powers of speech he asked, in a passion, "What was the meaning of this barbarous treatment, dragging him from his carriage in that way ? Several times he repeated the question, but in vain; his captors and guards keeping perfect silence. At last one of the men replied, "Is it barbarous thratemint that yir honour is spakin' uv'? Shure it's only a little ejectment we're sarvin' upon you, Mr. MacDuff, as we wish to see how yir honour will loike it."

MacDuff cursed the fellow that mocked him; and violently threatened him with the vengeance of the law.

ye are.

"Don't talk, sur, in that way," was the reply, "it might be dangerous, you know, and make uz do worse nor we now intind upon ye; yir teetotally in our power, Mr. MacDuff, so Mortial man can never track ye here, sur. Take, therefore, a freend's advice, me good man, repint o' all the evil deeds ye have done yir fellows, young and owld, around ye. Swear to return to their homes thim ye have onmarcifully dhriven from thim. Promise to act as a Christhen, and not as a wicked haythen, in all time to cum, and there's not wan here, sur, will lay a hand on ye." "No," said other voices near, "we'll relase ye, and purtict ye, and give ye back, safe and sound, to yir family." Another threat, more loud and menacing, was the response from the fast-bound man. He was come of a resolute and unyielding race, and would brave the worst from his tormentors.

"We're not goin' to listen here to anny more o'yir curses and threats, Mr. MacDuff," was said in response, "that's sartin. We'll bid ye good by fur the present, sur, until to-morrow mornin', sur. Here, nigh hand ye, is a bite and a sup to keep ye from the hunger, that ye sent, God forgive ye, upon many; There's a bed fur ye, likewise, on the flure o' the cave behint ye. Good bye, sur, and we hope to find ye in a betther frame o' mind on our next visit, and may the Lord convart and turn ye."

He that was addressed heard the sound as of a great rock being rolled to the mouth of the cave; soon retreating footsteps died upon his ear, and after a little he was alone, as he thought, buried alive, tied fast legs and arms, and only just able to move his hands-sunk, underground, deep, and in some cavern he knew not where, but he feared far away from help or discovery. He was not so distant, however, from the presence of his keepers as he supposed; fifty yards or so from the place of his captivity a guard was set to hear his cry for help-if he should ask it in his desperation; or to hinder his escape, if by any possibility he should get free from his bonds and push back the great stone which formed the door of his prison.

The two or three sentinels, however, who mounted guard over Mr. MacDuff were not to be favoured with a despairing cry, nor the slightest token of submission. The imprisoned man, indeed, was dreadfully ill at ease, his limbs were benumbed, his numerous bonds, to some extent, impeding circulation. Unable to raise his hands high enough, he could not even draw down the bandage from his eyes—so effectually was it fastened. He could just manage to slowly push himself along and grope for the food and drink which he had been informed were near him. This he did, but he could barely raise the vessel of potheen and water to his lips to assuage his burning thirst; and, then, he painfully crawled to the couch which he had been told was on the side opposite to the mouth of the cave. Here he lay in a doleful state of suspense and disquietude, but to give an outward expression to his feelings was not the manner of the man. Silent doggedness and undemonstrativeness was the genius of his North-Briton nature.

After some hours of anxious waiting—but in vain-for some signs that would betoken surrender, Pat Doolan said to his comrade sentinel, near him, "Begorrah, Larry, this Scotchy is thrue game and no mistake. It's me shure and sartin' belief that if it war me that stood in his shoes, and that I war left alone in that pit o' darkness, I'd 'av roared mysel hoarse as a raven, with a moighty bad cowld, by this time, for sum wan to cum an' relase me.'

"Thrue for ye, Pat," was the answer, "and so it would be, if this MacDuff war me. But, somehow, I've often thought, do ye know, that we, in Ireland, on this subjict, and the pigs agree-darlints that they are, and desperate fighters, and thim so useful too, but relavein' their feelin's, the craythers, it's a touch and a squeal with thim. While these confounded Sandies, are loike the useless fightin' cocks, that, without sayin' a word-the fools-will keep at it, be the hour, and will only relave ther feelin's whin it is all over, and they've got the victory. Then, tho' it be at ther last gaspthe omadhawns-they'll clap ther wings, so they will, and crow like anny brayin' donkey."

"Why, yir a philosophur, nothin' less," responded Pat, "you've jist hit it, mabouchal. But, bedad, I wish, fur all that, this MacDuff wud giv uz a good dacent roar. He might as well, fightin' cock tho' he be. It i'd be a satisfacshun to wan, ye know; for shure there's no sport in loife in baitin' a dummy."

The cry of distress, longed for so eagerly, never came, however. Silent as a corpse, the dungeoned man endured and brooded over his painful situation and his wrongs, but, no doubt, in some measure, sustained by the repeated assurances he heard his captors give his

CHAPTER XIII.

"They have, here, propertied me; keep me in darkness, send ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my wits."-MALVOLIO, IN TWELFTH NIGHT.'

SEVERAL days passed; food and drink were regularly conveyed to MacDuff, and at each visit, for this purpose, and for "the tidying" of his cell-overtures were made for the arrangement of suitable terms; but he, whom these misguided and simple-minded men undertook to manage, was not one to be subdued by their grotesque methods. He treated their proffered conditions of release with scorn; would make no promise to the evicted tenants of restoration to their farms; steadily refused to forego the prosecution of O'Gorman, and, with unshaken courage, boldly told his gaolers that he would put the law in force, to its very utmost, against themselves, when delivered from their power; as he fully expected to be-and that soon-for the police, he knew, would move heaven and earth to find him out and achieve his rescue. "We're heart sorry, Mr. MacDuff, that ye spake so," was the reply, "sorry for oursel's and sorry fur you, sur. But don't flatter yirself that the poliss or anny wan else will ever cum upon yir hidin' place, its onpossible; fur had they eyes, countless as the daisies on the hills around ye, they'd never spot it."

"We will wait for the proof of that," fiercely answered the resolved Mr. MacDuff, "but to yield to you-you villains-I never will. I will die first."

Sorely disappointed and baffled by the extraordinary and unreasonable endurance of their prisoner, as they deemed it, the authors and agents of this unique plot held a council of war, as to what was to be done. Since keeping this man in loneliness and darkness had not succeeded in bringing him into a fitting state of mind, "What could be added," they enquired, "to secure the desired end of their enterprise?" Starving him into submission was proposed by two or three, but the majority would not listen to it. "No," they said, "we have had starvation enough, God knows, in poor Ireland. We know, by sore experience, what it is, and will not deliver even our worst enemy to its horrors. We never afther could know an

hour's pace-no never. Compulsory starvation is not to be thought of, in a Christhen counthry."

After long debate it was at last proposed, by an old man present, to frighten MacDuff into accepting their terms. There is a legend of Sliev-na-Man, that a banshee haunts the crags and ravines of the upper part of the mountain. Scores will testify that they have actually seen

is true, to explain the matter by suggesting the flitting motion and wild cry, at night, of the crane or the owl, but their theory has been scouted as rank "Atheism and Infidelity.' For did not the believers in the banshee, petrified with horror, see the very face, and head, and long-skirted robe of the supernatural being, and more nor that, listen for hours to its loud and piercing wail, like nothing that could come from bird or beast the world over? And, beside all this, "Whenever this wail has been heard," it was added "some wan was sartin shure to die in the neighbourhood. And isn't this," it was triumphantly asked, "positive demonstration?"

At all events, Andy O'Shea, who proposed to conquer MacDuff by fright, devoutly believed in the Sliev-na-Man banshee, and had an awful dread of its powers-so had every one at the Council Board before us. All superstitious men, we know, look upon others as subject to their own beliefs and fears. MacDuff--without a moment's hesitation, they concluded-must therefore be a believer in the banshee. They would, therefore, induce some one to personate the dreaded spectre, and thus scare their stubborn prisoner into granting all they wished, upon obtaining on their part permission to fly from the haunted cavern.

The next dark and windy night the lone MacDuff was aroused by the most discordant screams and savage yells, filling all the air, outside his subterranean dwelling.

"What are those rascally fools after now?" he asked himself. "Curse on them. If they won't let me go, can't they leave me to my slumbers?"

The only reply was a still more loud and discordant series of horrid shrieks and yells, as though a dozen maniacs, in wild frenzy, were in carnival around and over the cavern.

"Have they at last made up their minds to murder me?" he enquired, "and are they thus working themselves up to the fury of their crime? Well, if my end has come, I'll meet it, confound them, without shrinking."

Scarcely had he made this resolve, when he was led to think he would soon be called to put it to the proof. He heard stealthy footsteps approach the door of the cave-and they ceased before its entrance. He expected that the great stone before it would be rolled away, as usual; and he was gathering up his courage for the crisis of his fate, now come, when his ears, instead, were saluted with the following words -sung to a dirge-like air of the most doleful cadences :

"MacDuff, MacDuff, of Carberry Grange,
This night the banshee hails thee;
My spectral coming's weird and strange-
And, well, thy courage fails thee.

The deeds of shame that soil thy life,

The tyrant's crimes that stain theeThe cruel wrongs of weeping wife

And wailing child should pain thee.

From happy, quiet, prosperous homes,
Both young and old thou'st driven;
The honest peasant, exiled roams
From ancient holdin' riven.

Hands off, MacDuff, forbear such wrongs,
Restore what thou hast taken;
Give back, whate'er, to each belongs,
Fair restitution makin'.

My comin' is fur life or death,

As men accept my warnin'

The wicked fade before my breath,

As night before the mornin'.

Then, Mac, beware! my counsels bear!
To slight my voice is ruin ;
Oh! do not dare to reap despair
From thy self-wrought undoin'."

The reader of these verses will not long remain in doubt as to their author, nor of the individual who, with desperate courage, took upon him to personate the dreadful bansbee. They will know; at once, that it was no other than our friend Mr. Michael Flynn.

When the business of being a ghost, and above all the banshee ghost, was proposed to him, he did not at all admire the look of it. 'Why it would be an awful thing," he said, "to purtind to be a cratur, that's half an angel and half a divil.-God save us."

The "chance" it gave him, however, of exercising his poetical powers was too attractive to be resisted. He had some reputation among the neighbours of being a genius. How this opinion would be strengthened, and how his fame would spread, the country round, if he should succeed in conquering, by means of his verses, a man who, by his mulish obstinacy, had brought to a dead lock all the plans used to reduce him to submission.

Turning over this tempting consideration in his mind-upon a little further solicitationMicky undertook the rolê set before him. "But," said he, "yees must give me a little time to collect me idayas, ye know, fur it's an exthraur'nary occashun, and a lot o' yees must cum, the night I go, and keep me cumpany. Fur, bedad, I wouldn't ondertake, alone, to be a banshee on Sliev-na-Man, not for all the goold and silver in the Queen's dominions."

It was these companions who enabled Micky, on the occasion related, to prelude his banshee chant, with the unearthly screams and yells that so aroused the apprehensions of the awakened prisoner.

For the first two or three verses of Micky's lay, MacDuff did not know what to make of the matter. The dirge-like incantations sounded strange and melancholy on his ears, and his conscience, in a measure, responded to the singer's appeal.

But the salutary effect lasted only for a few moments. Having no superstitious fears, and quickly detecting the trick that was sought to be played upon him, and filled with disgust at what he deemed the absurd nonsense of his gaolers, he shouted out to the crooning Micky,

Stop that infernal noise will you, whoever you are. What do you take me for? Some one I suppose as ignorant and silly as yourself. Or if it's money you want for your music, move on my good man, I have nothing for you."

Micky was dreadfully disconcerted at this ignominious failure of his poem, and music, and daring impersonation. It was not the result that he fondly supposed must assuredly follow from his well-contrived and courageous plot. "It's not fair o' this Scotchy, MacDuff," he said within himself, "not fair, at all at all, to thry and thwart, in this way, an Irish janyous loike me." A conclusion which was most vexatiously confirmed by stifled sounds of laughter from some of his comrades near, who, much as they prayed for Micky's success, could not help being greatly tickled at the cool and contemptuous way in which MacDuff had treated Micky's banshee horrors.

"I'll thry him, annyhow, with another verse," thought Micky, "and if that doesn't do fur him, why, I must only lave him in the hands o' God, fur it id bate all the art o' man that nothin' bates, barrin' the bees—to git the betther o' him."

MacDuff, therefore, was saluted in a deeper and more awful voice than before, with these words couched in Micky's profoundest bathos:-"Down to caverns, deep as Hell,

They must sink who mock my spell;
Dark as blackness, paved with bones,
Soaked with blood, and filled with groans!
Vile MacDuff

I've said enough

To move hearts harder nor the stones,
Obey my voice-or die !"

"Yes, my good man, you have said quite enough-for one night, at all events," was the answer from within, "and now, will you have the goodness to leave me, at least, for a while. I'm dreadfully sleepy."

"Well, Mr. MacDuff," responded Micky, in a heat of reprobation, which caused him to throw aside the part he was acting, "Well, Mr. Mac Duff," said he, "of all the hard-hearted, onconscionsable, owdacious, an' onbelievin' haythins, that ever war known, ye bate thim all to smash fur badness and wickedness; yir past improvin', ye are-and I, the cliverist and vartueist o' all the men on Sliev-na-Man, giv' ye up as a bad job; so, good night, an' me blessin' on ye."

"Oh! good night," was the imperturbable reply of the abused Mr. MacDuff, "God knows I've a happy riddance of you."

CHAPTER XIV.

"A woman's face, which nature's own hand painted, Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false woman's fashion." SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. What was now to be done? MacDuff's gaolers had played their last card-their game was up-and they were in a state of sore perplexity. Well, they would continue to feed him-they agreed-would even unbandage his eyes, and would exchange his many bonds for a single iron chain and handcuffs. But they resolved to make no further appeals to him, and to await fresh developments. To relate the issue will require us to go back to the hero of our narrative.

We left him, on his return from a long and anxious search after the missing MacDuff, and just arriving on the road not far from the captured man's daughter, Jessie, who was standing beside the empty carriage.

Moving close to her, Garrett said, "I am sorry, Miss MacDuff, that all my efforts have failed to track those men who have kidnapped your father; I have followed their footprints a long distance up the slope until their tracks were lost in the bed of a torrent. How they proceeded thence I have found it impossible to discover, and I have returned to say that I think the most advisable thing, now to do, will be to hasten to the next police station and give the alarm.”

Seeing her pale face and scared look at this intelligence, Garrett added, "It is, indeed, a most unfortunate affair, Miss MacDuff, but I think you need feel no anxiety about your father's life; it is plain that murder is not the purpose of these infatuated men-whoever they may be if it were, they would have killed your father on the road, or, at all events, in the wood but there are no tokens of the worst violence all the way, up, to the point I have indicated."

Jessie MacDuff made as though she would herself renew the search which this young gentleman had abandoned. She took three or four steps towards that side of the road on which the wood lay, but Garrett gently, yet firmly, interposed-persuaded her that her endeavour would only be a waste of time—and, at last, induced her to enter the carriage. Then, observing that she was dreadfully excited and overcome with fear, he offered to take the reins-if she would allow him the honour. Jessie was neither in a condition to refuse the requested privilege nor willing to do so. Garrett, therefore, leaped into the vehicle, whipped up the horses to their full speed, and, in a quarter-of-an-hour or so, Maghra Constabulary station was reached. Soon the vindicators of the law were in hot pursuit over

the hills, to rescue, if possible, the seized-upon Mr. MacDuff, and to drag his daring assailants to justice.

"There is now no use, I think, Miss MacDuff, in our remaining here," said Garrett, after the police had left for their search. "You had better hasten, do you not think, to Carberry Grange, to inform Mrs. MacDuff of what has occurred, lest tidings beyond the actual truth should reach her. Shall I drive you thither ? I am quite at your service."

"I thank you, sir, very much," said Jessie, "and I should not trouble you, only—and I am ashamed to confess it-I have not sufficiently recovered myself to undertake any task whatever," and her nerve-shaken appearance added its testimony to her words.

Oh! the painfully strange feelings that possessed Garrett's mind, as he drove the carriage up the well-remembered avenue. How he recalled the sorrow of that day, when he passed down the same roadway with his back turned upon Carberry Grange. What sad events had taken place since then. A large sum of money, the last hope of the Rowan family, gone; his father, dead from grief; and his mother-exiled from the home of many happy years-a lonely widow in a distant city.

He had left the dear old dwelling now rising up so close before him, with bitter thoughts in his heart and hard words upon his lips, against those who had dispossessed him of his inheritance; but now, wonderful to tell, with full accord, he was taking a MacDuff to the self same abode as her fit and proper habitation. "Well, to be sure," he said within himself, "what strange, and seemingly impossible, contingencies fall out in this marvellous and mysterious world."

Garrett, having handed Jessie from her seat in the carriage, entered the house with her. He felt it would be not only kind but expedient that he should add to Jessie's account, to her mother, of what had taken place, a statement of what he himself had done to discover Mr. MacDuff and his assailants, and also—in order to mitigate her alarm-to express his strong conviction that assassination was not intended.

It is an unhappy thing to be the bearer of such tidings as had that day to be given in Carberry Grange. Mrs. MacDuff, as a matter of course, was dreadfully shocked and agitated. She had, however, sufficient command of her feelings to appreciate the kindness of Garrett, and-grateful for his attention and his effortsshe asked, upon his taking leave, to be favoured with his name. It may be judged, how stunned with surprise she was, when she heard the name Garrett Rowan, and Jessie was not less amazed than her mother, for the man and

the lad Garrett Rowan were so little similar, that she failed to recognise him.

Observing her almost incredulous astonishment, Garrett, as though inadvertently, displayed upon his fourth finger the ring which she had given him. At a glance she knew it, and exclaimed, while the crimson mounted to her cheeks, "Oh! Mr. Rowan, is it indeed you? You have returned good for evil. This very place, on which we stand, proclaims the wrongs the MacDuffs have done you, sir. But do you not see you have your revenge? Our Nemesis has come, and there is grief and terror in this dwelling."

Garrett, upon his way back to the village, not far off, to obtain refreshment, formed a resolution that he would not leave the neighbourhood until MacDuff was recovered. He had no particular duty elsewhere to call him away, beside, he wished to see some of his old friends in the place and have a talk with them.

Above all, he feared that the outrage on MacDuff had been committed, by some of the excited tenants of Carberry Grange, under a sense of their wrongs, and he desired to be near to advise and befriend them in case they should be arrested. He, therefore, dropped a line to Lisnadil Farm informing his friends, there, of late events, and saying that for a day or two he would be absent. As we are aware, his sojourn in Purtee Village was much longer than he had anticipated. Several days rolled by; the whole district-on the plains and up the mountain-had been scoured far and wide by the police; a large reward was offered, but yet no tidings could be heard, nor clue discovered of the place of concealment of the captured landlord.

Garrett did not give his aid in the search for the missing man. At times he was conscious of an impulse to join himself to the task of the minions of the law, but again he reflected that, to do so would likely involve him in the prosecution of oppressed and want-stricken men in a future day, and this he would jealously avoid; he, therefore, kept inactive, but observant in the village.

He made it a point, however, to call frequently at Carberry Grange. It was a pleasant walk from the village to the Grange. It was right, also, to enquire after the MacDuffs in their trouble, and beside all this, the old home had a painful and yet a pleasant fascination and attraction for him.

Not seldom Garrett was invited in, and whenever he yielded, Jessie made her appearance. She was very pretty, her disposition was sweet, her character was of a genuine and noble stamp. Garrett had heard much, of late, of her kind and Christian deeds. Is it to be wondered, therefore, that he felt a growing interest in her

Suddenly it came upon him, one day, that his heart was fast becoming not his own; that with a strange and pleasing emotion it went out, wherever he might be, towards the old Grange; not so much now, however, towards the dwelling itself (he noticed with a smile), as towards one that dwelt within it. "Can it be," he exclaimed to himself, "that I have got to love the daughter of this foe of our house, and the tyrant of Carberry Grange? Yes, so it was. Love plays a strange and wondrous part in this world, mocks all the calculations of probability; brings together hearts and fuses them into one, which the most far-seeing speculation, would declare, are destined to beat apart, severed by a gulf of circumstance for ever.

CHAPTER XV.

"The mistress, whom I serve quickens what's dead,
And makes my labours pleasant: O, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed ;
And he's composed of harshness."

FERDINAND IN THE "TEMPEST."

No tidings of MacDuff received by his family occasioned them great suspense and most distressing fears.

Garrett, likewise, was the subject of increased uneasiness. MacDuff, so long missing, gave affairs a more serious aspect than they had, at first, assumed. Thinking over the matter, he resolved that, without informing any one of his design, he would, at last, undertake a search himself, and who would be a better person to gain some hints from, than Micky Flynn, the Sliev-na-Man pedlar? Starting early next day, he arrived about noon at the sheebeen, found his former hosts at home, and both Micky and Betty were overjoyed to see him.

"Blessin's on the day that I see yir face agin, Mr. Garrett," said Micky, "and Giory be to God, sur, but yir lookin' finely." Aye, that he does," added Betty. "Mr. Garrett, take a sate by the fire, in the kitchen, dear. Niver since ye left, has there cum wan so welcum to it." Garrett accepted the warm-hearted invitation, took the proffered chair--which Betty had carefully dusted with her apron before she handed it to him-and after some general remarks introduced the purpose of his coming.

Micky gave a very enquiring look into Garrett's face when the name of MacDuff was mentioned. Could it be that his visitor had become an agent for the police? Would he, using the influence of a Rowan over him, seek to worm from him a dangerous secret? Much as he liked and respected Garrett, he resolved within himself that he should never get him to betray his comrades. There was a limit to his duty of love and honour to young Rowan; he