the green sward of the exerciseground, with a reed in his hand, and his head decked with the paper crown of mimic sovereignty, is not happier, "every inch a king," in his own realm of bewildered imagination, than he ever was as the sane inhabitant of a world that had for him no hope, no happiness, in its stern reality. Weep not for him-weep for the man whose brain is strong and unclouded, but who, with crushed and maddened heart, still struggles up against misery, against privation, against temptation. Weep for him who sees the cheeks of his wife and children pining and paling, day after day, for want of enough of food-who knows he has no friend on earth, and whom despair is driving fast to doubt if

There is a girl there too, who plays upon her flageolet airs of gay and lively tenor, after which she will smile and tell you of all the happy doings in the dreamy world that now surrounds her. Who will tell me there was no mercy in the dispensation that threw a cloud of oblivion over her aching head, like the wild ivy concealing the crushed and battered ruin? Both man and woman had a friend in the heaven of heavens, who felt for them, and whose feeling was sincerenot like that of the vapid sentimentalist, who first utters his wordy nothings, and then turns to examine curiously the proportion of some dahlia or fuchsia growing in the gardens of the asylum.

I was led into many deep reflections on sign-posts in general, when I stood looking at the front of the humble inn, where I intended to lodge for the night, as I felt no inclination to look about me for a cheap room immediately on my arrival at Spatown. The inn is called the Royal Oak; and its sign-board, of large size and square figure, swings away gracefully from side to side, as the winds of heaven play on its historic surface. The tree is in full, bright, green leaf; but what cool caviller would pause to inquire, if this state of the tree's foliage be quite in keeping with the time of the year when the Second Charles hid himself in its branches? On the left side, a large bird, very like a goose, is flying away from his leafy cover; while, at the root, two dogs, with a good deal of the cur in their appearance, are standing on their hind-legs, and pointing their noses up towards the foliage. From their erected tails and ears, the dogs are evidently of opinion that all is not right above; and it was well for Charles Stuart on that day that the noses of Oliver's soldiers were not as pervious to the pungency of royalty as were those of his dogs. The soldiers in question seem to be at a halt. One

of them is looking after the goose; and, to judge from the hungry expression of his features, appears to be remarking, that if they had said goose for dinner, it would materially assist

VOL. XXXII.-NO. CLXXXVII.

them in doing the good work of the Lord. All those figures have been thrown off with much skill and effect; but when I came to examine the person of "the young man," I must confess I was lost in admiration of the genius that planned and executed it. Had it been the work of one whose ideas were formed by the hackneyed dogmas of the schools, it would have represented a youth in a skulking attitude, and regal terror on his face; but no-there he sits in the tree, as calm and serene an expression of majesty beaming on his kingly features, as if he were just about to open a parliamentary session by a speech from the throne. There is a massy yellow crown on his head; under that a full-bottomed periwig of immense proportions, while stars innumerable deck his placid chest; he holds in his hand a large sceptre, and, altogether, there is a halo of quiet about the figure, which proves that the painter was a firm believer in the Shakesperian dogma, which says—

"There's such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but point at what it would," &c.

Upon entering the Royal Oak, the first thing I encountered was a smell of rashers and eggs-the next was a very fat, tall woman. Her cap was firmly fastened on her head by a red handkerchief; she wore a short wouldbe white bedgown over her dark rusty

G

petticoat. Her whole bearing conjoined some of the innkeeper's suavity with a great deal of the farmer's sturdiness for she discharged both of these avocations with an energy that answered all the purposes of a male helpmate. She lowered her elephantine mass of flesh to me, in an attempt at a courtesy, and shouted-" Boots!"

"Boots, take that gentleman's wally (Heaven forgive her! it was a twoshilling deal box, covered with paper). "Divil sweep you, lift it ginteely, an' not as if it was a sack of pink-eyes you war carryin'. Didn't I often tell you, you ought to lave your farmin' manners behind you in the haggard, whinever you come into a hotel.

Come up

stairs, sir; be plazed to folly me. You see, sir, we've a Boots, an' everything else to our knuckle, here, as well as at the Head-inn' above."

These last words were spoken with much bitterness, and a peculiar jerk of the right fat thumb over the corresponding shoulder. We soon reached the landing-place, and, turning to the left, after my gigantic hostess, I arrived at the state-apartment, or coffeeroom of the hotel. I sat down on a rickety sofa, covered with darned pink chintz, and began to brush the dust from my trowsers, and to pass my handkerchief round my hat with a like good intent to that article of dress.

"You'll want a bed, I suppose," said mine hostess.

"For one night," was my guarded

answer.

"Oh, very well, sir; it's we'll make you comfortable. You won't be sorry you came here, though we don't keep a lickplate to drag gentlemen off the coach into my house, like the Head-inn above."

Here there was another sneer, and another jerk of the massy thumb over the shoulder.

"I suppose it's the surveyin' business brought you down to this part o' the world?"

"No."

"Well, p'raps its inspectin' churches you do be?"

"No, it is not."

"Well, there's a great many nice young men thravellin' for places in the city, an' fine lives they have of it too. They comes, an' they goes, an' they eat, an' they drink, an' they write-but

sorra business they do. P'raps you're a thraveller ?"

"I am not."

"Well, thin, it must be makin' out stories you do be, for the divarshin' o' the people in the city. Them writers has finer lives nor thravellers itself. I'm tould they get lots o' money, an' has no rint to pay, nor seed to buy, nor horses to keep. All they does is to buy some ink an' paper, and put down a little foolish romancin' on it."

"My good woman," said I, a little hurt, "I'm come down here to drink the spa. I'll thank you to tell me what I can have for dinner, and when it will be ready."

"Oh, then, it is for the benefit of your health, after all. Then you done well to come here, an' not to the Headinn above. They'd stifle you wid cigars, no less, an' tobaccy; an' I'm tould that the master (save the mark!) o' the same Head-inn has a leather case to put his cigars in, like a gentleman; an' I'm tould, too, that he's in Dublin, on his thravels this way.

I'm

not sayin' he's in the jug' at all; but there's not a hair on my head 'ud stan' up in wonderment if I heard he was. So you see, as you're delicate in yourself, I wouldn't be for givin' you beef an' mutton at all, but a nice, tender, suckin' chicken-an' I'll make the parsley-an'-butter wid my own hands. So you may just ate a bit o' bread an' cheese, an' take a walk to see the haunted house, an' by that time I'll be ready for you."

66

Why, have you a haunted house in the neighbourhood?" I asked with some interest, for my curiosity was at once excited.

"Oh lor, yes, dear; an' I'll tell you all the stories about it myself, when you come back. An' the best of all is, Mr. Feelove, the head councillor from Dublin, he that's agint to the estate, left the keys wid me, an' not at the Head-inn above, which was as much from a councillor as if an ignorant man was to say to me- Mrs. Mutton, there's more honesty in your little finger, nor there's in the whole of the Head-inn.' So I'll send Boots wid you, as soon as you ate your bread an' cheese."

"But with your leave, Mrs. Mutton," said I, "I'll eat nothing until I get my dinner. So, whenever Boots is ready for me, I am at his service."

My hostess then left the room, and I amused myself taking a view thereof, while waiting the leisure of Mr. Boots. There was the usual corner cupboard, filled with its glittering display of teacups, egg-cups, plates, spoons, tumblers, jugs, and glasses. Hung against the wall, in all the pride of framing and glazing, was a large sampler, with the name and age of the worker in one angle, to wit "Bridget Mutton, aged sixteen, done this." And well worthy she was of the small immortality she had attained at so early an epoch in her life; for she had worked all the letters of the alphabet, several cocks and hens, a horse, an ass, a forest of trees, and a map of Ireland, with all the accuracy that black, green, and yellow worsted would permit of. Next to this there was a fine print of St. Patrick, representing the Apostle in the patriotic exercise of "banishing the varmint." His face is as mild as mild can be, and his figure is rendered imposingly orthodox by the enormous archbishop's hat on his head, the pastoral robes on his back, and the large crook in his left hand. He stands beside the seashore, while a punt, apparently belonging to a fishing-smack, rests on the water a small distance from the holy feet. Towards this boat, the reverend father's right arm is extended with an easy grace, that might form a useful study to a master of ceremonies in any court, royal or viceregal. There can be no mistaking either the purpose of the punt, or the intention of the saint's attitude-for, at the very moment, a toad, fat and pursy, is taking a standing-leap into the former from the shore, and a large, subdued-looking serpent, is giving polite precedence to the toad, and waiting for his own turn. Methought that if Saint Patrick were to rise again, with the same power, and

the like good-will to wield it, that a punt would be hardly large enough to hold all our present vermin. Happy Ireland in the olden days, for whose plagues a small cock-boat was a conveyance sufficiently roomy!

I had scarcely time to glance at a few dowdy young female saints, whose pictured sanctities ornamented the rest of the wall, before a single knock at the door was followed by the entrance of Boots. He was a hard-faced man, not far from sixty; he carried in one hand a bunch of large keys, dark with rust and antiquity; in the other a hairy cap, made of a cat-skin. A very short barragon jacket, with ventilators at either elbow, covered his shoulders. The well-worn corduroy breeches on his nether man were glossy with age and grease, and were bounded below by a pair of patched and venerable gaiters. I was too impatient for my pilgrimage to the haunted house, to make any delay by a preliminary conference with Boots. So we cleared the Royal Oak without a single word.

I could see no bustle in the streets of the town-no troops of reviving invalids-the day of its glory appeared to have gone by. The march of intellect and fancy has trampled and crushed its curative fame under an unsparing hoof. Long German names, with the breath of titled and right honourable patients, have been to the waters of the foreign land, like the angel's descent to the pool of Bethesda. Our own spas bubble up, red and rich from the hand of nature's God but the blighting doom is upon them. Fashion smiles superciliously when they are mentioned; and, if the question should be urged, it has a Carlsbad or Schlangenbad to overpower the caviller.

Ar first we walked on in silence, and I began to think that perhaps all I was to see would not be worth the trouble of this formal and ciceroned visit. I might become the laughingstock of the Royal Oak, or peradventure of the whole town, for my ghostloving propensities. Had Mrs. Mutton said a haunted castle, I should

have gone on without any misgiving; for we all know the difference between

that and a mere haunted house. In the latter, the ghost is some pitiful, scratching humbug; or, at the worst, a withered old lady, with a palsied hand and a chain, if she is able to drag it after her all of which ends by making a fine case for the gentlemen

of the long robe whereon to exercise their legal acumen, and a good opportunity to the learned judge of showing his knowledge of demonology and witchcraft-of which an admiring jury testifies its approbation, by giving heavy damages against the nearest relative of the poor old lady-because her ghost destroys the character of the premises, which her living respectability kept up so creditably. But the ghost of the old baronial castle frowns down priest and lawyer, judge and jury. His iron foot wakes the echoes of the crumbling hall with as massy and firm a stride as when alive it trod down his foe in battle, or damped the captive's soul when approaching his prison's grated door. The midnight moonbeam trembles on his giant frame, on the dark and dinted armour, on the truncheon in his mailed hand, and the plume on his lofty head. Such a structure, tenanted by such a spirit, I did not hope to visit; however, I trusted that, at least, the house might prove an Elizabethan one, with a Tudorian ghost-of dignity unequal to the Norman, but superior to our present degenerate spectres.

We were passing a very substantial farm-house, when I was roused from my reverie by a remark of Boots

"There was more nor oats an' whate in that haggard in '98," he said.

I asked him what he meant.

66

'D'ye see thim grey stones over there? Well, there was a fine rick iv ould hay on thim stones the very year o' '98, an' these hands helped to put it up. I was a likely boy then, not all as one as now-more thanks to har'ship an' starvation. For pure iliment I climbed up one day a top o' the rick (it belonged to the present man's father), an' sorra long I was there, 'till I comes tumblin' down through the heart iv it, a top o' four or five county Waxford boys that was hidin' there: more by token the ould master (rest his soul!) helped them to take the cintre out iv it as nate as a fishwoman 'ud gut a flounder. First they wor goin' to murder me, but whin I tould thim who I was, we all began to discoorse about the fun that was goin' on; an' one boy, all their fathers at larnin', spoke out so big an' well that I thought it 'ud be as good for me to be fightin' for liberty an' divarshin, as to be stan

nin' wid my hands in my breeches pockets. So I got the best pitchfork the master had, clapped it over my shoulder, an' away I sot by the light o' the moon wid the Waxford boys."

"And how did you like your new trade?" I asked-for Boots made a pause.

"Oh! I'd plenty o' value at firstsingin', an' padroulin', an' dhrinkin', an' no chalks ayther behind the door. But at last the captain-we called him Gineral Murphy-heers tell o' some army bein' near him, an' he couldn't let them alone, but must go fight them. The gineral was a fine big man, wid as much daylight between his legs as there's under the brudge o' Poul-naPhuca. There was only the three min in our reg'ment that had horses, an' he was one o' thim; the fug-ler was another, an' he had a dunkey; an' the man wid the flag was the third, an' he had a bully iv a mule. The gineral's horse wasn't his own at all, but an ould mare belongin' to one Tim Molloy-an' divil a good Tim could ever get of her wanst she had a gineral's legs acrass her; though she was quite enough in the plough before she turned rebel. But up he comes, at any rate, on his white charger- Boys,' sez he, I know yez are all good min,' sez he. We hurra'd, an' said "Yis.' 'Boys,' sez he, there's a corp o' soldiers comin' over to Glinlough, an' I want yez to give them a lickin',' sez he. Some of us thought it was a dead soldier they wor berrin, on account of his talkin' iv a corp, until an ould schoolmaster in the army explained the maynin' iv it. So we all thrun up our hats, an' shouted hurra for the gineral,' an' off we cut as fast as we could. Bedad, it wasn't long till we heard the drum batin', an' seen the soldiers stannin' as quite an' reg'lar as the wooden min the gorsoons play wid, an' the bagnets up in the air as sharp an' bright as needles. Not to tell you any lie, sir, I was glad to take a sup o' sperits, for the sight knocked some o' the pluck out o' me. Fire and charge, boys,' sez the gineral. Thim that had guns blazed away, an' thim that had none roared out as loud as they could, an' ran at the soldiers. But it was no use; an' whin they hadn't the good manners to lave that, we thought there was no sinse in stoppin' to be kilt-so the most iv us turned an' ran away.

I'll go bail, there wasn't a soldier among 'em 'ud catch me, wanst I came in on my wind. It wasn't long after, till the cure was put on me in right airnest."

"In what way?" said I.

"Why, I was skulkin' about the road one day, whin I comes to a place where there was a bit iv a skrimmage the day afore. There was broken pikes on the ground, an' cat-ridges, an' plinty o' red blood on the green grass an' white daisies; an' there was a fine likely boy lyin' in the ditch, as dead as a doornail, an' by the powers a big sow was atin' him. It makes the heart 'ithin me like a lump iv ice still. God help us! it 'ud be as good for us to be kilt wid bullets as to be rottin' in fever, or dryin' up wid starvation, if we only had the ould mother or the woman that owns us to the fore, to put a clane bit o' linen round us, an' cry over our dacent grave. But to think o' lyin' there in the open day, an' a pig atin' me, wid no more respect nor she would a pot o' pratee skins.I went off at wanst an' tuck out my purtection, an' ever since my pitchfork recoorsed nothing wid more life in it nor a wad o' hay or a lump o' manure. Isn't that a darlin' country, sir?-we're at the demesne bound, now."

Each side of the grass-edged road was lined by trees of every variety, and of all sizes-from the gnarled and giant patriarch, that had braved the storms of centuries, down to the young sapling, whose roots are not yet struck so firmly into the soil, as to make the planter sure of its safety. Ever and anon, there were breaks in these leafy screens, through which the eye wandered along a lovely landscape, to be gladdened by its greenness. In the distance, on the right hand, the mountains began to rise, until their grey old summits at last obtained the mastery, and overtopped all. It is a scene which must be beautiful in every seasonbeautiful in spring, with its bursting shoots, its early and pliant growth, its scanty green moss peeping through the crevices of the mountain granite, while the birds' wings beat the sharp air in lively unison with chirps and songs of gladness. Beautiful in summer, with the hot sunbeams resting on the surface of lake and stream, and making the traveller bless God for his leafy shelter on a weary day beautiful,

when the long sultry evening slowly gathers its huge dark clouds over the mountains' summits, and the voice of nature's Lord is heard in his strong thunder, while the sheeted lightning gushes in lurid volume like the bursting flame from the mouth of the red volcano beautiful then, to watch the elemental war softening into the genial night rain-as the whispers of heaven's mercy are ever near its tones of terror_ giving fresh growth to plant and tree through the few hours of deepened twilight, until the mists of morning vanish before the early sunbeam. Beautiful, when summer is fading into the longer night and shorter day of autumn, with its grey evening and weaker sun, with its leaves of varied hue, and life gradually drooping, until the winds, which gather strength from the harsh season that is coming, sweep them from their parent stems, and carry them away. Beautiful in winter, with its long, clear, cold, starry night; its snows cresting the mountain top, and lying heavily in the valley; its tumbling and swollen torrents; its howling winds, and the bare, dark masses of the great trees shooting up undismayed, like the strong mind of the good man, when the world's sunshine has left his path, and the bleak trials of adversity gather round.

We passed on in our path of varied beauty, and my attention was directed by the guide to a small square cottage, surrounded by wild and untrimmed bushes-its roof almost gone-neglect its livery. Its story is blended with the sad history of the great house on the demesne of which it stands, and the revenues of which its tenants' rent helped once to swell: but it appears not to have been inhabited for years. And the visitor pauses at the small, rusted iron gate, with that undefinable feeling of curiosity which prompts the query" Why is this?" and then passes on. A few minutes more, and we stood in front of a gateway-ruined indeed, but vast and imposing in its ruins. There are no traces of busy and rapid passage of wheels-for waving all around is the rank grass, plentifully mixed with tall, luxuriant weeds. Split in several places by time or violence, and with their grey stones all bare, there are first two great square pillars, supporting each an uncouth resemblance of some animal, the out