left in its stead, there it lay in the chimney corner, everlastingly bawling—the roar never out of its mouth except when it was cramming with milk and white bread; and the day the priest went to christhen it, you would hear its bawls all over the hills and up to Lough Salt ;-thus it lay the world's torment, until one day that Con M'Gilligan, the tailor, came.-Now Con used to come once a year to give a week's mending and making, and so he staid in the house a sewing, while Manus was abroad working and the mistress went out to milk the cow, and just to make the needle run glibly through the cloth, Con began to lilt up a song, when with a squaking voice from the cradle in the hob the little crathur cried out, "Con jewel, go to the salt-box and take out an egg, my dacent lad, and just dress it in the ashes for me, or I will cry so loud that it will spoil your singing." "O then," says Con, "is it you that spakes-by the powers I all along knew you were nothing at all but a leaving of the good people-not the breadth of my nail will

I go until you tell me who you are and all about yourself." "Well now do, Con, make haste and roast the egg for me before the mistress comes in, and believe me it will be well for you." So Con thought it all out dangerous to anger the crathur, and so he went and roasted the egg in the ashes, and afterwards though he did not much like it, fed the urchin who seemed to like mightily a fresh egg. "Well, and now my sweet little fellow who are you, and where did you come from? for sartain I am that you are not a nathural bairn." "Oh then Con you never said a truer word than that-I am one of the good people-I am sent here by our king as a bit of a punishment; but next hollantide eve, please the pipes, I will be back and dancing on the moor braes round the Rock of Doune." "Well and," said Con, "when and where were your born?" "Tut man, I was never born-I was once upon a time as pretty a winged angel in heaven as could be, as beautiful, as good, and as happy as the day was long; and there was terrible

war there, for they that are devils now, rebelled and were turned out, and down they came falling head foremost, tumbling and rolling until they dropped into hell. I with all those who are now called good people, took neither hand or part in the fray-we joined neither God nor devil, and so because we were neither good nor bad, neither this thing nor that thing, God Almighty was pleased to turn us out—not indeed into hell, but here we came to flit up and down through the world-sometimes indeed for good, more times for bad-now merry-now sad, and here we are to be until the day of judgment, growing less and less, time after time, and I fear very much unless we mend our manners we must all of us in the end go to hell.— But no more of that now, my dear Con, for its a sore subject; you seem to be a good and likely boy and know how to roast an egg, so Con dear, meet me the night of hollantide at the Rock :—I will be after making of your fortune."

The week before hollantide the child was

observed to bawl no more; it would not sup any more milk; and one morning it was found stiff and cold in its cradle. To be sure Ma

2

nus and his wife were not sorry to be so well rid of what was a vexation and a shame, and Manus went with a light heart with the unlucky thing under his arm, and he put it quietly in the church-yard on the north side of the old abbey, where the sun never shone upon it.

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Twenty times a day did Con M'Gilligan argufy with himself whether he would mind the fairy's bidding, and go to Doune Rock on the night of All-Souls, or not: 'twas head or harp between conscience and curiosity— and curiosity won the toss; and so he set out in the light of the full moon to the Rock. As he came near, and was turning the corner of a rocky ridge out of which an oak in former times used to grow, he found something drop from the tree on his shoulder, and looking up, he saw the natest little gentleman in the world sitting there just like an old acquaintance. "I'm glad to see you, Con

and so you can put trust in the good people's word: and now it's I that will shew you that I am a gentleman, and up to my word to a hair's breadth; so now mind my bidding, and follow me; but first take this musheroon in your left hand, 'twill make you, while you hold it, as light, and thin, and small as myself: and mind for your life you dont name the name of God, or say a Pater Noster." As Con had gone so far, he thought he might as well go on; so taking the musheroon from the fairy, in the twinkling of an eye, he became less than a nine-pin, and it was all his wonder that though his legs were so small he went as fast as thought; so thus they slid on, until they came to the side of the Rock where the fairies' door is, when his leader put his hand in his fob, took out a little key, and slipping it into the key-hole, before you could say Jack Robinson they were in the finest palace in the world. King Solomon, nor King David, nor King George, God bless him, neither have nor had such furniture, such household stuff, in kitchen or