lid was as laconic-"Dame Ellinor Blake, aged 19." Great God! brief was the space vouchsafed to one so fair and and innocent!

young

The bodies were consigned to the tomb-" dust to dust" was spoken-and the earth rattled hollowly above the dead soldier and his wife! Amid tears and lamentations the grave was filled the crowd were beginning to disperse-and the last sod was smoothed over "the narrow house." There was a momentary silence, while all looked with full hearts and fuller eyes on the little mound that covered "the brave and beautiful."

Just then a youthful stranger issued from the crowd, and gazed for an instant on the double grave. He knelt and kissed the turf, plucked a few blades from the herbage, and in a voice clear and distinct enough to be overheard by hundreds, exclaimed, "Cæsar Blake! before this tuft of grass is withered, your murderer shall fill as red a grave as this!" Turning from the spot, he disappeared among the dense multitude.

"Who is he?" asked many voices. None answered-for none knew.

*

A month passed; the assizes were at hand, and Mr. Donovan who had absconded, on learning what the dying request of his victim had been, determined to come in and risk a trial. Had a rigorous prosecution been anticipated, he would not have hazarded this step; but, well assured that vindictive measures were not meditated by the relatives of the deceased, he was aware that by a proper application of money, all contingent chances of a conviction would be evaded. He subsidized accordingly the sub-sheriff-a jury was prepared -and the prisoner was arraigned, tried, and acquitted.

And yet Donovan's escape was very critical. The injunc tions of a dying brother to Manus Blake were sacred, and therefore he took no steps to insure a conviction of the murderer; while the prisoner secured a powerful bar, a venal sheriff, and a packed jury, and the latter saved him.

The evidence was heard; the judge summed up, and charged unfavourably for the traverser. Ten of the jury were unanimous to find him guilty-two were for an acquittal; and these were professional boot-eaters.*

* In the kingdom of Connaught, a boot-eater meaneth a gentleman who enters his jury-box with his verdict ready for delivery; nor will he, from evidence or any other cause, alter the same, even though obliged "to eat his own boots."

11*

"The avenger of Cæsar Blake!" returned a voice that harrowed all that heard it. The words were scarcely uttered, when a close explosion shook the room; splintered glass flew across the table; and Donovan made one backward step, and fell heavily on the carpet. In rushed the servants; they raised their master-he was a dead man, for several bullets had ruptured the heart and divided the spine. Uproar and confusion ensued. After some delay, the garden was searched, for none of the guests wished to beard the murderer; but none was found; and the avenger of Cæsar Blake remained undiscovered.

CHAPTER XV.

MY BOYHOOD.-MRS. BLAKE CASEY.

Miss Hoyden. His honour desires you'll be so kind as to let us be married to-morrow.

Young Fashion.-To-morrow! No, no; 'tis now, this very hour, I would have the ceremony performed.

Miss Hoyden.-'Ecod! with all my heart.

Trip to Scarborough.

Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,

I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,

It mends their morals; never mind the pain.

Don Juan.

I was removed to Castle Blake, and placed in my aunt's nursery. Never was orphan more tenderly attended to, and never a dying pledge more faithfully redeemed, than that made by Manus Blake to my deceased parent. Attached as my uncle was to his long-expected heir, I seemed equally regarded. We were brought up like twin-brother, and our names were not more similar than our persons.

And yet my blundering relative injured me from the very cradle. He not only neglected to communicate my mother's death to Mr. Harrison; but when a letter was received from that singular personage, stating that he had seen the melancholy affair reported in the papers, and offering his protection to me, Manus, irritated at some passage in the epistle, that he imagined reflected on his brother's character, transmitted in reply a thundering philippic, so ingeniously worded as to

sting my grandfather to the quick, and smother every reviving spark of natural affection.

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The records of infancy are not very interesting, nor are they of much importance to society at large, save in poetical biographies, when it is desirable to ascertain, if possible, by a stopwatch, the precise period when the first "lisp in numbers" can be authenticated. The history of a boyhood is not more valuable, excepting when the chronicled one slips off antece-dent to his seventh year, a paragon of precocious piety, and leaving sayings and doings' sufficient for a saintly annual or methodist magazine. Indeed, boys in good health are in propensities and pursuits pretty similar; and in the kingdom of Connaught the course of education generally adopted is nearly the same. There they whip tops, and are whipped in turn; break windows and worry cats; learn to ride and read; are taught card-playing and their catechism; and so gradually improve, until in due time they shoot flying and kiss the nurse-maids. Now, my cousin and myself were no exceptions to "ingenuous youth," only that Jack possessed more animal spirits, with a finer developement of the organ of destructiveness. Father Roger Dowling, who confessed my aunt and superintended our education, could occasionally manage to keep me for an hour to my "humanities;" while Jack, unless strapped to the table, would not remain steady for a second; and for every window that I broke, he smashed twenty. Indeed Father Roger declared, "that were I removed from the evil influence and example of my kinsman, I was the making of as nate a scholar as ever thumbed a dictionary; but Jack, might the Lord mend him!-he, Roger, had taught two generations, and finished in less than no time sundry gentlemen whom he enumerated, and who, when they came under his tutelage, hardly knew a B from bull's foot: but Jack bate Bannagher, and would vex a saint even were he loaded with psalm-books."

We passed our thirteenth year, and still were at the feet of Father Roger. I wrote tolerably, and read Virgil. Jack was an execrable scribe, and knew as much of the Mantuan bard as he did of the author of Junius; but he was not deficient in other accomplishments. He shot well, rode dashingly, tied flies, cropped terriers, and, as Tony Joyce, the huntsman averred, was a most promising youth, provided they did not " smother him with larning." "If he was intended for a priest, it was right enough; but for a gentleman, and he too the head of the Blakes, what had he to do

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There is nothing like leather," says an old moral; and in Peter Donovan's case it was a proven truism. The jury for two long days and nights remained secluded. The ten for a conviction were good men and true," but the leathercutters were far more efficient-for they had entered the box regularly provisioned for the nonce, a precaution which their brethren had unhappily neglected. Jurymen cannot live on air, and the conclusion may be guessed; the two held outthe ten gave in-and Donovan was acquitted.

Consummate as that scoundrel's audacity was, he felt himself too happy in stealing from the assize-town unobserved. Swagger and impudence were unavailing now: the timid turned from him with aversion, and the bolder took no trouble to conceal their abhorrence. This was sufficiently annoying; but the truculent looks and muttered curses of the peasantry alarmed him far more. He perceived that his life was insecure; and he determined to leave the country for a time, until the storm blew over, and popular indignation should subside. Leaving the town at midnight, he reached his miserable home without any interruption; and, among low followers and broken sycophants, vainly strove to forget that blood was upon his hands.

Still, even here, he heard enough to make him anxious to expedite his departure: his tenantry were driven from the fairs; his servants insulted in the market-town; every post brought him threatening letters; and his own domain-and he never left it was now deemed insecure. His arrangements were completed, and the next day he was to leave the neighbourhood, and seek safety in another land.

He sate at his own table; a low attorney, a dependant kinsman, the blackguards who had acquitted him, and two or three broken-down spendthrifts, formed fitting guests for a murderer's board.

In imitation of ancient houses, Donovan had retained a harper. To one naturally musical, having no ancestral recollections to wed him to half-forgotten usages, the presence of the bard was tolerated from vanity alone. To-night, the tunes he played were unhappily selected, and the names and melodies unsuited to the temper of the master of the house; and the old man was rudely dismissed from a board where music had no charms, and wine alone could produce a simulated mirth, which, when the lip smiles, cannot prevent the breast from sighing.

A heartless effort at hilarity vanishes at the most trifling

annoyance. Donovan had lost a favourite dog, and a considerable reward was offered, but in vain, for his recovery. That evening the head of the poor animal was affixed to his gate, and a scroll attached to it, declaring that a similar fate awaited the owner before another week would pass. No wonder the parting revelry was clouded by gloomy forebodings, and that the smile was forced, and the jest a mockery. The hour of separation was near; all had drunk deeply; for, to drown remorse, Donovan himself had latterly resorted to the bottle.

"We must cancel that will, Hawkins," he said: “Like every other new-married fool, I was bewitched, and, to cut off my next relation whom I hate, left every acre to that infernal woman." The attorney assented. "Poison every inch of the mearings; and if Blake's hounds attempt to draw a cover within miles, he may send a cart for their carcasses." dependant nodded obedience. "And now for bed, boys, for I must be astir by cockcrow."

The

"Not till we have one glorious round!" exclaimed a ruined blackleg. "Fill, every man of ye. This is our host: long life to him give him a full bumper!"

The party were seated in a back-room that looked into an enclosed garden. From its greater security, this apartment had been of late the favourite chamber of Donovan. The shutters were but partially closed; and the young moon, glancing in, was sometimes seen and sometimes hidden, for the night was boisterous and cloudy. The glasses were filled to the brim. The company rose to drink the toast with fitting honours, and the name of Donovan was on every lip. Suddenly the attorney pointed to the casement.

"What's that?" asked the host, with all the quickness of intuitive suspicion.

"It was only fancy," returned the man of law; "I thought I saw a human countenance peeping through the window there. It must have been the shadow of Miles Dogherty."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Donovan, as he looked round. "That stupid scoundrel of a servant always neglects to close the shutters not that we need fear intruders here, for the garden-wall is twenty feet high."

"Poh!" said the boot-eater, "the devil himself could not get over that."

"We may as well, however, close the windows," said Donovan; and, stepping forward, he laid his hand upon the shutter. He started instantly. By Ileaven!" he exclaimed, "there is a man outside! Who's there?"

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