have rare sport; we shall be all in at the death, and every man can chuse his game.

Thus spoke Captain Rock; and forward marched Lieutenants Peep-o-Day and Starlight to their respective positions; Captain Rock disposed his own main body on either side of the eastern end of the defile, each man effectually secreted and covered by his own grey rock; so that were any traveller to bend his way through the pass, he would have felt awe-struck, as he went along, at the loneliness of his wayfaring.-But not so at the western end of the glen. There Peep-oDay, the moment he was arrived, began his tactics; some of the fleetest and most enterprising of the Boys crept along the brow of the pass, and under shelter of the rocks and heath, came within shot of the military party, fired a volley, and then fled towards the hills. The officer, a cool veteran, whose experience taught him self-possession, who was well seasoned in Guerilla practice during the Peninsular war, saw the hazard of dispersing his small detachment amongst the

mountains, and ordered his men to stand to their post, and not attempt pursuit. Again Peep-o-Day tried his practice, and some of his men came so near as to taunt and scold the red coats from behind the rocks; and here a few of the soldiers, irritated by the insolent forwardness of the whiteboys, started forward in the pursuit, and ascended the mountain, but they had not gone far, when, from amongst the hills and bog-holes, up started the enemy on every side, and a bloody, and hand to hand contest ensued. Luckily, all effected their escape except one light infantry man, who more forward than the rest, fell pierced by a hundred pike wounds.

In the mean time Lord By returned from a fruitless search through the villages along the lakes of Inchigeela. He found every house deserted, and water thrown on every hearth, and it was high time to turn homewards, disappointed and weary,- -with horses blown and jaded, and many lame from want of shoes. They entered slowly in long

and loose array, the eastern opening of the defile. Captain Rock with head and neck protruded from behind a neighbouring cliff, and still protected from observation by an old yew, that waved its palmated foliage around him, hung in deep suspense, watching the entrance of the last Bantry man into the pass he seemed to fear lest he should lose even one of them-he counted them as a ratcatcher would count the vermin that he was enticing into his cage; and now he crossed himself- he heard the beatings of his own heart like the tick of a death-watch, as he counted the seconds, expecting every moment to hear Starlight's horn announcing that the rock was ready to be uprooted.

The Bantry men had about a mile to pass on, before they came to the point over which the loosening rock impended. At the rate they were proceeding about ten minutes more would have brought them to it. Rock's hopes, or dashed or realized, hung in sus pense on these ten minutes; and still onward the horsemen wound their toilsome march,

through the silence of the defile. At this instant an old man of the Mahonys looked down from his covert, and saw Lord B- -y and his brother just passing under him. This poor fellow had once two sons, the pride of his name and the consolation of his descending years-active, honest, industrious; but, alas! seduced into the Rock system; their house near Gougan Barry was searched under the provisions of the Insurrection Act, and arms and ammunition being found concealed, they were tried at Bantry, and sentenced to be transported, which sentence was instantly put into execution, and their aged parents were left desolate and destitute the mother wept her life away,

:

and her grey hairs descended in sorrow to the grave; the father joined the rising, and cared not how he died. This bereaved old man saw now, as he thought, the very man in his power who robbed him of all the props of his existence, and in an agony of passion that brooked no restraint, he started up on the grey rock that hitherto concealed

him, and holding high in his withered hand

a ponderous stone,

His loose coat floated on the wind,

His hoary hair

Streamed like a meteor in the troubled air;

And muttering the curse of him that was made childless, he cast the stone with wonderful energy down on Lord By. The stone missed his Lordship, but wounded severely his horse, and immediately Captain We drew forth his pistol, and with accurate aim, fired at the old assailant, who stood overhead, still foaming forth wrath and curses. The bullet, true to its mark, passed through the streaming hair of the poor impassioned wretch, and closed for ever his sorrows and sufferings. Down he came, tumbling from rock to rock, until he lay along the road, a mortal ruin, grey, and blasted, and bloody. The sight was too much for Irishmen to bear; all the prudential commands of Captain Rock were forgotten: and setting up one universal yell, each man started forth from behind his rock, and the