"With such a mock-serious face, I meant to say, papa."

Right, Kate; you are right, beyond yea and nay: a mock-serious face; yes, and there lay the best of it; if I had not been able to keep myself from laughing you might have suspected something; but I was able, as you yourself saw, and as you now don't deny; though, by Jove, Kate, it was enough to make a dead man shout out, seeing you sitting opposite to me, and believing every word I told you!"

"You kept up the farce cleverly, I must, and do admit it, sir." "Didn't I, Kate, didn't I? And here we are, this morning, eighty miles from Dublin, in our own house, and taxing no man's hospitality. But, devil's in it! there's no fun in playing a good trick on you, Kate." "Why so, dear papa? am I not as easily blinded as your heart could wish?"

"To be sure you are! What else could you be? I never met man, woman, nor child, that I could not puzzle. That's not the thing at all. No; but succeed as I may with you, 'tis impossible to make you a little cross. Why, if I had a lass of spirit to deal with, there would be no end to her tears and her pouts, and her petitions, the moment she found that I was whisking her away from her balls, and her drums, and her beaux, and all the other dear delights of Dublin."

"And I hope that my merry papa does not really wish to have me peevish and short-tempered, even for a greater provocation?"

"Kiss me, Kate, I believe not; and yet I don't know either, by Cork! There would be fun in tormenting you a bit, in a harmless way. But, Kate, can you give a guess why I ran away with you in such a devil of a hurry?"

"Let me see, papa. I remember you telling me of some original matches you had on hands before we set out for Dublin. Perhaps you

have engaged the two cripples to run a race on their crutches?" "No; that's put off-ho, ho!"

"Or the two old women to hop against time, carrying weight for

age?"

"Ho, ho!

wrong again!”

Probably you have succeeded in making the two schoolmasters promise to fight out their battle of the squares and angles with their respective birches; their scholars standing by to show fair play?"

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Ho, ho, ho! Though that's a matter not to be let slip out of reach, neither."

Then all my guesses are out, papa."

"I'll help you, then. Tell me, you little baggage, what is it on earth you most wish for?"

Indeed, my dear рара, I have no particular wish to gratify, at the

present moment."

"Get out! get out, for a young hypocrite! Kate, wouldn't something like a husband be agreeable to you?"

The girl blushed the colour of a certain young gentleman's coat, and drooped her head. Of that certain young gentleman, however, her worthy father knew nothing; at least, in connexion with the present topic.

Oh, ho! I thought I saw how the land lay."

Indeed, my dear papa”

"Say nothing more about it. Leave it all to me, lass I'll get him for you. None of your half-dead-and-alive fellows, that you could knock down with a tap of your fan; no, he shall be an able, rattling, rollock

ing chap, able to take your part by land or sea. tell you how I came by her, my girl?"

Did your mother never

Kate, dispirited by her father's coarse humour, as well as by other things, answered in the negative.

"I'll tell you, then, as truly as if she were alive to hear me. Though as poor as a church mouse at that time, I was a hearty young shaver ;* ay, as hearty, though not so matured as I am this day; now that I am squire of the town-land, and a justice of the peace, to boot. By the way, I wish they'd make the parish clerk a justice of the peace in my stead; for I hate to be trying to look as grave as a mustard-pot, and as solemn as a wig-block. Well, I was at a Christmas raffle, Kate, and your mother's father was there too; as comical an old boy as you'd wish to know! I had a great regard for him, by Cork! and so, away he and I raffled, and he lost to me every throw, until at last I didn't leave him a stiver. 'All I've won from you, and my watch to boot, against your daughter Nelly!' cries I of a sudden. 'Done!' cries he; and we threw again; and he lost, and I won again: and that's the way I got your mother, Kate! And now, do you guess any thing else I'm going to say about yourself, Kate?"

“Oh, papa, I hope "

"I know you do hope. Yes, Kate, I am going to provide for you in something like the same way"

"Now, good heavens, papa!".

6

"Don't speak a word more till you hear me out. At the last club dinner in Dublin, Ned O'Brien calls me aside with a face as long as my own when I'm on the bench; and after a long-winded beginning, he prays my interest with you, Kate. To be sure man,' says I, you must have it.' Then, up sneaks George Dempsey, and his business was the same. By Cork, I'll court her, in style, for you, my boy,' was my word to George. And then, Mick Driscoll takes a turn at me, and begs of me, for the Lord's sake, to listen to him; and I was obliged to listen to him, all about his title-deeds and his pedigree; and he, too, craved my countenance with the prettiest girl, and (what he didn't call you) the richest heiress in the province; and, By Jove! I'll do my best for you, Mick,' says I; and Mick nearly pulled the arm out o' my body, shaking my hand; but I'm not done yet. Harry Walshe made his way to me; and the boy to my fancy is Harry Walshe, Kate. I'm up to the saddle-skirts in love with your beautiful Kate,' says Harry. Pull away, my hearty fellow,' answers I; never fear, but I'll poll for your election.'

"My dear, papa"

"Let me make an end, as I told you, Kate. Well, after dinner, and the bottle going merrily round, and every one of us right jovial, I rehearsed, for the benefit of the whole company, all the promises I had made, and a high joke it was; and then, Here's what I'll do among you all, my good boys,' says I; Let every one of Kate's wooers be on the turf the first morning of the next hunting-season, each mounted in his best style; let there be no pull-in from the cover to the death; no baulking or shying, but smooth smack over every thing that offers; and the lad that mounts the brush may come a-courting to my daughter, Kate.' Well, my girl, you'd think they had all lost their wits at this proposal; such joy amongst them, such shouting; many a bottle the

* i. e. One who begins to use a razor.

rivals emptied, each to his own success; and in ten days from this blessed morning, the match comes off, my girl; and whoever wins, Kate will have a wooer worth throwing a cap at."

Kate remained silent; tears of mortification and disgust, unseen by her father, streaming from her eyes.

"But the cream of the jest I have not told you, Kate. Rattler is in training, privately, the last two months—no one the wiser; and, harkee, Kate! by Cork's own town, I intend to start for you, myself! and the brush I'll wear in my own cap; and then, if I hav'n't my laugh, right out, why, in that case, 'tis the devil that made little apples!"

And before the sensitive, and high-minded, and spirited girl could reply, away went her father to superintend Rattler, greatly chuckling over his scheme; and poor Catherine sat alone to blush and weep at the thought of being made, by her own father, the object of a vulgar and foolish contention.

Other sad thoughts mingled with her reveries. The unestated military hero, to whom, while in Dublin, she had all but plighted her troth, had promised, in answer to a letter she dispatched to him from the first post where she had halted with her father, on their flight from town, to make his appearance in the country, and try his fortune with the squire ; but days had now rolled over, and he came not ; neither did he send a line to account for his absence. This was sad mortification to the pure ardency of a first love, in the breast of such a girl as Catherine; particularly when she recollected the most disagreeable predicament in which her father's unthinking folly and indelicacy had placed her.

The morning of the hunt drew near, and still her lover was absent and silent. The match had become the talk of the whole country. With great difficulty and perseverance, Catherine succeeded in bringing her father's mind to contemplate her position, in something of a vein of seriousness. He could not, indeed, "for the life of him," surmise why she seemed so earnest and afflicted. But he did see and comprehend that she was really unhappy; and the best that he could think of, to cheer her, he said and swore. He would break his neck with pleasure, and to a dead certainty, rather than not bring home the brush, and fling it into her lap. And when Kate's fears, at this solemn declaration, took, naturally, another turn, the honest Squire was again at a loss to account for her tears, her clinging, though gentle embraces, and "her tantrums." He bawled right out, in utter mystification, at her entreaties that, come what might, he would not join the hunt; and, in fact, upon the appointed morning, away he rode towards the fox-cover, mounted on his crack hunter, Morgan Rattler, as full of buoyancy, and vigour, and solicitude, as the youngest of the competitors he expected to meet.

Great shouts rent the skies, as, one by one, the candidates for the gentle Catherine arrived at the appointed ground. Their horses, as well as themselves, were examined by curious and critical eyes, and heavy bets were laid upon the issue of the day's chase. The Squire, without communicating to any of his rivals his intention to hunt for his daughter himself, had contrived that his own fox-hounds should be in requisition; because he well knew that Morgan Rattler would do surpassing wonders on their tails.

The ruler of the hounds was the same who had held that situation under the former owner of Squire Hogan's estate. In his youth, twenty years previously, we have noticed him as a daring fellow; we should

have added that he used to be as remarkable for his boisterous good spirits as for his reckless intrepidity. Now, however, at five-and-forty, mirth, and even outward dash of every kind, had disappeared from his character. His face was forbidding; his words were few; he never laughed, he never smiled; and, altogether, people regarded him as a dogged and disagreeable man. But enough of our huntsman for the present.

The day promised to be most favourable for the remarkable chase it was to witness.

"A southerly wind and a cloudy sky
Proclaimed a hunting morning."

The ground was in prime order; the horses were full of vigour and spirit, after their long training; and, except the huntsman's, (and he comes in again sooner than we foresaw,) every face beamed with joyous animation. In fact, upon this day, he was making himself particularly offensive; quarrelling unnecessarily with his hounds; sulkily refusing to take any advice or opinions (commands were out of the question) concerning his treatment of them; and giving short answers, and looking "as black as thunder."

"What is the matter with you, Daniel?" questioned the Squire. "I have no fancy for the work to-day," answered the huntsman. Why so, man? what is all this about?"

"It was this day twenty years that my ould masther followed the witch down the rocks into the sey; and I was dreaming last night that he and I were hunting here, again, together, and that he drew me down the same lip afore him."

"Hutt, tut, you fool! there's no witch to hunt now, you know." "I know no such thing. You hav'n't heard that she is in her cave again ?"

"Pho, no; and 'tis impossible."

"It is not impossible: 'tis thrue. Let little Tony take my place to-day; for I tell you twice once, I don't like the work."

"Bother, Daniel. This day, of all days, I can't and I wont spare you. Draw on the dogs; come, stir! see to your business."

With mutterings and growlings, Daniel proceeded to obey. He cast the dogs into the cover. For some time they drew through it in silence. . Presently some yelpings were heard; then the leader of the pack sent forth his most melodious note; dogs and men took it up; the fox broke cover; away after him stretched the eager hounds, and, close upon them, the no less eager huntsmen.

The Squire stood still a moment, willing to let the foremost and most headlong candidates for his daughter's favour blow their horses a little before he would himself push forward. While thus manoeuvering, "Whom have we here?" he asked of the person nearest to him. His inquiry was directed to a strange huntsman who had just then appeared on the ground, no one could tell whence.

"By the good day!" exclaimed the person addressed, "that's Jack Hogan who fell over the cliff, this day twenty years!"

66

Nonsense, nonsense," said the Squire. The stranger turned round his head, as if he could have heard these words, though he was at a good distance.

""Tis he, man! just as he looked the last day he hunted! his very dress! see how different from ours; and his black horse. I'd know horse and rider among a million! By all that's good, it is himself!"

The horses of the Squire and of his neighbour, a man of fifty, who thus spoke, would brook no further delay; and their riders were compelled to loosen their reins, and allow them to spring onward.

Daniel, the black-browed huntsman, was at this moment immediately next the hounds. Two or three of the rivals for fair Catharine's love rode within a little distance of him. The new-comer loitered behind the last of the candidates: of course, the Squire and his friend now pressed him hard. Suddenly his coal-black horse, seemingly without an effort, and certainly independently of one from his master, cleared the ground between him and Daniel. The huntsman turned in his saddle, fixed an appalled look on his follower, uttered a wild cry, and desperately dashed his spurs into the sides of his steed. The stranger, still seemingly unexcited, as also appeared his horse, stuck so close to Daniel's crupper, that he could have put his hand upon it.

All swore that the fox outstripped the wind in swiftness. The hounds did their very best, and more than they had ever done before, to keep near to him. Each huntsman, including even our honest Squire, spared not whip and spur to rival them; but the huntsman first, and the stranger at his horse's tail, were the only persons who succeeded in the achievement.

Vain was the endeavour to come up with those two. And every now and then, black Daniel would glare behind him into the face of his pursuer, and with a new shout of horror, re-urge his hunter to greater speed; and still, and still, although the stranger sat tranquilly in his saddle, Daniel could not gain a stirrup's length a-head of him. Over hill and valley, over ditch and hedge, over bog and stream, they swept, or plunged, or leaped, or scrambled, or swam, close upon the dogs, as if life were of no value; or as if they were carried, eddied forward, with supernatural speed, and in superhuman daring. Onward, onward they swept, scarce seeming to touch the earth, until at length only three other horsemen were able to keep them even in distant view. And, soon after, those three became two; and, again, but one followed remotely in their track; and this one was our excellent friend Squire Hogan.

The sea-cliffs came in view! and straight towards them did the mad chase now turn. In amazement, if not in terror, the Squire pulled up his horse on a rising ground, and stood still to note its further progress. He saw the panting fox make for the dangerous place over the cliff's brow. For an instant he saw him on its very line. The next, he disappeared towards the sea. At his brush came the hounds, and down they plunged also. The rival horseman followed, and they, too, were, in a second, lost to view. A woman suddenly started up over the perilous pass, gazed below, and then sprang, as if into the air.

The mysterious fate of his predecessor fully occurred to our Squire; and he sensibly vowed to himself that, "By Cork! the faggot of a witch should never tempt him to leave the world by the same road." H also brought to mind his huntsman's words that morning; and a struggle arose between his reason and his superstitious propensities, as to whether or no the man's dream had been verified.

While thus mentally engaged, one of the baffled aspirants for Catherine's hand came up, himself and his horse soiled and jaded. Another and another followed, until almost all the members of the day's hunt surrounded Squire Hogan. He recited to them what he had witnessed. Greatly excited, some of them dismounted, and, under the care of an experienced guide, descended the cliff.