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but they had a merry twinkle in them that made amends for their diminutiveness, and had a spice of roguish devilry as well at times, that betrayed his love of mischief and adventure. He wore no whiskers; a very finely-trimmed moustache and imperial adorning his upper lip and chin, and, when not otherwise engaged, he might generally be seen walking up and down the deck, smoking a cigar, and chatting loquaciously with his ally and assistant, Couthon, who was as long, lanky, and sulky, as Monsieur Guiscard was the reverse. The latter's figure was, or rather had been, a very good one, but one of the glorious mischances of war had shot off his left arm at the wrist. Couthon was lame in one leg, but, being a very wiry restless man, was but little disabled by the misfortune, when fate doomed him to a hand-to-hand encounter with an antagonist; for the lame lieutenant generally came off victor. La Fleur de Marie, despite the infamous purposes to which she was devoted, was the most beautiful little craft that ever skimmed the ocean. Her slim tapering spars shot up to a dazzling height from her deck; and when her snow-white sails were hoisted, and La Fleur de Marie, left to her own free will, danced over the scarcely-parted waves, with every tack of sail swelling out to the breeze, not the most magnificent man-of-war that ever shot terror into the hearts of England's foe, could excel her in the light yet stately bearing of her movements. She was too lightly built to weather a greatly prolonged storm; yet, when a storm was threatening overhead, so complete was the discipline to which the pirate's crew were subjected, that in five minutes all her sails would be reefed, her jib-booms taken in, everything made taut and safe fore and aft, on deck and below, and La Fleur de Marie lay floating on the waters with no more front to present to the approaching hurricane than a huge log of wood would offer.

At that moment the man whom he had designated as Le Diable approached, and Captain Guiscard cried out in English,

"Ha, Monsieur! we shall have a tough job of it, I fancy; the wind has chopped round to the south'ard, and blows like a fury on the rocks to our right.

"A storm is brewing to a certainty, captain," rejoined Le Diable sternly, as his eyes wandered over the boiling waves; "but who cares for such a capful of wind as we're likely to have? a chestful of golden guineas would recompense even you for the risk you would run in getting them into your clutches."

"Not to mention a pretty lass whose fair form a friend of ours, Monsieur, is anxious to lay his hands on," returned the pirate, winking his little dark eyes knowingly as he spoke; "but, bustle, my lads, bustle," cried he, springing towards the hatches, "we'd better make the landing before the shore is quite invisible, I think-Couthon, man the boatMounsieur Le Diable, jump into the prow-it will be as dark as midnight before we get to our destination.-How many miles did you say it was from here?"

"Four," returned the other carelessly as he threw his large athletic figure into the bottom of the boat, which was in a moment filled with a dozen dark, swarthy, stern-looking villains who almost rivalled him in their powerful exhibition of limb and muscle. Le Diable had, however,

the advantage in the majestic bearing that characterized his movements, and was, in all respects, a fine specimen of youthful yet manly beauty and vigour. "Starboard,

my lads, starboard!" cried the pirate apprehensively, as

he took his seat a-port.

"Starboard it is," rejoined a black muscular villain, whose smutty features seemed well acquainted with powder and ball.

"Very well, now row easily at first, till we get into the tide-gently! -did you bring plenty of weapons with you, Couthon?"

The lieutenant nodded a grim assent, and rested on his oar; they were now getting amongst the rough water, or swell, which on account of their propinquity to the ship they had not yet experienced the violence of, and many a wistful glance was cast towards the half-hid cliffs, which seemed to recede the further into darkness the nearer they approached them; at last the boat grated against a reef, and, in a moment, the silence was broken by a dozen "sacré's" and "mon dieu's," as fear or surprise alternated in the speakers' breasts.

"Port a-helm, my lads!" cried the captain promptly, as he half sprung from his seat.-"Jacques, you devil, ground your oar-there's no damage done, as yet-keep to leeward, and we'll be high-and-dry in ten minutes. Sacré! you have run us into the reach; port a-helm, you devils-port! port! there, now row for your bare lives."

"Have we struck a rock?" demanded the lieutenant in a low voice of Le Diable, who seemed to be examining the bottom of the boat at this juncture.

The latter started up hurriedly, and replying in the negative, turned away from his interrogator and fixed his gaze on the approaching shore. Couthon eyed him narrowly, as if the fellow's manner aroused some suspicions in his mind, but at that moment a sudden lurch of the boat, occasioned by an immense wave bursting unexpectedly upon their frail craft nearly washed him overboard, and the suddenness of the danger made him instantly forget them again; in another minute they were riding in still water, and the captain's voice rang loud and clear above every other sound, as he directed them to run the bow of their little skiff into a creek which his experienced eye assured him would afford them a safe landing place.

"Now, form yourselves into file," continued he, as they sprang upon firm ground; "let every man put a couple of pistols into his belt, in addition to his cutlass and short sword. Couthon, give Le Diable a sword, and bid him lead on-he knows the road best-and now for Fairy Lawn." Whilst the pirates, headed by the singular being whom the captain designated by the title of "Le Diable," are proceeding towards Patrick Butler's house, we will beg the reader's company to another and a different scene, which, however, we think will be found to bear some analogy to the one we have just quitted.

It was a dark September night-the moon was on the wane, and would not rise for several hours to come; a keen searching wind- was abroad that made the bones ache again with its severity; but cold, and dark, and comfortless as it was, it had not prevented some dozen or more of Patrick Butler's friends from honouring Fairy Lawn with their presence,

all of them being actuated by the very laudable desire of assisting at the solemnities attendant upon the marriage of the fair Rose with the young Frenchman, Charles Beauvais.

The ceremony had not yet commenced, as the priest, who lived at a distance of several miles, had not yet arrived; the most impatient of the sunny guests had, ere this, more than once hazarded a conjecture as to the probable reason of his non-appearance, but for a time these whispered suggestions met with little attention, every one being able to remember some similar scene at which he had been quite as long in coming; and to prove that they were not apprehensive of his not coming at all, they began to divide into groups, under the pretence of discussing the topics of the day.

Rose sat apart from her father's guests, with Charles Beauvais by her side; both were laughing merrily, although a shade of sadness at times stole over the features of the young bride, as her eyes wandered from her lover to the form of Patrick Butler, who, silent and reserved, where all appeared so happy, seemed to be brooding over some secret sorrow which even his daughter was ignorant of, and which he evidently did not wish her to share.

"You look, sad Rose," broke in the bridegroom elect, after he had failed to win a smile from his companion at some sally.

"Nay, Charles, only thoughtful," and the smile played round the bride's lips again.

The Frenchman shook his head sorrowfully, for it died away again as suddenly as it had been called up, and drawing his arm round the waist of the blushing Rose, he began to beguile her sadness by a legend of his own fair Provence. Rose listened and smiled again, and forgot how time sped, until Beauvais was interrupted in his recital by the entrance of the Priest, who, wet, heated, and breathless, ere he was well into the room, began a long string of compliments and witticisms, which, from the readiness with which they were brought out, and the merriment that followed their delivery, seemed to be his regular stock-in-trade for an occasion like the present.

"Ah, Miss Rosy, you have sent for me at last then-I wish you luck and happiness, darlint," and the blue lips of his reverence were forthwith pressed against the fading damask of the bride's fair cheek; "and where's Beauvais, the villin-och! ye're here, you rapscallion, are ye?— faith, and Miss Rose might have made a worse choice, Patrick-hould up your head, my lad, and don't stick so near her, as if you were afraid I was going to run off wid her-ha! ha! and whom have we here? not Biddy Cassidy-faix, is it? you look bravely, Biddy."

"Shure and who has a better right, plaise your reverence?" cried Mistress Biddy, with a rather contemptuous fling of her plentifully befavoured cap-"it's meself that has a right to do that same. Dr. Nangle and I brought her up from the day she came a among uz-nursed her whin she could'nt lift hand or foot, from the very night her poor mother died-it's a good right I have to look bravely, and this her wedding night to the fore."

Biddy had run herself out of breath, and now paused to recover it. "She does honour to your bringing up, Biddy, alanna," continued

the reverend priest approvingly; "she's the toast of all wide Cork, and has gone far to turn the heart of many a gay bachelor."

"And Dr. Nangle's amongst the rest, plase your reverence," continued the old nurse, as her brown wrinkled visage crimpled into a smile– "sure you may say that too, and be very near the thruth too.-Ay, ay, my purty Rose is peerless, and none know her worth better than meself."

As if to clench the argument, and prevent his reverence from saying another word on the subject, Biddy, at this juncture, squatted herself down in a large, well-stuffed chair, which, from time immemorial, that is to say for the last fifty years, had been sacred to her use, and began to croon away to herself the tune of an old song that had been popular in her youth, and the priest, after another survey of her short, stout, yet still erect figure, and deeply-lined visage, turned away to converse with the rest of the guests.

He came, at last, to the head of the room, where Patrick Butler was standing with the oldest and most valued of his friends, and although they seemed to be very deeply engaged in the discussion of a serious topic, the mirth-loving priest, relying on his power at such a time, did not scruple, for a moment, to intrude upon their privacy with his own uproarious voice, which, in sooth, well nigh annihilated that of all the guests put together.

"How does time go? demanded he, with a tug at his watch-chain, "it must be getting well on to ten o'clock."

"No, it wants half an hour, doctor," rejoined Mr. Butler, "at ten you had better begin the ceremony. How does Rose bear herself?" "Superbly! Her self-possession is wonderful, although it is softened down by a bewitching modesty that quite tells upon one. Ah! my old friend, the groom is a lucky dog! and I have told him so a dozen times at the least."

"For which he is, doubtless, very much obliged to you," rejoined Patrick, smiling; "but what delayed you so long? more than once we fancied you were not coming."

"Faix, and I was a'most afraid of that same myself," said the priest, mysteriously. “ I set off early, you may be assured, for I had no fancy to ride so far in the dark, all by myself, but when I left the high road and was coming near to Daly's-you know the place, just where the road takes a bend--there's an ould gibbet standing there yet, if I'm not mistaken, with some cut-throat racal on it-I came upon a score or so of men, who, before I left them, nearly frightened my life out of my mouth."

"Indeed!" ejaculated three or four of the auditors, whom the priest's narrative had attracted around him, "and who were they?"

"Faix, and that's what I'm puzzled about," continued he, attempting to laugh; "I can't for the life of me divine what they were after, for though they didn't abuse me, I more than once detected the fellow that acted as pioneer, a great gigantic fellow that would be a host in himself if a squabble came near him, looking very oddly at me, as if with an eye to finding out whar I was the most vulnerable."

"That's very likely, docther," broke in one of his auditors.

"And so I thought it at the time, Teddy, avick; but I hadn't long an opportunity of thinking about the circumstance; for, whin we came to the Ould Jontilman, the whole party turned in there to dhrink, and, whether I would or not, they forced me in with them, though, if I had consulted my own taste, it's not in Katty Mc Keoun's shebeen I'd a been, but here, where I'm safely housed at last-thank God and the houly Vargin."

"And is that all your advinture, docther?" cried three or four voices in chorus.

"I wish it wuz," rejoined Dr. Nangle, with the same uneasy augh. "It's not meself that's given to talk of what one meets wid on a dark night; but whin a dacent sarvent of houly Church is forced into the company of a set of tearing, swearing, lying pack of highwaymen when on his way to a widdin' it 'ud make a stone spake.”

"And so it would, docther."

"Hould your paice, Tim Conolly. As I said afore, nolens volens which manes against one's will-hem! the villains forced me to go wid them into the Ould Jontilman, and compelled me to drink raw brandy and whiskey, whilst they kept up a continual clatter in an outlandish gibberish of a tongue that would make a dacent Christian's hair stand on end with listening to it."

"But didn't they drink, docther ?"

"Houly Virgin, if they didn't. French, or Spanish, or German-let them be what they plaised, they bet me all to chips at that same; and the strangest thing about it all was, that the more they seemed to dhrink, the steadier they grew; and at last, at a look from the rest, a couple of them seized hould of me just as I sat, and carried me by main force out to the front of the house, where my pony stood as quiet as a lamb, and chucked me into the saddle, and with an awful yell set the baste off; and Tilsy never pulled up until we got here."

"Faix, docther, you've met wid as many adventur's as Saint Patrick himself when he walked across the Giant's Causeway wid his head under his arm," cried Tim Conolly, with a hoarse laugh.

Doctor Nangle frowned, and averred that every word he had spoken was the truth.

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Och, I didn't doubt that in the laste," cried the sceptical Tim, laughing; "the ounly thing that staggered me was, that they had so much thrubble to git yez into the Ould Jontilman, as you say they

had."

"Blood and thunder, Tim-"

"Whist, docther," cried Tim, hurriedly, "them's not fit words for such a time as this. There's tin o'clock sthriking; so get on your robes, and we'll have the ceremony over at wanst."

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"Shure, and I'll do that, Tim; and away bustled Doctor Nangle to array himself in his vestments, and away fled Biddy Cassidy to the side of her foster-child, who, trembling and abashed, shrank from the vicinity of her betrothed with all the coyish modesty of an unwedded bride.

"Cheer up, darlint Rose, accushla," murmured the nurse as she folded poor Rose in her arms. "Look up, mavourneen deheelish

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