friend, who, on his part, kept his gaze upon the brilliancy of his own shoe-buckles.

The colonel read, after a majestic pause:-"Bodies of men have been collected in different parts of the north, armed and disciplined under officers chosen by themselves, and composed chiefly of the lower classes of the people. These bodies are daily increasing in numbers and force: they have exerted their endeavours to procure military men of experience to act as their officers, some of them having Expressly Stated'-mark that!" said the colonel, with another quenching glance at his friend, who was now engaged in rubbing down his shovel-hat—“some of them having expressly stated, that there were men enough to be had, but officers were what they wanted.' I hope you would have my son go and offer his services, Doctor Kavanagh ?" added the colonel, with scathing irony. "No one can deprecate the disturbances more than I do,” observed the doctor, meekly, when he had a chance of putting in a word.

"But that is not all, sir. Listen further to the report, and you will acknowledge that the state of things it discloses is truly alarming. Stands of arms and gunpowder to a very large quantity, much above the common consumption, have been sent within these few months to Belfast and Newry, and orders given for much more, which could only be wanted for military operations. At Belfast, bodies of men in arms are drilled and exercised almost every night for several hours by candle-light; and attempts have been made to seduce the soldiery, which, much to the honour of the king's forces, have proved ineffectual. The declared object of these military bodies is to procure a reform of Parliament; but the obvious intention appears to be to overcome the Parliament and the Government, and to dictate to both.'

"Just France over again, sir," said the colonel, folding up his newspaper. "And what think you of that audacious attempt to summon a national convention, with regularly elected delegates

from the Catholics all through the land? What think you of the organizing of a regular National Guard-see it here in black and white, sir ;" and he plucked open the paper again. "Their uniform green and white, sir; gilt buttons with a harp-no crown, of course, the treasonable villains! but a cap of liberty on a pike, as a pleasant suggestion. Copying the French in everything! What have you to say to that, sir? I only hope we'll not import the fashion of the guillotine, and see it at work in College Green."

"Papa," said Evelyn, in a trembling voice, “I had no idea the country was in such a dreadful state. Let us go to Dublin, papa -it would be safer."

"And these are the sweet amiable peasantry for which Doctor Kavanagh feels compassion!" said the colonel, irately.

"Ah! there is another side to the picture," ventured the doctor. "Power has been used intemperately; wrong has been met with wrong, violence with violence: the tyranny of private persons has been suffered to pollute the operation of public justice--"

"There's another specimen of it," exclaimed the colonel, putting his head out of the window. The coach stopped, and its owner wrapt his cartouche cloak about him, to descend and investigate the burnt hovel of James Dillon the weaver. Doctor Kavanagh looked forth, irresolute for a moment, and then followed.

A shed of sticks, roofed with a scorched blanket, had been set up against the gable end of the cabin, and a light blue smoke ascended from a small fire, to feed which the little weaver was breaking up one of his own blackened rafters. Much more smoke was issuing from the débris of the dwelling, which was a crushed heap of stones and joists filling what had been the sole room. At sight of the unwonted splendour of the coach on their naked bog-road, the halfdozen children, who had been amusing themselves by building miniature cabins of sods of turf in the ditch, suspended their occupation to stare with all their might; likewise their father, no more

equal to the emergency than they, stared equally, until the equipage stopped.

"Betune us an' all harm! it's the colonel himself! Oh, wirrasthru! maybe it's comin' to take me up for a croppy he is, afther the boys burnin' me little cabin. Murther in Irish, but I'll be kilt aither ways! an' what wid the boys by night an' the fincibles by day, it's hard to keep the life in one, at all at all.”

This was his soliloquy while rising to his feet and shambling a few steps to meet the stately gentleman in the cartouche cloak, the scarlet of which garment struck with unqualified admiration the six children in the ditch, and the mother holding the seventh in her ragged arms.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CAPITAL FELONY.

"You see, sir," the colonel was saying to the rector, whose short limbs could not quite keep up with his friend's military stride: "you see here a specimen of the tender compassion of the men whose cause you advocate so warmly, Doctor Kavanagh. Behold the wife and little ones deprived of their sole shelter-and for what reason? Because this good man "-pointing to the cowering weaver" had moral courage enough to join Bodkin in a deposition before me, yesterday."

Jim Dillon, hearing himself described as a "good man," plucked up heart of grace, and held his head a little less abjectly, while pulling his forelock in obeisance.

"'Deed and indeed, yer honour, 'twas the boys did it in the dead o' the night, an' I never knew a pin's-worth about it till the