"Isn't that droll,* Shawn ?" whispered Terry in the ear of the fairy doctor, who stood near him. The latter did not deem it convenient to answer in words, but he compressed his lips, contracted his brows, and threw an additional portion of empty wisdom into his physiognomy. "E'then", continued Terry, "only mark Tim Fouloo going to touch the dead corpse all a' one any body would sispect him to be taking the life of a chicken, the lahumuthawn" (half-natural), as a foolish looking, openmouthed, open-eyed young booby advanced in his turn in a slow waddling gait to the corpse, and passing his hand over the face, retired with a stare of comic stupidity, which, notwithstanding the awful occasion, provoked a smile from many of the spectators.

He

Yamon was the last person who approached the corpse. From the moment he entered, the eye of Ellen Sparling had never been withdrawn from him for an instant, and its expression now became vivid and intense. walked to the place, however, with much indifference, and passed his hand slowly and repeatedly over the cheek and brow of the dead man. Many a head was thrust forward. as if in expectation that the inanimate lump of clay might stir beneath the feeler's touch. But no miracle took place, and they gazed on one another in silence as he slowly turned away, and folding his arms, resumed his place in the centre of the apartment.

"Well, Mr. Sparling", said his worship the coroner, "here is so much time lost: had we begun to take evidence at once, the business would be nearly at an end by this time".

The old Palatine was about to reply, when their conversation was interrupted by an exclamation of surprise from Ellen Sparling. Turning quickly round, they beheld her with one of the clenched hands of the corpse between hers, gazing on it in stirless amazement. Between the

* "Droll", in Ireland, means simply, extraordinary, and dues n't necessarily excite a comic association.

dead-stiff fingers appeared something of a bluish colour slightly protruded. Using the utmost strength of which she was mistress, Ellen forced open the hand, and took from it a small part of the lappel of a coat, with a button attached. And letting the hand fall, she rushed through the crowd, putting all aside without looking at one, until she stood before Yamon. A glance was sufficient. In the death-struggle, the unhappy Moran had torn away this portion of his murderer's dress, and the rent was visible at the moment.

"The murderer! blood for blood!" shrieked the frantic girl, grasping his garment, and looking almost delirious with passion. All was confusion and uproar. Yamon darted one fierce glance around, and sprung toward the open door, but Ellen Sparling still clung as with a drowning grasp to her hold. He put forth the utmost of his giant strength to detach himself from her, but in vain. All his efforts seemed only to increase her strength, while they diminished his own. At last he bethought him of his fishing-knife; he plucked it from his belt and buried it in her bosom. The unfortunate girl relaxed her hold, reeled, and fell on the corpse of her lover, while Yamon bounded to the door. Poor Terry crossed his way, but one blow laid him sprawling senseless on the earth, and no one cared to tempt a second. The rifles of the guard were discharged after him, as he darted over the sandhills; but just before the triggers were pulled, his foot tripped against a loose stone, he fell, and the circumstance perhaps saved his life (at least the marksmen said so). He was again in rapid flight before the smoke cleared away.

"Shuil! Shuil!* The sand hills! the cliffs !" was now the general shout, and the chase immediately commenced. Many minutes elapsed ere they arrived at the cliffs, and half a dozen only of the most nimble-footed just reached the spot in time to witness the last desperate resource of * Come! Come!

the murderer. He stood and looked over his shoulder for an instant, then rushing to the verge of the cliff, where it walled in the land to a height of forty feet, he waved his hand to his pursuers, and cast himself into the sea.

The general opinion was that he had perished, but there was no trace ever seen that could make such a consummation certain. The body was never found, and it was suspected by a few, that, incredible as the story might appear, he had survived the leap, and gained the little rocky island opposite.

The few who returned at dusk to Mr. Sparling's house, found it the abode of sorrow, of silence, and of death. Even the voice of the hired keener was not called in on this occasion to mock the real grief that sat on every brow and in every heart. The lovers were waked together, and buried in the same grave at Kilfichera.

THE BARBER OF BANTRY.

CHAPTER I.

THERE is a small river which, rising amid the wildest and least cultivated upland of the county of Limerick in Ireland, pursues its lonesome course amid heath and bog, by cliff and quarry, through scenery of the bleakest and yet the most varied kinds, until it discharges its discoloured waters into the bosom of the Lower Shannon. Now gliding, deep and narrow, through some heathy plain, it presents a surface no wider than a meadow streamlet, and, like placid characters in the world, indicating its depth by its tranquillity; anon, it falls in one white and foamy volume over the brow of some precipitous crag, at the foot of which it dilates into a pool of tolerable extent. Further down it may be traced through the intricacies of a stunted wood, now babbling in one broad sheet over the limestone shallow; now rolling silent, deep, and dark, beneath the overhanging brier and hazel bushes that fling their tangled foliage across the waters from the indented bank. In another place, it may be found dashing noisily from ledge to ledge of some opposing mass of limestone, or pursuing its swift and gurgling course along the base of a perpendicular cliff, until, as it approaches the mighty river in which its waters are received, it acquires surface and depth sufficient to float the fisher's skiff, and the small cot or lighter that conveys a lading of marl or sea-weed to manure the little

potato garden of the humble agriculturist upon its banks. Nor even in this dreary region is the wild streamlet wholly destitute of animated figures to give a quickening interest to the general loneliness of the scenery along its side. The neighbouring cottager "snares" for pike and salmon in its shallows; the cabin housewife beetles her linen in the summer evening on its banks, and the barefoot and bareheaded urchin, standing or sitting by the side of an overhanging ash or elder, drops his pin-hook baited with an earthworm into the deep and shaded corner which he knows by profitable experience to be the favourite haunt of the eel and trout; and in which it may be said, in passing, his simple apparatus is often as destructive as all the erudite machinery of Izaak Walton and his disciples.

In the summer season the appearance of this little river is such as we have described. In the winter, however, after the great rains, common in mountain scenery, have set in, the shallow bed of the stream is often filled, in the course of a few minutes, with a body of water, collected from the heights around its source, that presents a formidable contrast to the usually placid tenor of its course. It is then seen roaring and foaming along in one huge, yellow flood, inundating not unfrequently the cottages and hamlets near its banks, and carrying dismay and death among pigs, poultry, and other anti-aquatic animals, who happen to stray within reach of its overflowing current, and sometimes even placing life in jeopardy.

Not far from the banks of the river, and commanding a full prospect of its windings through a varied and extensive, though wild and thinly populated landscape, may be seen at this day the walls of a roofless mansion, which bears in its decay the marks of having been once inhabited by persons somewhat superior in rank to the "strong farmers" who, with few exceptions, constitute at present the sole aristocracy of the district. The style of the masonwork (the sounding term architecture would be somewhat