"Nothing like that!" observed she of the pike, loudly and stoutly; "and I'll plaster my words to please no one. This was what I said :

That runagate who's dead and gone passed my gate in the 'sma' hours.' I let him through. His greeting wasn't over creditable for a justice; for he cussed me as the gate fell back. Indeed, his language was never over implementary !—I must hold to that as 'tis truth. But, however, his dander was up. P'raps the cold had touched him. P'raps he might have waited an instant moment at the gate. I can't say. I don't find my shoes in the dark as quickly as I used to do. However, he cussed me, and that right heartily. I made him no reply-I disdained it." "Did you observe anything remarkable in his appearance ?"

"Anan?"

"How did he look?"

"Mad and bitter; sat bolt upright in his saddle; fretting and chafing as I hobbled up to the gate. Look, say you? He looked as if he

thought old women dirt; and would ride at 'em and over 'em if they dared to crawl in his track. He was aye hard and scornful! So he looked then how he may look now is another matter."

There was frightful exultation in the emphasis with which these concluding words were uttered.

"When did you see him again?" asked the old juryman.

"Never-alive."

There was a peculiarity in her manner as she replied to this question. She paused slightly over it, as if weighing rapidly in her own mind the bearing her reply might have on the proceedings. This hesitation was caught by the professional man who watched the case on behalf of Mr. Rustwick's family. He instantly put the query

"Did you ever see him (the deceased) again-alive or dead?" The response was immediately and resolutely given

"I never did see him again, alive or dead."

This was deemed satisfactory, and she was told she might withdraw. Before, however, she could fight her way out of the crowded room, the succeeding witness made a statement which induced the coroner to order her to be detained.

Timothy Blowt, an "out-lier" on a neighbouring farm,-whose hours were very irregular, and who laboured under strong suspicion of poaching propensities,-declared on oath that " near two, or somewhere thereabouts," on that eventful morning, he saw Mrs. Ewens come out of the pike, and go through the foot-passenger's gate; how far down the road she went he didn't know; she wasn't gone more than three or four minutes; saw nothing in her hand when she returned; "Couldn't very well; it wor so uncommon dark and douly,"―dismal it is presumed was the young gentleman's meaning.

Mercy, when recalled by the coroner, admitted at once, and in the most off-hand manner the correctness of Blowt's testimony.

She had heard during the night, she said, "a crooning noise," for which she could not account, and she thought some one was trying to force the gate, and "get through roguishly." She was "up in no time:" found the gate all right: and then bethought her that the villains might be robbing her potatoe-pie, as they had done more than once aforetime. She stepped into her garth to see. there; and she quickly stepped back, glad at the gentlemen anything more to say to her?

All was quiet and orderly heart, into her bed. Had She was weary, hungry,

and very dry, and wanted to be by her gate again, where "all would be Noah's-ark fashion by that time."

From this statement no re-examination, cunningly as it was managed, could induce her to vary. She was proof against all legal artifice: and left the hall as self-possessed as she had entered it.

A costly tomb received the deceased magistrate. Numbers followed him to his grave. Gossips prated about the gorgeousness of the funeral paraphernalia. The County Herald maintained the loss of such a man irreparable to the shire, and to society and in six weeks he was forgotten.

Mercy still ruled at the pike. It was observable, however, that she now never ventured abroad after twilight; and obliged Jasper, much against his will, to mind the gate, duly and truly, at all hours of the night. The change was too violent. He prophesied that it would kill him; and he was correct. He was attacked by an inflammatory cold; trifled with the symptoms, and died. To the amazement of those who knew her attachment to money, the widow immediately announced her intention of resigning the gate. "It had been let by the trustees," so she reasoned, "to her husband. His name, not her's, was over the bar, and in the parchments. His death voided all 'greements. She knew that much of law, if she knew naught else. And having a little independency, no living man, because he'd a penny to pay, should stand by the gate, and cuss her more."

But what was that "little independency?"

Its amount staggered even those who were aware of Mercy's thrifty habits, and the diligence with which she had plied her unenviable calling. But, in reality, she possessed double the sum which she gave the world to understand was hers. Many tried to counsel, and more to cajole her but she kept her own secret, and carried away her spoil in triumph.

"None of your banks for me!" was her cry. "I'll trust none on 'em after the smash of Morton and Rodick. Bethink ye of the Wellingborough bank! Because old Morton was a born miser, and seemed to grudge every penny he spent, folks thought his bank as safe as the Bank of England, and that nothing could move him. But their faith was somewhat shaken when he shut up about ten o'clock on the market-day morning, and never opened again. Ha! ha! ha! I've heerd, too, afore now, of bankers, the night before they broke, sitting up till cockcrow, and burning all their books, ledger, cash-book, day-book,—all to baulk their creditors. I've known, too, a clerk who managed a savings-bank run off with the money: wearisome enough for those who had, bit by bit, laid it by, and came at Christmas to claim it. And, as to money lent on promissory notes, how are ye to know whether he who borrows it is a man or a mouse? It's often all promise and no pay. Now I'll not be fooled. I'll have what neither man nor devil can take from me, I'll have that which will neither burn, nor waste, nor melt I'll have LAND!"

away,

On the eastern coast, not far from the aguish but aspiring little watering-place of Walton-on-the-Naze, stood a sunny homestead, built in the cumbrous and substantial fashion of former days,-to which some thirty

acres of capital land were annexed. Its owner had recently deceased; and in his will had subdivided his property into such minute portions that the disposal of this farm was indispensable. While it remained entire, to carry the provisions of the will into effect the executors found to be impracticable. Mercy bid for it. She had previously convinced herself, by actual inspection, of the value of the farmstead, of its ample accommodation, and excellent state of repair. Better grazingland than that around it, she was told by experienced judges, Essex did not boast. The only drawback on its value was its proximity to the sea. But then it stood in a bay, sheltered on each side by projecting crags, was screened from the inroads of old ocean by a strong sea-wall, and was deemed by those who lived near the spot thoroughly secure. That the German Ocean gained on each side of the estate, towards Harwich on the one hand, and St. Osyth on the other, was admitted: but Sunnyside Farm, it was averred, the tide never affected. In fifty years not five feet of soil had the waters removed from it. Still Mercy hesitated; pondered in silence over the nearness of the house to the cliff; remembered that the acres she was about to buy lay-none of them inland, but skirted closely the expanse of ocean; and seemed, on second thoughts, to shrink from completing her purchase. While hesitating she was offered a premium for her bargain. This decided her. "If it was a good spec for another, it was a good spec for her!" She at once professed herself ready to sign the agreement; and desired the deeds to be made out forthwith. The purchase-money was paid: Mrs. Ewens took possession of her antique home, and became a landed proprietor. Nothing could look more promising than her crops; or in a state of better culture than her land; and the smiling suns of August shone upon her a thriving and a prosperous woman. She reaped; and she laid up, and "gathered into barns;" and in the excess of her exultation declared she "dreaded no foe who on this earth could molest her :" she had "taken good care none here could harm her." The boast was premature. She was about to combat a foe who was resistless.

September drew on, rainy, fitful, and tempestuous. The equinoctial gales blew. Strong tides set in; each with greater vehemence than its predecessor; and one morning she was roused from sleep by a tremendous crash, speedily explained by the unwelcome announcement that forty feet of cliff had given way in front of the farm-stead, which now stood on the very verge of the ocean. From that moment the current of the North Sea-so capricious and uncertain are the operations of the mighty element !—seemed changed. It ceased to tell upon the projecting crags which had hitherto sheltered Sunnyside: but seemed bent on enlarging the bay, and making a more decided sweep inland. The antique farmstead speedily disappeared. No sea-wall that Mercy had means or opportunity to raise stayed the progress of the advancing enemy; and in four years the little territory of the boastful woman had, bit by bit, crumbled away.

*

In the darkest corner of the day-room in the women's ward at Northampton workhouse there lingered on, not many years since, an aged person, whom her companions in misery all more or less feared, and were unanimous in describing as a godless old body, whose thoughts and ways were far from canny."

She was irritable, restless, peevish, uneasy,-sorely burdened by de

crepitude, and yet sadly averse to die. All allusion to the future seemed hateful. What remained to her of intellect reverted incessantly to the past. She would sit the livelong day, and murmur eagerly to herself, as if striving to silence by self-vindication some compunctious feelings which arose within her.

"No crime to rob the dead-none-none! False oath ?—no !—no! never took one in my life! I said I never saw him again alive or dead. 'Twas truth-truth! He wasn't dead; for he was warm, and breathed. He wasn't alive; for he could neither speak nor move. Ha ha ha! Good! No lie ?-none !-none! But he grasped his note-case tight -tight! Well, there was one beside him who wanted it more, and grasped it tighter. Ho! ho! 'twas a lucky chance. But where is it all now ?-Down-deep down in the sea,-the cruel, restless, devouring sea !"

Whether these expressions had reference to any previous period of her life; whether they explained any gloomy mystery connected with the past; or whether -as the workhouse surgeon contended — they simply indicated the presence of mania in one of its many varied forms, those must decide who are enabled by previous study and long experience to distinguish accurately between the workings of conscience and the visitations of disease.

BRIAN O'LINN;

OR,

LUCK IS EVERYTHING.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST."

CHAPTER I.

Ballyporeen.-Notice of myself.-The Yellow Gentleman.-His arrival, conversation, and departure.

"BARRING Bannagher, and everybody knows that Bannagher bates the devil,-give me Ballyporeen!" observed an agreeable gentleman, who had roofed the royal mail in my company from the Irish capital. "If you would see the town in all its glory, choose the market-day, and should it be the Margymore,* why, all the better. For courting, I'll back Ballyporeen against the world; and if you have a fancy to try the temper of your twig upon a skull, and ascertain whether bone or blackthorn is the harder, take a tender steak at the 'Cat and Bagpipes,' with a couple of stiff tumblers afterwards to assist digestion, and then, if it's the heel of the evening, slip fair and aisy into the crowd. You'll not be long there-if you have any luckuntil ye meet some pleasant personage trailing his cotamoret after him, and requesting anybody and everybody to tramp upon the same. Why, then, all you have to do is to put your toe delicately upon the hem of the garment, and if one of you is not down before a dog could hear a whistle, why, never believe myself, Dan Delany, although I kissed calfskin to the same. And now, God bless you, if it's possible!"

Such was the valedictory observation of my fellow traveller, as on a beautiful morning in June, the royal mail, at seven A. M., rattled into the town of Bally poreen, through a street composed of mud-walled cabins, and held in joint-tenancy by bipeds and quadrupeds,-men, women, and children,-pigs, ducks, and donkeys. For hours, I had been amused with the racy and natural wit then indigenous to an Irish coach-box-and occasionally laughed heartily at guard, driver, and outsides, as they tilted good-humouredly with each other; and certainly the contrast forced upon me between "the leathern conveniency" İ was perched upon, and the better-appointed English stage, was awfully against the latter. I have, in my wanderings, sat beside a "bacon-fed knave," held, in road parlance, to be a "spicy coachman." For sixty miles I never could extract from him aught more extensive than a monosyllable; and throughout the journey, the beer-swilling beast was niggard of speech, as if he had been a probationer from La Trappe.

Irish drivers are now defunct-and Pat Daly was almost an ultimus Romanorum. He, poor fellow, who could not bear a go by on the road of life, speedily followed his brethren, and "tooled" his last stage. He died in his vocation; for, having good-naturedly consented to the inside passengers' playing a game of blind-hookey for a round of tumblers, in a hurry to retrieve lost time, and bothered by thirteen Johnniest and a foggy night, poor Pat slipped off the highway into a quarry, made smithereens of the royal mail, and broke his own neck into the bargain.

* The large market.

+ Anglice, great-coat,

Small glasses of whiskey.