He was

66

He came into my room one furrin woman. day soon after, and sat down deid when they found him. by my bedside

Him an' his faither- baith. “Weel, Bob-for I doot ye'll Hoo it was that you eroa pit ha'e tae be Bob tae me here. alive, Guid kens. But there after,” he began in friendly wisna muckle life in you, oome fashion, and this was his first tae think on it. The caur loupit reference to the new relations doon intae the bed o' the between Batty and myself. “I burn, a maitter o' fifty feet or daarsay there's things ye wud mair, an' smashed itsel' tae like fine tae ken ?”

smithereens again' the stanes. “There are, Dootor," I an.. They brooht you back for doid, swered. “But first, tell me- but Betty wud ha's it that has Betty spoken to you of— there was life in you, an' sure of-"

eneuoh she was richt.” “Ay, ay, lad, dinna fash “And Marie ?" I asked. yoursel',” he interrupted kindly, "I ken nowt o' her. Her to save me the embarrassment digappearance wisna brocht op of an avowal. "Betty has telt at the inquiry. The twa things me that you want her. She werena conneoted. But sbe mioht dae waur, ye ken. Dinna hisna been seen since.” you fash yoursel'a boot that.” “Then the Hopeton treasure

It may seem a grudging 80. is lost ?" I exclaimed. oeptanoe of a son-in-law, that “So I understand frae Betty. "she might dae waar,” but the I only ken what she has telt dootor was

an undemonstra- me aboot the treasure. The tive old Sootsman, and the furrin woman is clear awa' wi' kindly pressure of his hand on it-o' that you may be shair.” mine meant more than the I lay silent, thinking of what words.

he had told me. “You'll be wantin' tae ken "Perhaps it is as well,” I the end of your adventure, I'm said at last. “It has caused thinkin'?” he asked, quickly enough trouble, and I doubt if ohanging the subjeot.

it will bring much happiness “Yes," I answered eagerly. to Marie. By the way, how “What has become of Roy, long have I been ill ?” and the Laird, and Marie ? “Mair nor a month," reWhere is Morgan? And- plied Dr Forbes, to my aston

“Yin at a time-yin at & ishment. time," the dootor interrupted, " And what of Morgansmiling at my eagerness. "I'd where is he now po ” best juist tell ye the story in " Efter

everything my ain words.

settled up, an' you were oot o' "Pair Roy !” He paused to danger, he went awa' for & let these words sink into my while, but he's back in the mind, and thus break the news toon again, an'anxious tae see more gently. “He was a fine you, as sune as I'll gi’e him lad, was Roy. It was a peety leave. In fact, he's been oa'in' he got mixed up wi' that me jailer, an' kidnapper, an'

siolike, for the last week or escape. Dear, dear, dear, there mair. If you think it's no' wasn't a sporting chance in ower muokle for you, we mioht a million that you'd be alivelet him in the morn, juist lang yet here you are, as full of eneuob tae speir the time o' beans as a pod.” day.'

“Whatof Marigold?" I asked. So next day I saw Morgan's “She is recovering," anbeaming spectaoles once again. swered Morgan. “It was a He was unaffectedly delighted terrible shook to her, but she to see me, and stood rubbing is getting over it. Seaton, his hands and exolaiming, for my boy, I've overcome all her an unoonscionable time- objeotions at last, and she's

“Dear, dear, dear! This is going to marry me and come & great day, Seaton. That with me to the States. We jailer of yours is a holy terror. shall take young Dunoan with I should have seen you a week us, and let Hopeton until he ago, but for his rules and grows up.” regalations. He's worse than “The best thing you could a New York hall-porter.” do," I agreed heartily. “Take

I smiled upon him and let her right away to fresh surhim talk,

roundings. She could never “Well, well, it's all over be happy here." now, thank God, but I can't

I was well enough to look at you lying there with. be at Marigold's wedding. It out blaming myself for your was a very quiet wedding, but troubles. I got you into all looking at the faces of the this mess, Seaton, with these bride and bridegroom I knew damned little piotures. Even that it would turn out a happy at the last, I oried to you to do one. something, and landed you in I have proved myself right, for that unholy smash. No- too, for Betty and I have twice body but you knows what journeyed to the States and really happened that night. visited the Morgans, and a Was it an aooident?”

happier household I have never Now I know, as surely as I seen-with one exception. But knew anything on this earth, then, there is only one Betty that Roy had deliberately Morgan, even now,

will somepulled the oar across the road timos grow apologetio about to save his false wife. He did the troubles he let me in for, it with a fall knowledge of and put them all down to those what would be the end, but, “damned little pictures." I I what good would come from never agree with him. speaking of it.

mustn't grumble, “Yes," I answered. “A pure Morgan," I tell him. “We acoident. : : . The light was followed the little piotares, you bad. The Laird was driv- know, The tragedy would ing. : : . He did not see the have oome just the same withbend in the road.”

out them, but not the joy that "You had marvellous is ours to-day."

"You

»

BEFORE THE UNION: GRATTAN'S PEOPLE.

BY J. A. STRAHAN,

Both Swift and Grattan objeot to those who walk were Irish patriots, though through this great town two men more different in [Dublin), or travel in the their nature and in their out- country, when they see the look on life it would be difficult streets, the roads, and cabinto imagine. Swift was

Swift was an doors, orowded with beggars Anglo-Saxon in everything of the female sex, followed by except birth; Grattan was an three, four, or six children, all Irish Colt in everything except in rags, and importuning every name. Swift was sparing in passenger for an alms.' And words, but you always know in reoommending that the what he means; Grattan was ohildren should be eaten, he profuse in words, but some- indicates olearly enough the times does not know what he cause of their awful poverty. means himself. Swift was a "I grant," he says, "this food hater of mankind who, during will be somewhat dear, and his life, devoted a third of his therefore very proper for landinoome, and at his death left all lords, who, as they have already his fortune, in charities to men. devoured most of the parents, Grattan was a lover of man- seem to have the best title to kind who, during his life, spent the children.” In Grattan's more than his inoome on him- day their condition is described self, and at his death left little by Lord Clare: “I say it is fortune for anybody.

impossible for human wretched. Swift's active life occupied nese to exceed that of the the first part of the first half miserable tenantry. I know of the eighteenth century ; that the unhappy tenants are Grattan's the second part of ground to powder by relentless the second half of the eight- landlords.” And again : "This eenth century. Save in one island is supposed to contain respeot, the Irelands of those three millions of inhabitants. two periods were as different Of these, two live like the beasts as Swift and Grattan.

of the field upon a root picked The one respeot in which the out of the earth, almost withtwo Irelands were the same out hovels for shelter or olothes was the misery of the majority for covering." It is to be noted of the population—the common that Swift and Clare were enemy of Swift's, the danger- both Tories of the highest type : ous Papists of Grattan's time. the men who were fighting for In bis Modest Proposal for “the people's rights” had, so Utilising the Children of Poor far as I oan disoover, no more People in Ireland, Swift de- bowels of compassion for the soribes their condition in his physioal miseries of the farmers his day : “It is a melancholy and labourers than had Mr

6

Bright and his fellow Radioals aboo against Reaskawallahs ! for the physioal miseries of the Here is Coffey aboo - who factory hands.

dar strike & Coffey?” "I When Englishmon endow dar!” shouted a Reaskawalthe stage Irishman with an lah. "Here's Reaskawallah inexhaustible fund of reokless aboo !” And then the struggle gaiety, they are really at- began. The parish priest and tributing to the Celt peas- his ourate would ride among ant the charaoteristie of the the fighting

fighting men, striking Saxon landlord. The Celt in right and left with their Ireland has had, during the whips; but the struggle would last seven centuries, plenty of not end until the weaker faocause for recklessness but very tion was driven from the little for gaiety; and every field, leaving a few dead and one who knows him as he is many dangerously wounded recognises as his most notice- behind them. This was the able characteristio a habitual form Irish Celtio hilarity took melanoholy – whion, the late in the eighteenth century. One Lord Beaconsfield once said, of Daniel O'Connell's best was due to his proximity to services to his country was the melancholy ocean. A more putting & stop to it by delikely cause is his long un- nouncing it as unpatriotic happiness. It is, as a rule, and a shame to Ireland,

, only when he has, as they say It was during the agony of in Ireland, “drink taken” that that awful eighteenth century he is gay; and in the eight- that the Catholio priest a0eenth century that gaiety took quired that authority over the usually the rather disagreeable Irish peasant which makes form of faction-fighting. The him the real ruler of the best description of the faction- country till this day. As fights, which for generations Swift says, the landlords were followed every country fair, is devouring the tenantry; as given by the late Mr W. R. Clare says, they were grindLe Fanu in his 'Seventy Years ing them to powder. In their of Irish Life.' Dealing with misery the only person who the fights in County Lime- brought them help or hope rick between the Coffeys and was the priest. At first he the Reaskawallahs, he says did so at the risk of murder they did not begin with one or mutilation; but whatever man trailing his coat on the the dangers he had to face, ground and daring any one he never failed them in their to tread on it. They began hoars of sorrow, sickness, and by a man "wheeling," as they death. called it, for his party: that is, he marched up and down

Came to my cabin-door

they were bitterly opposed to And on my earthen floor Knelt by me, sick and poor,

it-but they talked much about Soggarth aroon.

Protestant Ascendaney. This

did not mean that they conThe difference between the tinued to perseoute CatholiosIreland of Swift's and the Iro- in fact they had become very land of Grattan's day lay not tolerant; it merely meant that among the Celtio Irish but they were Protestants, and among the Anglo-Irish. At that they were determined to the beginning of the eighteenth maintain their own ascendanoy century the Anglo · Irish, -in other words, to keep what whether English or Soots, they already possessed, all the landowners or farmers or flax- powers, places, and profits in spinners, were one people with the country. & common hatred of the Celtio Considering what human Irish-“the common enemy." nature is this is not to be At the end of it they were two wondered at. If all the rest of peoples-& farming and flax- the population was steeped in spinning people in the North, poverty and gloom, they were who were Soots and had become rolling in riches and gaiety. very disoontented, and a land. Some one has said that no one owning and roistering people, ever fully felt the joy of life soattered throughout the whole except a French nobleman of country, who were very con- the

age

before the French Retented and had beoome Irish. volution. I am not so sure of

The farming and flax-spin- that. At any rate, the Irish ning people in the North need nobleman of the age before the hardly be oonsidered. Save tbat Irish Union had a very jolly they were muoh legs poor and time of it. Like his Frenoh were much more independent, brother, he built stately manthey were in nearly the same sions among the mud cabins of position as the Celtio, or as his tenantry, feasted while they they were called the starved, forced them to make Catholio, Irish. They had roads for his convenienoe, and practioally nothing to do with whipped them off them when the government of the country; they got in his way. He drank, and, since their

their Volunteers dioed, danced, and duelled to failed to get Grattan's Parlia- his heart's content, without ment reformed, they regarded giving a thought as to whether it with hatred and contempt. they were living or dying. The The landowning and roistering Frenoh nobleman came to a people, on the other hand, owned sudden end about the close of not merely the land but every- the eighteenth century; so thing else in the oountry whioh would have the Irish nobleman was worth owning. They made but for the help of England, all the laws, filled all the places, whose interference in his affairs and pooketed all the taxes. he so deeply detested. They had ceased to talk of These were the glorious days English Ascendanoy-indeed, of Dablin. As some one bas

now