the town by assault. With that exploit his military career was prematurely closed—his left arm was fractured by a grape shot, amputated afterwards, and he returned to England invalided.

The rest is briefly told. He found himself a father, and his own sire had paid the debt of nature. His health was shaken by fatigue, his wound healed slowly, and after some consideration, he retired from the army upon half pay, obtaining a colonel's rank and pension, and fixed his residence in his native country, taking possession of an ancient house, and what proved afterwards an unquiet home.

The guests who on the anniversary of my birth had honoured Knockloftie with their presence, were different both in character and appearance. The priest was a strong-built, good-humoured, under-sized man, of jovial habits and easy disposition, careless how matters went, and consequently, ill-adapted to repress the turbulence of a disobedient flock, who would have required the religious coercion of a sterner monitor. As confessor to the establishment, Father Dominic Kelly made Knockloftie his abiding place. He was of gentle blood himself, and preferred being domiciled in the house of a gentleman, to a wandering life among the rude dwellings of a lawless community. Hence Father Dominic was by no means popular—and his influence over a wild and rebellious people was far less extensive than that which is generally possessed by the Irish priesthood.

The other churchman formed a singular contrast to the burly priest. He was a small, attenuated, intelligent-looking personage, possessing natural courage and a restless and irascible disposition. A fellow of the university, he had retired upon a college living—and having obtained, unhappily for himself, a commission of the peace, he exercised his powers with greater zeal than discretion; in short, he had made himself so obnoxious to the peasantry that his life was not worth a pin's fee. Like Colonel O'Halloran, he too was doomed to death, and in the black list his name was second to that of my father. A few nights before, his glebe-house had been burnt to the ground; and, having escaped assassination by a miracle, he found that protection at Knockloftie, which, from a more timid proprietor, might have been sought and asked in vain.

But there were others besides Doctor Hamilton, who during this reign of terror had been obliged to abandon their own homes, and elsewhere seek a shelter. Several of the poorer farmers had given testimony in recent prosecutions which led to the conviction of an assassin, on whom the extreme penalty of the law had been justly executed. This in the eyes of his guilty companions was a crime beyond the pale of mercy, and the unfortunate men were accordingly denounced. They fled for protection to Knockloftie—there, they were now residing—and, as if the measure of my father's offendings was not already full, the daring act of interposing between a lawless confederacy and its victims had heaped it even to an overflow. No wonder therefore, that the full fury of rebel vengeance was to be turned against himself and all whom his roof-tree covered.

"Well, William," said my mother, as she renewed a conversation which had been accidentally interrupted, "when you were struck down—"

"My foster brother sprang from the ranks, threw away his musket, lifted me lightly as even with this lone arm I would lift you, and carried me—"

"In safety from the danger?"

"No, no, love—we had to pass through a cross fire of musketry—a ball struck him, and when he fell dead—I was in his arms."

"Would," said my mother with a sigh, "that our Hector had a foster brother!"

"Would that he had! and one so faithful and devoted!"—my father drew his hand across his eyes—"this is too womanly, but—"

As he was speaking, the mastiff chained in a kennel beside the hall door began to growl, and the priest rose and peeped cautiously through a shot-hole in the shutters, to ascertain what might have disturbed the dog. Nothing to cause alarm was visible—and the churchman returned to the table, observing, that the night froze keenly.

My mother had dropped her knitting on the carpet.—"What a horrid state of things," observed the lady, as she picked the worsted from the floor, "that a growl from Cæsar sets my heart beating for an hour, and a knock after dark terrifies me almost to death!"

"Thou a soldier's wife, and play the coward!" exclaimed my father. "Fear nothing, Emily; the old tower from roof to basement is secured—there is not a cranny that would admit the cat that I have not under a flanking fire—the lower windows save one are built up—I have retrenched the hall with a barricade, nailed up the back door, and the front one is enfiladed by that embrasure,"—and he pointed to a window in an angle of the room, at either side of which a blunderbuss was standing ready for instant use.

"Would that for one night thou and the baby were safe within the convent walls! then let the scoundrels come! By Heaven! next morning there should be more shirts * upon the lawn than were ever spread upon the bleaching ground, and the coroner should have occupation, not by single files, but by the cart-load."

While my father spoke, the whole scene was passing in his "mind's eye," and Defenders were dropping by the dozen. His face lighted up, and springing from the chair he waved his solitary arm, strode across the chamber, and looked with conscious pride at all his military preparations. My mother grew pale as death, and turning her eyes up she fervently ejaculated, "God forbid!" and crossed herself devoutly. The priest performed a similar ceremony, and uttered a sincere "Amen!"

"Pshaw!" said my father, as he passed his arm round my mother's waist and kissed her tenderly; "do not alarm yourself. This house is strong; nothing but treachery could force it."

"Beware of that," said the parson; "for that I feared and proved. I was betrayed by the villain who ate my bread, and saved providentially by the babbling folly of an idiot."

"Indeed!" said my mother, with an inquiring glance, as she laid her knitting down.

"The tale is briefly told," said Doctor Hamilton. "For some time past I suspected that my servants were disaffected. I watched them closely, and circumstances convinced me that my fears were true. I had business in the next town; my tithe agent dared not venture out of doors, and it was imperatively necessary that I should see him. By a lane, the distance between the glebe-house and the village was only four miles—all I wanted done would occupy but a few minutes—and I took, as I supposed, effectual means to enable me to accomplish the object I had in view, and return home even before my absence was known in my treacherous household. At dusk I despatched my servant with a letter to the curate, and when he was out of sight I saddled a fast horse, quitted the stable by a back door, and rode off at speed for the village. I was unexpectedly delayed—but as a precaution against danger, returned by another and longer road. Night had set in; I passed through the last hamlet at a sharp trot, and, but a mile from home, pulled up at a steep hill that leads directly to the bridge. A lad who was running in an opposite direction stopped when he observed me coming, and I recognised him at once to be an idiot boy who occasionally visited the glebe-house, where he always received meat or money by my orders. As I came closer he began dancing and gabbling in a sing-song tune, "Ha, ha! Hamilton, ha, ha! somebody will get his fairin. There's Dick Brady and the smith behind the hedge, and Jack Coyne, and Patsy Gallagher, and twenty more besides, only I don't know them with their white shirts and black faces. Ha, ha! ha, ha! somebody to-night will get his fairin!" He repeated this rhyme, and kept dancing for a few