letters; and I ask you how, as an honest man, you can lay your head upon your pillow and sleep, knowing that an equally honest man may be deprived of the means to support his young family, and be turned adrift upon the world, through the positive malice of those who are envious of his prosperity and good name?" James looked very uncomfortable, but did not trust himself to speak.

"I repeat, you know by whom these letters were written." "As I hope to be saved!" exclaimed James, "I saw no writing-not the scratch of a pen!"

Harragan," continued Mr Herrick, "it would be well for our country if many of its inhabitants were not so quick at invention."

"I have not told a lie, sir."

"No, but you have done worse-you have equivocated. Though you did not see the letter written, you knew it was written; and an equivocation is so cowardly, that I wonder an Irishman would resort to it; a lie is in itself cowardly, but an equivocation is more cowardly still."

Harragan for a moment looked shillalas and crab-thorns at his friend, for such he had frequently proved himself to be, but made no further observation, simply confining himself to the change and repetition of the sentences-"Do you think I'd inform?" "Not one belonging to me ever turned informer."

"Am I then," said Mr Herrick, rising, "to go away with the conviction that you know an injury has been done to an innocent person, and yet will not do anything to convict a man guilty of a moral assassination?"

66 A what, sir?"

“ A moral murder."

"Look here, sir; one can't fly in the face of the country. If I was to tell, my life would not be safe either in or out of my own house; you ought to know this. Besides, there is something very mean in an informer."

"It is very sad," replied Mr Herrick, "that a spirit of combination for evil more than for good destroys the confidence which otherwise the gentry and strangers would be disposed to place in the peasantry of Ireland. As long as a man fears to speak and act like a man, so long as he dare not hear the proud and happy sound of his own voice in condemnation of the wicked, and in praise of the upright-so long, in fact, as an Irishman speak what he knows-so long, and no longer, will Ireland be insecure, and its people scorned as cowards!" "As cowards!" repeated James indignantly.

dare not

'Ay," said Mr Herrick; "there is a moral as well as a physical courage. The man who, in the heat of battle, faces a cannonball, or who, in the hurry and excitement of a fair or pattern, exposes his bare head to the rattle of shillalas and clan-alpines without shrinking from punishment or death, is much inferior

to the man who has the superior moral bravery to act in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience, and does right while those around him do wrong."

"I daresay that's all very true, sir," said James, scratching his head; adding, while most anxious to change the subject, "It's a pity yer honour wasn't a councillor or a magistrate, a priest, minister, or friar itself, then you'd have great sway intirely with your words and your learning."

"Not more than I have at present. Do you think it is a wicked thing to take away the character of an honest man?" "To be sure I do, sir."

"And yet you become a party to the act."

"How so, sir?"

"By refusing to bring, or assist in bringing to justice those who have endeavoured to ruin the father of a large family. Do you believe so many murders and burnings would take place if the truth was spoken?"

"No, sir."

"That's a direct answer from an Irishman for once. If the evil-disposed, the disturbers of the country, knew that truth would be spoken, disturbances would soon cease; you believe this, and yet, by your silence, you shield those whom you know to be bad, and despise with all your heart and soul."

"I don't want to have any call to them one way or other, good, bad, or indifferent," answered James.

66

"Very well," said Mr Herrick, thoroughly provoked at the man's obstinacy, and rising to leave the cottage; you say you wish to have no call to them. But mark me, James Harragan: when the spirit of anonymous letter-writing gets into a neighbourhood-when wicked-minded persons can destroy either a man's reputation or his life with equal impunity, there is no knowing where the evil may stop, or who shall escape its influence. The knowledge of the extent to which these secret conspiracies are carried, deters capitalists from settling amongst us; they may have security for their money, but they have pone for their lives; if they offend by taking land, or offering opposition to received opinions, their doom may be fixed; those whom they have trusted will know of that doom, and yet no one will come forward to save them from destruction."

"Sir," said Harragan, 66 secret information is sometimes

given."

"I would accept no man's secret information," answered Mr Herrick, for he was an upright man, perhaps too uncompromis ing for the persons with whom he had to deal; "justice should not only be even-handed, but open-handed; it is a reproach to a country when the law finds it necessary to offer rewards for secret information. I wish I could convince you, James, of the difference which exists between a person who devotes his time to peeping and prying for the purpose of conveying information to

serve himself, and him who speaks the truth from the upright and honourable motive of seeing justice done to his fellowcreatures."

"I see the differ clear enough, sir," replied the farmer; "but none of my people ever turned informers. I'll have no call to it, and it's no use saying any more about the matter; there are plenty of people in the country who can tell who was there as well as I; I'll have no call to it. When I went in the place, I little thought of who I'd meet there, and I'll go bail it's long before I'll trouble it again. There's enough said and done

now."

"A good deal said, certainly," rejoined Mr Herrick, "but nothing done. There are parts of the country where I know that my entering into this investigation would endanger my life, but, thank God, that is not the case here. I will pursue my investigation to the uttermost, and do not despair of discovering the delinquent."

"I hope you may, with all my heart and soul, sir,” replied the farmer.

"Then why not aid me? If you are sincere, why not assist?" And again James Harragan muttered, "Do you think I'd inform?"

"I declare before heaven!" exclaimed Mr Herrick, "you are the most provoking people under the sun to deal with."

"I ask your honour's pardon," said James slyly; "but you have not lived long enough in foreign parts to know that."

"Your readiness will not drive me from my purpose. I repeat, you are the most provoking people in the world to deal with. Convince an Englishman or a Scotchman, and having convinced his reason, you may be certain he will act upon that conviction; but you, however convinced your reason may be, continue to act from the dictates of your prejudice. Remember this, however, James Harragan: you have refused to pluck out the arrow which an unseen hand has planted in the bosom of an excellent and industrious man-take care that the same invisible power does not aim a shaft against yourself."

Mr Herrick quitted the cottage more in sorrow than in anger; and after he was gone, James Harragan thought over what he had said: he was quite ready to confess its truth, but prejudice still maintained its ascendancy. "Aim a shaft against myself," he repeated; "I don't think any of them would do that, though I'm sorry to say many as good and better than I have been forced to fly the country through secret malice; it is a bad thing, but times 'Il mend, I hope."

Alas! James Harragan is not the only man in my beloved country who satisfies himself with hoping that times will mend, without endeavouring to mend them. "Aim a shaft against myself," he again repeated. "Well, I'm sure what Mr Herrick said is true; but, for all that, I couldn't inform !”

The fact was, that, reason as he would, James could not get rid of his prejudice; he could not make the distinction between the man who turns the faults and vices of his fellow-creatures to his own account, and he who, for the good of others, simply and unselfishly speaks the truth.

Time passed on: Mr Herrick, of course, failed in his efforts to discover the author of the anonymous letters: the person against whom they were directed, although protected by his landlord, was ultimately obliged to relinquish his employment, and seek in other lands the peace and security he could not find in his own. He might, to be sure, have weathered the storm; for his enemies, as will be seen by the following anecdote, had no immediate intention of persecuting him to the death. A stranger, who bore a great resemblance to the person so obnoxious to those who met at the smith's forge, was attacked while travelling on an outside car in the evening, and in the immediate neighbourhood, and beaten most severely before his assailants discovered they had illused the wrong man! Nothing could exceed their regret when they discovered their mistake.

66 Ah, thin, who are ye at all at all?" inquired one fellow, after having made him stand up that they might again knock him down more to their satisfaction; "sure ye're not within a foot as tall as the boy we're afther. Is it crooked in the back ye are on purpose? Well, now, think o' that!—what call had ye to be on Barney Brian's car, that so often carries him, and with the same surtoo? and why didn't ye say ye wasn't another? Well, it's heart sorry we are for the mistake, and hope it'll never happen to ye again, to be like another man, and he an out-lawyer, as a body may say, having received enough notice to quit long ago, if he'd only heed it, which we'll make him do, or have his life, after we admonish him onst more, as we've done you by mistake, with a taste of a bating, which we'd ask ye to tell him, if you know him; there, we'll lay you on the car, as aisy as if you war in yer mother's lap, and ask ye to forgive us, which we hope you'll do, as it was all a mistake! and no help for it!"

The victim of "the mistake," however, who was an Englishman, suffered for more than three months, and cannot comprehend to this day why those who attacked him so furiously were not sought out and brought to justice. He never could understand why an honest man should refuse to criminate a villain. The poor fellow for whom the beating was intended was not slow to discover the fact, and with a heavy heartache bade adieu to his native land, which, but for the sake of his young children, he would hardly have quitted even to preserve his own life.

James Harragan did not note those occurrences without much sorrow; he saw his daughter Sydney's eyes red for three entire days from weeping the departure of the exile's wife, whom she loved with the affection of a sister; and he had the mortification to see his beloved barony distinguished in the papers as a “dis

turbed district" from the mistake to which we have alluded, at the very time when many of the gentry were sleeping with their doors unfastened. James Harragan knew perfectly well that if he had spoken the truth, all this could have been prevented. Still time passed on. Mr Herrick seldom visited James; and though he admired his crops, and spoke kindly to his children, the farmer felt he had lost a large portion of the esteem he so highly valued.

But when a man goes on in the full tide of worldly prosperity, he does not continue long in trouble upon minor matters. Sydney's eyes were no longer red; nay, they were more sparkling than ever, for they were brightened by a passion to which she had been hitherto a stranger. And Sydney, though gifted with as much constancy as most people, if she did not forget, certainly did not think as frequently as before of her absent friend. Sydney, in fact, was what is called-in love; which, I believe, is acknowledged by all who have been in a similar dilemma, to be a very confusing, perplexing situation. That poor Sydney found it so, was evident, for she became subject to certain flushings of the cheek and beatings of the heart, accompanied by a confusion of the intellectual faculties, which puzzled her father for a time quite as much as herself. She would call rabbits chickens, and chickens rabbits, in the public market, and was known to have given forty-two new laid eggs for a shilling, when she ought only to have given thirty-six.

Then in her garden, her own pet garden, she sowed mignonette and hollyhocks together, and wondered how it was that what she fancied sweet pea, had come up "love lies bleeding." Dear, warm, affectionate Sydney Harragan! She was a model of all that is excellent in simple guileless woman; and when Ralph Furlong drew from her a frank but most modest confession that his love was returned, and that "if her father did not put against it," she would gladly share his cottage and his fortunes, there was not a young disengaged farmer in the county that would not have envied him his "good luck."

Soon after James Harragan's consent had been obtained to a union which he believed would secure the happiness of his darling child, the farmer was returning from the fair of New Ross, where he had been to dispose of some spare farming-stock; and as he trotted briskly homeward, passing the well-known mountain, or, as it is called, "Rock" of Carrickburn, he was overtaken by a man to whom he had seldom spoken since the evening when he had seen him and some others at Gerald Casey's forge. Many, many months had elapsed since then. And, truth say, as the young man had removed to a cottage somewhere on the banks of the blue and gentle river Slaney, James had often hoped that he might never see him again.

to

"I'm glad I overtook you, Mr Harragan," he said, urging his long lean narrow mare close to the stout well-fed cob of the com