Some stir was heard at the door of the dining-room.

"Yous can't come in," said the suppressed voice of old Connor. "For what would I let you be afther disturbin' the gentlemin over their wine ?"

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But I was charged to give this into the colonel's own hand; an' I daren't but do it," said the envoy. "An' it's news that won't wait, moreover, an' they mightn't be fit for it in another hour;" and he made a significant gesture.

Without more ado, he pushed aside old Connor, and entered, splashed almost from head to foot, as one who had ridden far and long through miry roads. Making the military salute, he handed a packet to the master of the house. Then glancing round, and perceiving the ruddy little magistrate, he produced a similar packet for him; glancing still further, and perceiving Mr. Waddell, he paid him the same attention.

66 If you want any more magistrates," observed Captain Gerald, smiling, “you will find Doctor Kavanagh in the garden, I believe.”

The orderly bowed his acknowledgment for the information, and withdrew in great gravity. The rector had been sauntering by the Narrow-water with Evelyn, and helping her to tend her flowers.

"Poor disturbed Ireland!" she said, in answer to something spoken by her friend, "how comes it that, of all corners of the earth, there never can be peace here ?"

"Dear Miss Evelyn," was his reply, "I have my own thought about that I believe it to be the religion, or rather the superstition. of the people. They own an earthly allegiance higher than that to the king to the pope; and as he orders, through all the ramifications of the Romish hierarchy, they must obey. The true, the only effectual remedy for the evils of Ireland I believe to be a living, loving faith in Christ as the only mediator. This will sweep away both the priestcraft of Romanism and the cold hard spirit which, alas! our Protestantism too often displays. With one

Saviour to trust in and love and serve, we should, for the first time in our history, become one people. Whenever a rebellion breaks out in Ireland—I mean a professed rebellion-you will find Romish priests largely implicated."

"A rebellion like 1641! Oh, Doctor Kavanagh, don't speak of anything so awful!" Evelyn grew pale.

"My dear, my not speaking of it does not lessen its possibility," argued the rector; "but I am sorry to have alarmed you." A step on the gravel made him turn round, and the envoy handed him his missive.

The Defenders had risen in the country. A few miles away, they were assembled in large numbers near Enniscorthy, threatening to march upon Wexford itself. All accessible magistrates were summoned to help in the maintenance of law and order.

"I am a man of peace," observed Doctor Kavanagh, folding up his paper, "and my place is among my flock. So I shall remain with you, Miss Evelyn, whoever goes; but I must speak with Colonel Butler." He left the garden.

Evelyn was surprised at her own calmness. When we are in the midst of a crisis, and involved in great issues, there is often an unwonted firmness or bluntness of feeling. She herself marvelled that she had so little fear, and so little anxiousness. Yet there was no conscious relying upon Divine care, such as had sometimes sustained her when the danger was more distant. Evelyn's faith was never very strong: she had it more as a doctrine than an experience; as a knowledge of the head rather than a confidence of the heart. Little comfort attends it in such a degree.

She had often thought that whenever an outbreak did really occur among the hitherto peaceful and prosperous population of their county, she would be greatly terrified, frightened beyond bearing. And now that it had actually come, her womanly nervousness had disappeared. She helped in all her father's arrange

1

ments, listened to his injunctions, received his parting blessing, and saw him and Gerald ride away without even a tear in her eyes.

"Musha, but it's fairly unnatural," said old Connor, who had been watching her with affectionate solicitude. "Only why should I doubt the sperit of the Butlers? Sure there was kings an' queens as thick as blackberries among 'em long ago, as I've heered tell; an' she has a thrifle of their pluck, in coorse. Miss Evelyn asthore," he added aloud, breaking in on her reverie, "it's ourselves that'll take care o' ye while the masther's away; an' don't be afeared for half-a-minit."

"Thank you, Connor," she answered, turning round to the aged retainer, with a slight tremble on her lip. She could not trust herself to speak more just then; but as she passed into the house, heard him assuring her that "byne-bye all the tinents would be up, horse an' fut, to take care of their darlin' young lady, an' a dale betther they'd do it than thim half-dozen fencibles the mastber had left in charge; for hearts were sthronger nor swoords, any day." To which last assertion Evelyn could fully subscribe.

CHAPTER XIV.

66 'ROARING PEG," AND THE BANSHEE.

WHEN the rector returned from his house, whither he had gone to make some arrangements for his absence, he found Evelyn sitting in her peculiar nook of the picture gallery, a bay window which looked over the Narrow-water and the fair demesne beyond, now clouded with the shades of gathering night-so far as night ever deepens in our northern midsummer. A pale golden radiance yet suffused the edge of the heavens over the distant woods, bearing afloat, as a silver shallop, the young crescent moon. At this

beautiful object Evelyn was gazing. Before her, on a small inlaid table, a Bible was open, the page lit by a massive pair of silver candlesticks, supporting heavy wax lights.

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"Well, dear Miss Eva," after the first greetings-" and have you found anything here?" laying his hand on the open book. Nothing that I did not know before," was the somewhat pettish "I hear of people getting strength and comfort from the Bible; I don't find any, though I have tried with my whole heart; all the verses fall so flat, they are too familiar to impress me."

answer.

The old clergyman looked at her with sadness in his face. "I am sorry to hear it," he said: "for one of the surest signs of conversion to God is a keen relish for his word. May the Holy Spirit lead you to Him of whom this book speaks! Know him as your Saviour and the Bible will, at once, become to you the most delightful, the most consoling, the most strengthening of all books in the world. Yet I will find you a verse, which seems to me to convey what you want just now." He turned to the book of Psalms, and read—“Surely he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established, he shall not be afraid."

Evelyn's eyes glistened gratefully. "You have succeeded in finding words that are indeed seasonable," she said, "some that are like balm. I wonder whether people now-a-days can have that fixedness of heart, that trust in the Lord; for, oh, dear Doctor Kavanagh, I am sorely afraid of evil tidings."

The conversation that followed, in which Doctor Kavanagh spoke freely to her of Christ and his salvation, was often looked back upon by Evelyn as a sort of era in her life. Nothing like trouble for preparing the soul to feel its need of the Almighty Friend!

While they talked in that recess of the long gallery, a general

barricading and fortifying went on about the castle, according to orders left by the colonel, and executed by Bodkin his bailiff. All the lower windows were barred strongly, all the doors secured, as for a siege, with the exception of the back entrance, which had double guards. A sentry paced by the Narrow-water, and another on the gravel drive in front. An ancient piece of ordnance mounted on the roof of a turret, where its power to do hurt-except to those who should have the temerity to discharge it-was trifling, had its old carriage furbished up, and its old body filled with powder and a rusty ball, and its mouth was thrust out beyond an embrasure in the parapet, just in a position to cover accurately and blow to bits a fine ash tree near the edge of the gravel. "Roaring Peg" was a famous personage in certain old annals of the castle.

"Troth, an' I've a mind to frighten the croppies wid a blaze of her tongue," quoth Bodkin, looking affectionately at the weatherbeaten article.

“Do, sir, do, sir, to be sure; why shouldn't yer honour do it, or anything else your honour likes?" said one of his followers. For this parasite was no exception to the laws of nature, but owned his minor parasites likewise.

But Mr. Bodkin had his doubts as to the safety of venturing on such a liberty with "Roaring Peg," and yet he wished to test her

powers.

"Fire her yerself, Martin Dempsey," was his reply. "I'll light the match for ye, an' ye'll put it to the touch-hole."

“What wud the masther say to wastin' so much powdher? Musha thin, but I'd fairly confess I'd be in dhread of the masther," said Martin, stuffing his hands into the ragged pockets of his smallclothes, and not willing to own to his far greater fear of the decrepit cannon.

"Look here, Martin," said Bodkin, in a suppressed voice; "I know you were in the barn that night; didn't I hear the farrier