. I couldn't see a strin of light for the hurry I was in following her. The trees, and the topazes, and the brick houses danced up and down in my eyes as I whirled along after her; not but that I often wanted to stop and draw my breath, when she'd turn sudden on me, and with one whistle through her little finger bring me up again, just as if I was a greyhound, and couldn't help myself for the bare life.

"At last we came to a dark place, where there was nothing but trees, and a big bank covered over with ribbed grass and potato-blossoms. Stop there,' says she; say nothing, but make the sign of the cross, and look, and you shall see.'

"Whoo! away flew the trees and the bank, just as if they were birds, and in a minute more I saw, at a great distance, two gentlemen coming towards me down the lane. I thought they were gentlemen when they were far off; but as they got near me, I found out that one of them was Ould Nick himself, and the other was St. Peter. Sure I might have known them both by the smell; for the devil smelt strong of sulphur, and St. Peter had a breath coming out of his nose that was as like the smell of burnt turf as the steam that comes out of Mrs. Larkins's whiskey-boiler. The devil was dressed, as became him, like a Peeler*, with a terrible sword by his side, and a clubfoot sticking up behind like a bull's horn. And may be he hadn't a Bible under his arm, and a bundle of tracts in his hand. But St. Peter, who hasn't the least pride, was just dressed as I am, in broad cloth, and looked for all the world like a parish priest. And a well-looking saint he is a fine comely man as you'd meet in a day's walk I don't know any saint in the calendar equal to him for manners and gentility, except St. Patrick. To be sure our own patron saint is at the top of the list. All he wants is a bunch of keys to make him complete.

"Just as they were coming down upon me, as I thought, St. Peter stopped suddenly, and, putting his hand on the devil's arm, cried out

"Now, if you please, we'll just talk that little matter over that we were speaking of last night. This is a convenient place, and there's nobody to hear us, unless Father Tom that I appointed to meet us.'

"It's all the same to me,' replied Ould Nick, with as much impudence as if he was a member of parliament.

6

"Then, first of all,' said St. Peter, put down the book and the tracts, and answer me one question.'

"Twenty, if you like,' answered the devil, putting the book upon the ground, and the tracts one by one over it.

"What religion are you?' said St. Peter, looking him full in the face, as if he'd read the soul that was inside him. But the ould boy didn't seem to like that question, and was for shuffling it off; when St. Peter put it to him again in such a manner as he was forced to answer it, whether he would

or not.

"I'm a Protestant, to be sure,' replied the devil at last; and he coloured scarlet up to the very eyes as he spoke it, as if he was ashamed of owning it to St. Peter.

"That's all I wanted to have from your own lips,' said St. Peter; 'because as I have often heard that the devil can quote Scripture for his own purposes, I was determined to find out where he got the learning. Now, sit down here beside me quiet and easy, and tell me a little more that I want to hear from you.'

"Down they both sat upon the sod, the devil looking as if he didn't half

• A policeman.