skilful men erected them. They worked a few days, and hopes were entertained of their success. As the miller and his suite, however, were not disturbed from their humble dwelling attached to the mill, consolation was derived; Alice, moreover, who was of a lively turn, flattered herself in the enjoyment of more society, and calculated on learning a branch of employment by the clothing process, which would keep her father and herself, perhaps, out of the reach of misfortune, should they be driven for a home to the next village. Jones loved her, poor fellow! heart and soul; but Alice was not yet so earnestly persuaded she loved him, even with her heart.

As they sat ruminating one evening over the ashen fire, in one of the dark nights in the close of winter, and were twirling their fingers in stooping postures, reading legends of fairy lands and romances in grottos in the bright and flaccid embers which dissolved in slight cracks; the clock and the cricket were conversing; the cat purring at ease, half stretched over the paws of the friendly and drowsy greyhound-suddenly a noise of horses hoofs passed the door, and faces were staring in at the window. Two

dragoons entered. The miller rose, and they addressed him; but scarcely had one of them intimated his business than a bullet was shot through the casement, and rebounded with such impetuous force as to excite momentary consternation. A laugh loud and long, outside, was raised. The dragoon who remained within doors gave "orders" to the other, and he departed. Alice, on whom the dragoon was looking in intense abstraction, moved from the fire-place, and Jonas prepared himself for the worst. At length the young soldier, who was handsome and richly dressed, as he flung his cloak aside, said, "My orders are to protect your mill; for this purpose my men are arriving. Your machinery is in danger."

"" but our

"All this I am prepared, sir, to expect," replied the miller; enemies are numerous."

"True; but my men are courageous," the dragoon added-" Your daughter, I presume?"

"Not the worse for that, I presume," said Jonas, in a menacing attitude, ere the miller could reply in the affirmative, and looking as well as speaking sternly.

"Not in the least," said the dragoon; "but none can be blind to her beauty."

"That I know, sir, also," reiterated Jonas.

"D'ye hear the firing of guns?" observed the miller, directing his thoughts to a weightier subject.

At this moment the moon cleared from a dark cloud; a file of dragoons drove a knot of cloth-working men into the yard, and bursting the mill-door open, a general skirmish ensued; the light of the fire and auxiliary flambeaux discovered the shining blades, the large clubs and grim visages opposed to the horses and their riders. Alice seemed to be sought after by one of the miscreants,-one whose addresses she had discouraged. Here was a contention between him and Jonas, on one hand, while the dragoon officer slid his arm round her waist as she stood before her father to save him, and adroitly drew them indoors from the danger which threatened their lives. They, escaping up through the passage into the mill, discovered that it was on fire. The dragoons although arriving in considerable number, were nearly surrounded by the hundreds of men, women, and children, yelling victoriously, and throwing missiles in all directions. As the flames ascended, water in plenty though there were, the oily materials facilitated the ruin, and the countenances and attitudes of the motley multitudes formed a striking but interesting contrast with the noble horses and their mounted military heroes. Some of the unfortunate creatures were driven into the water; their cries were heard, and their heads and arms were seen outstretched, as they struggled to be saved from drowning.

Jonas and the miller were discovered wringing their hands amid the quenchless flames. Alice was missing, and the bright element drawing the neighbourhood, proceeded fast in conflagration. The young dragoon officer was observed on the top of a ladder, tearing the miller from a scorching rafter, and succeeded in snatching him from death. Jonas had disappeared.

Cornet Hendon, the name of this enterprising young officer, addressed the mob from a part of the mill on their folly; telling them the machinery was entirely destroyed; and having in some degree appeased them by offering a flag of truce, by way of a ruse de guerre, induced all hands to extinguish the remaining portion of the mill by the help of buckets and any vessel that conveyed water to the spot. But the most efficient assistance in this effort was rendered by some gyp sies, who respected the miller for his licence towards them in the lane adjacent, skirted by a sheltering copse and

aged elms. After some time, the flames grew dimmer and smoke increased. A violent storm fell. The mob dispersed, and few besides the dragoons remained to protect the mill. The skies cleared dur ing the night and the succeeding morning discovered a ruin. Pele mele materials, furniture, sacks, wheels and black stones were discernible on the spot: but the miller's domicile, which had been built with a party wall, was yet but little injured. The miller and his suite, for I still found none of them absent, were sitting at a quiet breakfast. Jonas, who claimed the honour of saving Alice, was still urging the miller to be more cool to the coronet, as he denominated Cornet Hendon. "For," said he, in his own peculiar way; "these officers, master, be d-d kind, when they want their purposes answered." Alice glanced at him, but said nothing, the meaning of which, Jonas fully understood:

"We ought to be grateful to any one," said the miller, "in these disturbed districts that assists us.'

"

"Good! master," Jonas rejoined ; "but you would not thank the officer for carrying away A·

"Hold your peace!" said Alice, interrupting him and anticipating the sentence. But the cornet entered with a cheerful smile and good morning saluta. tion, congratulating the miller, that the fire might have been worse. Jonas muttered, left his seat (which the cornet took) and went out to his labour.

"After all," said the cornet, taking breakfast at the solicitation of Alice, who looked unutterable things' in the freshness of health and loveliness, notwithstanding her loss of rest and anxiety, "the gypsies saved this part of the premises; and to give them the common justice but too often denied them, in this case they have proved their friendship in the hour of trial."

"I will not forget them," said the miller, and rising to leave the room, observed he would return presently.

His

The door was scarcely shut, than the cornet stole a chaste salute from the lips of Alice. He declared his love for her. He proposed a plan for her immediate elopement. She was silent. He stole a repetition of lip pressure. arm was round her neck - he pressed her cheek to his. As still as silence suppressed, Jonas, descended from the stairs, which extended into the room, he had been watching his domestic interests by getting in up stairs by a ladder, and rushing forward, grasped the surprised cornet as he rose from the chair, as though he were in a vice. "Dye,

sir officer!" said he, "is this like a soldier ?"

The cornet drew a pistol from his side, and putting it to his jealous adversary's ear, said strike!" for Jonas held a tremendous stick over the cornet. Alice screamed and ran to the door. Suiting the action to the word, Jonas did strike! the pistol and the cornet to the ground, and stood over him like a lion shaking his locks in his active strength. Fortunately, Alice returned with her fatheran explanation ensued. This opened the miller's eyes, and Alice, however flattered on the prospective offer, had sufficient sense, for the first time, to appreciate Jonas's passion for her. Finding this, the cornet yielded to his better judgment, and honorably gave up his pretensions, very properly remarking, that Jonas, who held him no other ill-will than protecting a virtuous maiden, had acted the part of a man, and offered a lesson to more distinguished persons. The disturbances abated. The dragoons called into other parts. The mill was repaired. Machinery reconstructed. Prejudice subsided. The miller died. Jonas became foreman. A wedding was realised. Corn grinding very rarely practised. And the mill is yet like an ark dividing the waters, with not half sufficient work to keep the wheels in harmony. EURUS.

STANZAS ON AIR.

Friend to the mariner, hail!
Thou waftest his bark
O'er the waters dark;

Oh, bless'd be thy fav'ring gale!
Thou lovest to fan the ringlet fair
Of some gleeful Highland maid,
On stern Ben Lomond's fastness, where
Her heedless foot has stray'd.
Thou lovest to float at the evening hour,
With spicy sweetness laden,
The Rose's bloom from Shiraz' bower,
And the Jasmine of Arab's maiden.

Anon thou'rt changed-thy voice is wild;
The seaman bends his brow;

A frown is seen where he lately smiled-
How alter'd is Nature now!
Still on that cliff the maiden stays

The flash of his snowy sail;
Nor heeds she of the sun's past rays,
Nor the swelling of the gale.
Oh! wherefore dost so wildly dash
O'er foaming sea, and land?
Why 'gainst his sail thus harshly crash,
That sail so lately fann'd?

Why press that brow e'en now but kiss'd,
With such rude, chilling hand?
'Tis strange, this change on Nature's form,
Where all, so late, was fair;
What time thou lead'st the whirlwind-storm,
Thou'rt terrible-oh, Air!

The Wreath.

THE BOLD DRAGOON,

OR,

HEIRESS HUNTER.

SUCH a set of fellows as the-th Dragoons, I never met with in the whole course of my life. Talk of friendliness and hospitality! they would beat old Solomon, who had a table that stretched from one end of Palestine to the other. Their invitations are not given for certain dinners on certain days, but for weeks, and months. 'There, now, there's a good fellow, you'll dine with us till Christmas; we've got a new messman, and the claret is fresh from Dublin." I accepted the invitation, and intend paying it off by instalments of a week at a time ;-no constitution could stand their hospitality for a longer period without a little repose. I am now resting on my oars, and getting quit of a slight unsteadiness of the hand in the mornings, which made the eating of an egg as difficult an achievement as any of the labours of Hercules. In about a month I shall be equal to another visit, but in the mean time I will just take a little memorandum of what occurred while I remained with them, by way of keeping their memory green in my soul. The first day nothing remarkable occurred during dinner. The colonel was in the chair, and a jollierlooking president it has never been my luck to meet with. Large, soldierly, and somewhat bloated, be formed a famous combination of the Bacchus subduing lions and conquering India, and the same Bacchus leering into a flagon and bestriding a cask. I am bound to confess, that the latter part of this resemblance is suggested to me by the sign-post of this very decent hostel in which I write, where a prodigious man, without any particular superfluity of costume, is represented sitting on a puncheon of vast size, with a face so red, so round, so redolent of mirth, and with such a glance of irresistible whim in his eye-I'll bet a hundred to one the painter of that sign has had the honour of an interview with the gallant Colonel O'Looney. There never was a man more popular in a regiment. On parade or at mess he was equally at home. Not one of those mere boon companions who swallow potations pottle-deep, and are fit for nothing else, but a man armed at all points, one who "the division of a battle knows," as well as the flavour of a vintage. He seemed somewhere about fifty years of age, with a considerable affectation of the youth about him. The baldness of his crown was scrupulously concealed by combing the long straggling side locks over it; and his allusions

were extremely frequent to those infernal helmets which turned a man's hair grey in the very prime of boyhood. He had never left the regiment, but gradually climbed his way up from a humble cornetcy to his present lofty rank, with out however losing the gaiety which had made him so much liked and courted in the first years of his noviciate. Such was the colonel when I saw him ten days ago presiding at mess. His tones were delicious to listen to. The music of five hundred Irishmen distilled into one glorious brogue, would give but a faint idea of his fine rich Tipperary,-and all so softened by the inimitable good-nature of his expression !-Upon my honour, a story, without his voice to tell it with loses almost all its value. When the bottles began their round, the usual hubbub commenced; but after one or two routine bumpers, my attention was attracted by a conversation at the foot of the table.

"Faith an' yere quite right," said the colonel in answer to some observation, " in what ye say about marriage. There's a stark-staring scarcity of the commodity. Here have we been stationed now in this city of York for six weeks, and divil a young fellow of us all has picked up an heiress yet. Now, mind me, when I was here about thirty years ago, it was a very different story. We had something or other to laugh at every day in the way of the ladies, either a start off to Gretna Green, or a duel, or a horse-whipping. But now, by the sowl of me, there's no sort of amusement to be had at all."

in

"Pray, colonel, are there any heiresses this neighbourhood at present?" drawled forth a young cornet.

Faith, surely," replied the colonel, ye ought to be on the lookout for that yerself. I've enough to do to pick up information on my own account."

"I merely wanted to benefit a little by your experience," rejoined the other.

"Exparience! is it that ye're wanting? Well, I'll just tell you a bit of a sacret. That same exparience is the very divil in a man's way when he thinks of doing the civil thing to a young lady that has the misfortune to be rich. Young fellows like you are trusted by guardians and mothers, and cattle of that sort, and even by the damsel herself, because they see no danger in a youth with so little exparience. I found it so myself when I joined the regiment first. Never was known such a set of fine frank open hearted creturs as I found all the young darlings at every party I went to. No shyness, no fears, no hurrying away at my approach in case I should ask them

to dance with me; but now that I have had about thirty years of this same practice in the art of courtship, there's no such thing as getting near the sweet creturs even to whisper a word. Every mother's son-daughter I mane-of them, gets away as soon as possible from such a dangerous divil as a young fellow with so many years exparience. Mothers and aunts throw themselves into the gap to cover their retreat, and lug me off to the card-table that they may keep their eyes on me all the night. Ach, when we were stationed here in the glorious eighteen hundred, mothers and aunts never troubled their heads about such a sweet little inexparienced lambkin as I was."

"But you were talking of heiresses, colonel," said the cornet, hiding a laugh at the jolly commander's attributing the change which he perceived in the reception he met with from the ladies to any thing rather than its right cause, you were talking of heiresses, were there many of them in this neighbourhood at that time?"

tr

"Och, plinty; they either were or pretended to be; so the honour of carrying them off was all the same, ye know. Whenever an officer got three day's leave of absence, he was sure to bring back a wife with him; the postillions on the north road grew as rich as nabobs, and their horses as thin as lathes; all that a girl had to do was to say she was an heiress! nobody ever asked her what it was of; whether an estate or a lawsuit-off she was to the ould blacksmith before the week was out, and married as fast and sure as her mother. Then came the cream of the joke, for there was always some insolent brother, or cousin, or discarded sweetheart, to shoot immediately on your return, so that the fun lasted very often as long as the honey-moon."

"And how many of the officers were lucky enough to get married?"

"Och, every one of them, I tell ye, except myself and Jack O'Farrell. Did I ever tell ye how nearly owld Jack and I were buckled?"

No, colonel," cried a great many voices, "let us hear."

"Gintly, my lads, gintly. I'll tell ye first of my friend Jack. I'll take a little time to think of it before I tell ye my own adventure." Here the colonel sighed, and said something about agonized feelings and breaking hearts, which contrasted so ridiculously with his hilarious countenance and Herculean figure, that we could not avoid bursting into a very hearty laugh. The colonel, after ap pearing a little discomposed, for I believe he considers himself no contemptible per

former in the art of pathetic story-telling, joined in our laugh, tossed off a bumper and began.

"Well, Jack O'Farrell was the most gallant-looking fellow I ever saw-great red whiskers, shoulders like the side of a house, bright fiery eyes, and a gash from a shillelah across his brow that made him look a handsome copy of the divil, as a soldier should. He was a Galway man the best-tempered fellow that ever was seen in the world, and had been out five times before he was twenty. One of them was with his uncle, fighting Dick Callaghan of Oonamorlich, (he was shot afterwards by Sir Niel Flanagan in the thirteen acres ;) so, said Jack-"I only took him in the shoulder, for it's unchristian to kill one's relations.' Jack came across and joined us in this very town. In a moment he won every heart at the messtable; he drank four bottles of claret, thirteen glasses of brandy and water, and smocked 22 cigars; and then saw the chaplain safe to his lodgings, as if he had been his brother; it did us all good to see such a steady fellow. Well, just at this time, we were in the heart of running away with the women, fighting the men, and playing the divil entirely; and Jack resolved to be equal with the best of us. There was to be a ball, a public ball of some sort or other at the County Hall, and I saw my friend Jack particularly busy in making his preparations. He packed up his carpet bag, dressing case, and a brace of horse-pistols, and having got a week's leave of absence the day before the dance. 'And what's all this you're doing, Jack?' said I. Now, my lads, I've been so long away from owld Ireland, and rattled so much about the world, that I've lost the Irish intirely or I would try to give you an imitation of Jack's brogue, but that's impossible for a tongue that has the trick of the English.

The colonel luckily did not remark how some of us were amused with this apology, for not being able to speak like an Irishman, and went on

"An' what's all this you're doing, Jack?' said 1.

"Doin'? an' what should I be doin'?' says he, 'but puttin' up my weddin' garments?'

666

Your wedding?' says I; going to be married, Jack?'

are you

"Faith, an' I hope so,' says he; 'or what would be the use o' this wonder o' the world?' holding up a beautiful coloured silk nightcap between his finger and thumb.

"And who is the lady, you sowl?' "How the divil should I know?' said

Jack. I haven't seen her, nor asked her yet; but I suppose there'll be plenty at this ball. I'm goin' to have a postchaise at the door, an' I'll bet ye I'll shew ye Mrs. Cornet O'Farrell before ye're a week owlder.'

"'Done,' and 'done!' we said; and it was a wager.

"Jack and I went into the ball-room together.

"I wonder if Mrs. John O'Farrell is here,' said Jack, as he looked round among the ladies.

"Faith,' said I, 'it's not for me to answer ye; ye had better ask them; but I truly hope Mrs. Cornet O'Looney is not in this collection, for such a set of scarecrows I never'

"Och, ullalloo, man, hold your tongue; it's not for the beauty of them one cares, but just the fame of the thing, to have carried off an heiress; and an heiress Mrs. O'Farrell must be, that's a sure case; for ye see, barrin' my pay and a small thrife I owe my creditors besides, I shall have nothing to support the young O'Farrels, let alone the wife and the maid.'

"Just at this time a rich owld sugar merchant, with a whole posse of daughters, and other ladies, came bustling into the room.

"There now, Jack,' said I; 'now's your time. Here comes owld Fusby, the sugar merchant from London, and half a dozen heiresses pinned to his apron. Off with ye, man. Ye can't go wrong; take the very first that will have ye. I tell ye he's rich enough to cover the Bog of Allan with melted gold.'

"Then he's just the sort of fellow I want-so, wi' yer lave, I'll go and do the needful to the tall young woman in blue. If he gives her only a thousand a foot, she'll be a very comfortable companion in a post chaise.'

"Jack was introduced in all due form, and in a minute was capering away in the middle of the floor as if he were stamping hay; and thinking all the time of the chariot at the door and Gretna Green. His partner seemed very much pleased with his attentions. She simpered and curtsied to all Jack's pretty speeches, and I began to be rather alarmed about the bet. She was very tall, very muscular-looking and strong, and seemed a good dozen of years older than the enraptured Jack. If she had been twenty years older than his mother it would have been all the same, provided she had been an heiress, for at that time, as I tell ye, we were the only two bachelors left who had not picked up a wife with prodigious reputations for money, and Jack was de