sound which the stirring of the waters made in the mighty cavern beneath.

"I remember the time when that would have won a button* for me", said Moran, turning round. He at the same instant felt his shoulder grasped with a tremendous force. He looked quickly up, and beheld Yamon, his eyes staring and wild with some frantic purpose, bending over him. A half uttered exclamation of terror escaped him, and he endeavoured to spring towards the path which led from the place. The giant arm of Yamon, however, intercepted him.

"Give me, cheat and plunderer that you are", cried the fisherman, while his limbs trembled with emotion, "give me the money you robbed me of this night, or by the great light that's looking down on us, I'll shake you to pieces".

"There, Yamon, there: you have my life in your power-there is your money, and now-' He felt the grasp of the fisherman tightening upon his throat. He struggled, as a wretch might be expected to do, to whom life was new and dear; but he was as a child in the gripe of his enemy. There was a smothering shriek of entreaty -a wild attempt to twine himself in the limbs and frame of the murderer-and in the next instant he was hurled over the brow of the cliff.

"Another! another life!" said Yamon Dhu, as with hands stretched out, and fingers spread, as though yet in act to grasp, he looked out over the precipice. "The water is still again-Ha! who calls me?-From the caverns?-No.-Above ?-Another life!-A deal of Christian's blood upon one man's soul!" and he rushed from the place.

About eleven o'clock on the following morning (as fine a day as could be), a young lad named Terry Mick (Terry, The practice of playing for buttons is very common among the peasant children.

the son of Mick, a species of patronymic very usual in Ireland), entered, with considerable haste, the kitchen of Mr. Morty Shannon, a gentleman farmer, besides being coroner of the county, and as jolly a man as any in the neighbourhood. Terry addressed a brief tale in the ear of Aby Galaghar, Mr. Shannon's steward and fac-totum, which induced the said Sandy to stretch his long, wellseasoned neck, from the chimney-corner, and directing his voice towards the door of an inner room, which was complimented with the appellation of a parlour, exclaimed: "Mr. Morty! you're calling, sir".

"Who am I calling?" asked a rich, waggish voice, from within.

"Mr. Sparling, the Palatine's boy, sir", replied Aby, quite unconscious of the quid pro quo.

"Indeed! More than I knew myself. Walk in, Terry". "Go in to him, Terry dear", said Aby, resuming his comfortable position in the chimney-corner, and fixing a musing, contented eye upon a great cauldron of potatoes that hung over the turf-fire, and on which the first simmering froth, or white horse (as it is called in Irish cottages), had begun to appear.

"The master sent me to you, sir", said Terry, opening the door, and protruding an eye, and half a face into the sanctum sanctorum, "to know with his compliments

But first, I should let you have the glimpse that Terry got of the company within. The person to whom he immediately addressed himself sat at one end of a small deal table, on which were placed a jug of cold water, a broken bowl, half filled with coarse brown sugar, and a little jar, which, by the frequent changes of position it underwent, seemed to contain the favourite article of the three. Imagine to yourself a middle sized man, with stout, well-set limbs, a short and thick head of hair, an indented forehead, eyes of a piercing gray, bright and sparkling, with an expression between leer and satire, and a nose running in

a curvilineal direction toward the mouth. Nature had, in the first instance, given it a sinister inclination, and chance, wishing to rectify the morals of the feature, had by the agency of a black-thorn stick in the hands of a rebellious tenant, sent it again to the right. "Twas kindly meant, as Mr. Morty himself used to say, though not dexterously executed. "The master's compliments, sir", continued Terry, "to know if your honour would just step over to Kilkee, where there has been a bad business this morningCharlie Moran being lying dead, on the broad of his back, at the house, over".

When I say that an expression of involuntary satisfaction, which he in vain endeavoured to conceal, diffused itself over the tortuous countenance of the listener at this intelligence, it is necessary I should save his character by reminding the reader that he was a county coroner, and in addition to the four pounds which he was to receive for the inquest, there was the chance of an invitation to stay and dine with the Sparlings, people whose mode of living Mr. Morty had before now tried and approved.

"Come here, Terry, and take your morning", said he, filling a glass of ardent spirits, which the youth immediately disposed of with a speed that showed a sufficient familiarity with its use, although some affectation of mincing decency induced him to colour the delicious relish with a grimace and shrug of comical dislike, as he replaced the glass on the table.

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E'then, that's good stuff, please your honour. Sure I'd know the master's anywhere over the world. This is some of the two year old, sir. "Twas made the time Mr. Grady, the guager, was stationed below there, at the white house—and faix, many a drop he tasted of it himself, in the master's barn".

"And is the still so long at work, Terry?"

"Oh, long life to you, sir,-aye is it and longer too.

The master has sech a 'cute way with him in managing the still-hunters. 'Tis in vain for people to inform: to be sure, two or three tried it, but got nothing by it, barring a good lacing at the next fair-day. Mr. Grady used regularly to send notice when he got an information, to have him on his guard against he'd come with the army-and they never found anything there, I'll be your bail for it, more than what served to send 'em home as drunk as pipers, every mother's son. To be sure, that Mr. Grady was a pleasant man, and well liked wherever he came, among high and low, rich and poor, although being a guager and a Protestant. I remember making him laugh hearty enough once. He asked me, says he, as it might be funning: 'Terry', says he, 'I'm very bad inwardly. How would you like to be walking after a guager's funeral this morning?" "Why thin, Mr. Grady', says I, 'I'd rather see a thousand of your religion dead than yourself, and meaning no love for you, neither'. And poor man, he did laugh hearty, to be sure. He had no pride in him-no pride, more than a child, had'nt Mr. Grady. God's peace be with him wherever he is this day".

In a few minutes Mr. Shannon's blind mare was saddled, and the head of the animal being directed toward Kilkee, away went Terry, trotting by the coroner's side, and shortening the road with his quaint talk. On arriving at the Palatine's house, they found it crowded with the inhabitants of the village. The fairy doctor of the district sat near the door; his brown and weatherbeaten face wrapped in an extraordinary degree of mystery, and his eyes fixed with the assumption of deep thought on his twirling thumbs: in another part of the outer room was the schoolmaster of the parish, discussing the "crowner's quest law" to a circle of admiring listeners. In the chimney-corner, on stools which were ranged for the purpose, were congregated the "knowledgable" women of the district. Two soldiers, detached from the nearest

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instant, however; on looking a second time, there was no person to be seen. An overwhelming sensation of terror now rushed upon her, and she fled from the place with the rapidity of madness. In a state half-frantic, half-fainting, she reached her father's house, and flung herself on her bed, where the news of Moran's death reached her next morning. To return, however, to the present position of our tale. A certain number of the guests were now summoned into the room where the body lay, and all things were prepared for the ordeal. At a table near the window, with writing materials before him, was placed the worthy coroner, together with the lieutenant of the guard at the lighthouse, who had arrived a few minutes before. Sparling stood close by them, his face made up into an expression of wise abstraction, his hands thrust into his breeches pockets, and jingling some half-pence which they contained. The betrothed lover of the murdered man had arisen from her knees, and put on a completely altered manner. She now stood in silence, and with tearless eyes, at the head of the bier, gazing with an earnestness of purpose, which might have troubled the carriage even of diffident innocence itself, into the face of every one who approached to touch the body. Having been aware of the suspicions afloat against Yamon, and the grounds for those suspicions, she expected with impatience the arrival of that person.

He entered at length. All eyes were instantly turned on him. There was nothing unusual in the manner or appearance of the man. He glanced round the room, nodded to a few, touched his forehead to the coroner and the lieutenant, and then walking firmly and coolly to the centre of the apartment, awaited his turn for the trial. very close observer might have detected a quivering and wincing of the eyelid, as he looked toward Ellen Sparling, but it was only momentary, and he did not glance in that direction a second time.

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