moments with idiot glee, and then, under a sudden impulse, ran off towards the hamlet which I had but just passed through."

Again an angry growling was heard from the mastiff's kennel, and the priest looked a second time through the shot-hole. The night was clear and star-lit, but nothing was visible from the window. Father Dominic resumed his seat, and Doctor Hamilton thus continued:

"My danger was imminent, and my resolution must be prompt. I dismounted, turned my horse loose, and as I had expected, he galloped off directly towards his stable. I sprang into the next field, and lay down under cover of the hedge, to consider what was the best direction that I should take to escape the blood-hounds, who doubtlessly would be soon upon my trail.

"I had not been above a minute in concealment when footsteps were heard approaching rapidly from the bridge. Two men came on at speed, and one had outstripped the other. 'Stop!' cried the hindmost, 'what a devil of a hurry you are in! I can't keep up with you.'

"'I want to be in at the death,' returned the well-known voice of my villain servant; 'I would not miss it for a ten-pound note. He thought to give me the slip—put me on a wrong scent, and sent me with a letter. He asked me a question about bridling a horse, and that betrayed his secret. I knew there was something in the wind—doubled back upon the house after he thought me clear away—saw him go off through the back lane in a canter, and—' Two shots were heard in quick succession. 'He's down, by ———,' he exclaimed, with savage exultation. 'Run Murtaugh! they'll be into the house in no time. I know where the money is. Run—the devil's luck to you! and off both ruffians started.

"The rest you know. Speedily a glare of red light was seen, and a burning house—my own—guided my flight, for I took the opposite direction. I know not whether I was pursued—but, if I was the villains were unsuccessful. At midnight I reached this place of refuge, and here, for a time at least, I am safe."

"What boundless treachery!" exclaimed my father, as the parson ended the narrative of his escape. "We may set an open enemy at defiance, but who can guard against secret villany? By Heaven! a dark suspicion at this moment flashes across my mind. Have you noticed the servant who waits at table?"

"I have—and as a disciple of Lavater I denounce him; he never looks you fairly in the face."

"And yet the only vulnerable point in the garrison is at that fellow's mercy. When I closed up every aperture besides, Hackett remonstrated so strongly, and pleaded the inconvenience it would cause should I build up the window of his pantry, that I consented to leave it open, merely adding a second shutter for security. It is but small—a man however could creep through it—but to-morrow the mason shall brick it up."

"It may be fancy," said my mother, "but Hackett's manner appears lately to have undergone a change. There is at times a freedom in his language that borders upon insolence; but hush! here comes the nurse."

The door opened as she spoke, and I was added to the company. My mother placed me on her knee,—the parson proposed my health, Father Dominie added a supplication, that "God would make me a better man than my father, and, above all things, keep me out of convents,"—and the latter responded an amen. Every glass was emptied to the bottom—the host rang for more wine and the priest replenished his tumbler. It was a moment of hilarity, joyous and brief. Suddenly Cæsar gave the alarm—not as before, in under growls, but in the "full-mouthed diapason" of a bark audible a mile oft. The greyhound and the terrier sprang up and answered,—I cried, frightened by the "loud alarum,"—the nursemaid caught me from my mother, and hurried from the room,—while my father, exclaiming "a true challenge, by Heaven!"' leaped from his chair, and placed himself before the wicket that looked upon the lawn.

A minute—an anxious minute, elapsed.

"I hear." said the Doctor, "the footsteps of a mob, as they tread upon the frozen gravel."

"Hush!" replied, my father, as he turned his ear attentively in the direction whence the noise proceeded; "that is not the movement of a mob—they step too well together. Soldiers on march, for a hundred!" At the Colonel's observation, my mother, who had nearly fainted, gradually recovered courage, and left the apartment for the nursery to re-establish mine,—my father remained at his post, to ascertain what the party were, who at this late hour approached his fortilage,—while Father Dominic ejaculating a pious "Heaven stand between us and evil!" turned down his tumbler to the bottom. Well, it was only his third one, after all.

CHAPTER II. THE PLOT THICKENS.

Now Christie's Will peep'd from the tower,

And out at the shot-hole peeped he,

And, "Ever unlucky," quo' he, "is the hour,

When a woman comes to speer for me."

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

In a short time "the heavy tread of marching men" ceased, as a party of ten or twelve soldiers halted immediately in front of my father's barricade.

"Stand! who goes there?" was demanded from the loop-hole.

"A friend," replied a voice, redolent of the richness of the Shannon.

"Advance, friend, and give the countersign," returned my father, whose phraseology, from military habitude, still retained the parlance of the camp.

"Countersign!" responded the leader of the belated wayfarers; "devil a countersign have I but one. If my ould Colonel's above the sod, he's spakin to me now fair and asy from the windy."

"Who are you?" demanded my father.

"Oh! by Jakers, you'll hardly mind me, Colonel;—Private Phil Brady of 'number eight' when you had the regiment; but now, glory be to God and good conduct, lance-sergeant in 'number five.'"

"What is your party, Brady?"

"Upon my conscience, Colonel, a quare one, enough; tin invalids, a dyin woman, ami a fine man-child."

"Unclose the door, Father Dominie!"

The priest lifted a heavy key from the side-board, and proceeded to give admission to the travellers, when Hackett, who had been hitherto an anxious listener, ventured a remonstrance. "Why not," said he, "give them meat and whisky before the door? Every room was already crowded with idle people, whom nobody would have harmed, had they remained where they ought,—at home. If the house was to be turned into an hospital for sick trampers and their trulls, why every servant would quit a place liker a jail than a gentleman's."

Colonel O'Halloran preserved an ominous tranquillity; and Hackett, mistaking the cause, became more insolent as his speech proceeded without interruption. But the storm burst at last.

"Villain!" said my father in a voice which induced the chief butler to recede some paces backwards,—"dare you, a menial, prescribe to me, your master, who shall be received and who rejected? Tell me that a comrade shall be turned from my door, and recommend that the weary soldier be ejected from the house of him under whom he has fought and bled! Off—we part to-morrow. The roof of Knockloftie shall never cover for a second night a sneaking scoundrel who has neither welcome for a brave man nor pity for a helpless woman;—show in the sergeant!"

Without venturing to reply, Hackett shrank from the presence of his angry master; and in another minute sergeant Philip Brady made his military salaam, and, with a capacious bundle in his arms, stood full front before his former commander.

"Phil!" said the Colonel, as he examined the soldier's outer man, "if I judge rightly, thou like myself art but lightly indebted to the Low Countries and my father held up an empty sleeve.

"Feaks! and ye may