which glimmered faintly some blocks of wood, three-parts burnt out, and upon whose lofty mantelpiece a smoking lamp diffused more shadow than light.

Shortly after, the sound of the quick step of a vigorous horse was heard; it was the stranger departing.

A few seconds afterwards the heavy tread of one with nail-shod shoes was distinguished; it was La Trace, on his way to the wood, with his blood-hound Ramoneau.

The last noise had not yet subsided in the distance before the Count rose from the chair which he had occupied at one of the chimney

corners.

He first went towards the door that opened from the road that passed in front of the house of the inn-keeping forester; he opened it with precaution, and noiselessly; listened for some moments with his head inclined outside, and then reclosing the door, double-locked it on the inside, and approaching one of his comrades, fast asleep in front of the fire-place, with his head resting between his two hands, he touched him lightly on the shoulder several times, and at length said to him in a low voice:

"Come, my dear fellow, up! awake! He is gone; we are masters of this barrack, as if we had taken it by assault, and you know what you promised me. A gentleman should above all things keep his word, when he has lost his reason, to prove that his instinct has survived his good sense."

The sleeper roused himself somewhat; but he was not worth much more on that account, for he was half-drunk.

The Count shook him now more roughly by the arm, which drew from him some indistinct grumblings.

"You will keep watch, you know, as agreed. La Trace is gone; but he may, perhaps, have forgotten something; or some one of those marital suspicions may cross his brain, which spring up with the rapidity of toad-stools, and then you know we might have some disagreeable scene."

"All right! all right!" stammered the Count's trusty Pylades, in a deplorably husky voice; "you try and get Madeleine to listen to reason, I-I'll take care of the other."

And his head fell again into his two hands, at the same time as a formidably sonorous snore indicated that he had again lost all consciousness of what was taking place around him.

"I am sure of nothing with that stupid brute, who cannot drink without getting as drunk as a German," thought the Count; "but I've secured the front door; and if he returned by the yard door, as it makes a great noise in opening, I shall be warned in time. Such is the reliance we can place on our friends!" said he, still mentally, with a shrug of the shoulders, and a look of thorough disdain at the sleeper, sunk again upon his chair like an inert insensible mass. "After all, if am caught, I'll arrange the affair with money, and that, perhaps, would be the most lucky event that could turn up for La Trace."

Upon saying which the Count, with the stealthy step of a wolf, proceeded towards the foot of a wooden staircase that led to the sleeping chamber of poor Madeleine, situate in the upper floor of the house.

At that moment the church bells of Signy, which for some short

1

time had been silent, recommenced their mournful peal, and a pale grey light, that revealed itself above the tall trees of the forest, indicated that the break of day was near.

As the hour had arrived to prepare to mount and proceed to the rendezvous of Les Trois Bornes, the three young men, who still remained sleeping round the fire-place, awoke in succession, passing through all the different changes of attitude, more or less grotesque, which man exhibits on like occasions; it is well known that he presents himself then especially under his least brilliant aspect.

At length our three young gentlemen are awake, or not far from it, and sufficiently sobered for a good refreshing run at least, if not quite up to the possibility of being in at the death.

"Why! Where is the Count, then?" was the inquiry made by the first of the three who had regained sufficient lucidity of mind to observe that the number of their company was not complete.

"The Count ?" muttered between his teeth he whom the seducer had requested to mount guard during his enterprise of gallantry. "What! Can't you guess where he is off to so quietly?

"Not I indeed, unless to the forest, to try and put up himself that terrible sans quartier he has so much set his mind upon hunting to-day." "Well done, par Dieu! as he is not come back yet, that's a good sign for him. It will be something worth seeing, the face Madeleine will put on, when we come back in the evening."

And the three young men exchanged some ribald jests, which excited each time their hilarity.

All of a sudden, in the midst of one of their outbursts of gaiety, a confused sound was heard as of low groanings and as of stifled words, which came from the upper floor of the house; but the sinister noise was not of long duration, and when it ceased, the murmurs of the breeze of morning fell upon the ear, and more distinctly than ever the mournful sound of the bells of Signy.

The three young men, become suddenly serious, communicated to each other their new impressions in a suppressed tone of voice on their way to the stable, to bit and saddle their horses.

It was there the Count joined them about half-an-hour afterwards; they were waiting for him to depart together.

He was pale, his looks disordered, his whole appearance that of a man who has sustained a fierce struggle with an antagonist as strong as himself. All his features, hideously distorted, bore the repulsive impress of crime, when remorse begins to reveal its magnitude. He was so gloomy in his bearing, he sought so studiously to shun every look, that none of his friends, desirous as they were all to know what had happened to him, dared to ask him a single question. All four mounted their horses in silence, and, without exchanging a single word, rode in the direction of the place fixed on for the meet.

The pack and the huntsmen were already there when they came within sight of it. Poor La Trace was soon seen making his way towards them through the copse, preceded by his good hound Ramoneau. The forester's face gleamed with satisfaction; and the hound, by the manner in which he carried his head, and the way in which he sniffed the branches, had a something that indicated he was satisfied with his morning's work.

They were both right; for La Trace, respectfully raising his hat, announced that he had tracked the terrible boar the Count wished to hunt, into a thicket at no great distance off.

The chief dispositions for the attack were immediately arranged, and in their combination and impetuosity they were magnificent. The Count's hounds had never shown more ardour, nor the men, who led them under the eye of their master, more resolution.

Nevertheless, though hotly followed, the animal, as is usual with all old boars, led the run first through those quarters of the wood which were his most favourite haunts; but at length, either frightened or annoyed by the clamour of the winding horns on every side of him, and always pressed upon more closely by the pack in full cry, in whom the recollection of an old grudge seemed to be re-awakened, he took at once a bold course, and while he yet had all the strength of his iron-strung hams, and all the wind of his capacious lungs, with an increase of speed he made for the open, and led his pursuers a buster across the open country.

For five good hours, in this fashion, did the indomitable hog test the pluck and wind of men, dogs, and horses; it was a desperate pace, and full of dramatic incidents. After the boar had pushed right ahead in this style a matter of twelve miles, he doubled back, and retraced his steps to his favourite quarters; and now, to show that it was no longer his intention to be turned out of them, he turned upon the pack, which was now also both impatient to settle for good with their rough customer, and fatigued with all they had already done to compel him to accept the battle he now no longer refused.

In the several skirmishes which successively took place, more than one brave dog fell dead on the field of honour; but his fate did not for one instant abate the ardour of his companions. It is true the Count was always near at hand, to cheer them on with voice and horn. At length the savage brute, like the miraculous stag of the legend related by the stranger, being no longer able to run, had recourse to his ultimo ratio, which was also a desperate resistance maintained upon the spot. He backed himself into a formidable thicket of holly, broom, and junipers, and began a fight to the death with the gallant remainder of this decimated pack.

The Count, seeing his best dogs succumb one after the other, dismounted to take part in the conflict; and he advanced resolutely to the scene of action rifle in hand.

The boar no sooner caught sight of him than he cleared at a bound the dogs which surrounded him, and rushed with a lound grunt of rage to meet him.

The intrepid sportsman, who had too much experience to be unprepared for this attack, fired.

But his hand, still unsteady from the emotion of that morning, was untrue to the habitual correctness of his eye, so that the ball inflicted a slight wound only upon the headlong rushing boar, the sole effect of which was to inflame yet more the fury of the already exasperated animal.

In less than a second he was within four yards of the young Count, who fired again.

This time the cap only exploded.

He was about to draw his hunting-knife, but he had not time to do so; the boar had already overturned him to the earth.

"Help, help!" he shouted, with the energy of despair.

The animal had passed over him in the rush with which he had brought him to the ground; he was then doubling back upon his victim. But at that moment the trusty fellow La Trace came up, gun in hand, and quickly covering the boar, cried out,

"Lie flat on your face, Monsieur Le Comte!" and his finger was on the trigger of his cocked piece.

Suddenly, a woman with dishevelled hair, her face of a livid pallor, with eye-balls flashing and fixed, as though demented, burst through the thicket, shrieking in hoarse and broken voice these words, which were the condemnation of the criminal:

"Let him die without mercy! The base villain has dishonoured me! Let him die."

The gun fell from the hands of La Trace to the ground.

That woman was the handsome Madeleine; she rushed back into the thicket, uttering the most piercing cries. In her despair she had become a maniac.

The boar rushed upon the Count, upon whose body he wreaked his fury till he left it a disembowelled corpse.

The next day the bells of the church of Signy tolled anew; this time it was for the mournful office, not for the vigil of the dead.

R. P.

but

RAMBLES IN IRELAND.

On Thursday evening Jack Fitz-Eustace finished his story; and, as I was to leave Killorglin on the following Saturday, it was arranged that we were to be the guests of Harry D. at the hotel on the lower lake of Killarney next day. Early on Friday morning he had his jaunting car at the door of Mrs. Foley's hotel at Killorglin, and Tom P. had his likewise, and all the club started for the Gap of Dunlow, to the entrance of which we were to drive, and thence walk through the magnificent scenery of that romantic glen to the upper lake, where, at Lord Brandon's cottage, two boats were to be in waiting for the Killorglin Club, to convey us "from labour to refreshment." When we got to the extreme end of the " gap," what a beautiful unbroken view of all the lakes lay like a map at our feet! We rested, and had a slight lunch; and those whose desires lay in the direction of a drop of potteen had "Kate Karney's" enough in waiting, with that delicacy in abundance, in addition to goat's milk drawn from the animals on the spot. How I did enjoy myself that day! Wit and fun were the order of the day, until our sides began to ache from continued laughter. I then proposed that some one should give, by way of change, an anecdote or story which he could vouch for, or tell some tale about some of the abbeys which were in view, or the ruined castle of Ross Island, that lay like a blot on the picture before us.

Some

story, so it was of Celts and their deeds, or Saxons and their misdeeds.

Harry D. said he would tell us a story which would exactly reverse the "deeds and misdeeds," as he would relate a tale of the treachery of a Celt and the good action of a Saxon, and he would vouch for the truth of the narrative.

"I must," said he, "tell it in as near as I can recollect as it was detailed to me twenty years ago by Jerry Delany, who was the principal actor in it."

Jerry Delany and the Gauger.

It was in the year of the troubles of 1823 that I was at the fair of Mill-street, where I met Mr. Buckley, the large grocer and spirit merchant, who lived then, and does now, in Kanturk. When he see me, he up and asked me if I had any of the "hard stuff" for sale. Í towld him that I could supply him with a couple of hogsheads of it when he would be ready for it; and it was settled between us that the following Friday I was to bring him into his store 126 gallons, and I was to get four shillings a gallon for it when it was delivered.

I was not able to get to Kanturk before the day after, which was Saturday; but I made up the two hogsheads in two loads of turf, and drove the horses in with my cargo very early in the morning. I left my house-I lived then at the back of "Gloun a Coppul"-in the middle of the night, as I had about thirteen miles to go before I reached Kanturk. I then left the horses at the market-place, and walked up to Mr. Buckley's.

"God save you, sir," says I, "I've got the hard stuff' at the market-place.'

"You ought to be with me yesterday," says he, quite cross-like: "I supplied myself from Dan Driscoll that lives up at the Paps," says he. That I knew to be a thundering lie, as Dan, to my own knowledge, didn't make a sup since the last year when he was sent to jail for a trifle of it. But I purtended nothing. ""Tis a bad job,” says I: “what will I do with what I have brought in ?"

"Well," says he, "I'll run the risk to cover it if you will take three shillings a gallon for it."

"Yea, then, sir," says I, "you know well I never could sell it for that."

"If you don't," says he, "don't take up my time talking."

I did not know what to do; and, after a while, I asked him if he could recommend me a safe person as a customer, "for I must sell it before I leave town," says I, "and I can't take three shillings for it."

So he stopped awhile, as if he was rumbulating the matter in his mind, and at last he says, "Oh, I have it. I know a gentleman who will be very glad to get it: he's very fond of potteen. I'll show you his house: he'll take every drop of it."

Well, he came as far as the bridge, and pointed out a house in the Strand, below the bridge. "Do you see the last house there but one, wid the green shutters?" says he.

"I do, sir," says I, "plain as a pike-staff. What's the gentleman's name?" says I.

* Potteen.