himself called for protest. "I hardly think, my dear, such violent-"

I

"You're too good-natured, Henry, too good-natured. Why you wanted to keep Eliza just because she could do omelettes, and we none of us care for omelettes except you,-but if I see any of them, I'll say what I think of a set of idle, good-for-nothing young men, artists most likely and journalists that sit up to all hours and have breakfast in bed and call themselves Bohemian. And she'd be just such another. heard her ask Agatha if she's read Endymion, by that dreadful Lord Byron too, who ran away with somebody else's wife and got drowned in the Mediterranean-serve him right-and she wanted to see his statue, though they put it in an Oxford college because it hadn't any clothes on! Why even when they bathe in the morning -" but here Mrs. Lauriston broke off hurriedly. The vision of Charles on the house-boat was not a thing to talk about, least of all to a husband.

"My dear," said Mr. Lauriston, seeing that his wife had at last paused of her own accord, "I am quite prepared to agree with you as to what had better be done”.

"I should hope you were," she said with decision.

"-but I really don't understand"Don't understand?" she exclaimed. "When I've been telling you all this time, that I saw that Miss Yonge walking along with a strange young man, who was carrying her sketching things as if he'd known her all his life, and they parted just near here, so that I couldn't have seen them unless I'd been going for a turn before luncheon-if you'd seen that, and seen her come back just as quietly as if nothing had happened (which shows how used she is to that kind of thing, and I shouldn't wonder if she goes out to work in the City and typewrites and smokes with stock-brokers when she's at home-you

know what the City is as well as I do, Henry!)-when I saw that I intended to tell her what decent people thought of such behavior, but I remembered that Martin can never be trusted with a stew, and then Cicely met her, and I didn't like to speak to her before Cicely-why you don't know what ideas it might not put into the child's head! -so I just waited till I could talk it over quietly with you and arrange about going back to Bel Alp.”

Now a little time ago Mr. Lauriston had said in his heart that he wished nothing better than to be back in his pleasant residence of Bel Alp. Were there not his morning paper at breakfast and his evening stroll in the garden seasoned with interchange of courtesies over the wall with Mr. Waterhouse of Minnehaha, his completely detached neighbor? Was there not his own armchair in his study with the innocent-looking cabinet constructed for documents beside it, the cabinet whose contents were not entered in Mrs. Lauriston's weekly accounts? All these things he had in the past regretted; but now the country had claimed him and he was beginning to enter into the spirit of the life. If he was not staying long enough to turn farmer he had an occupation more engrossing than any dreamed of by the notoriously fortunate agriculturist. He had a pur pose in life, a definite daily task, and a congenial fellow-laborer and leader. He felt that he could not without unending regret leave undecided the precise spot in the wood, which he and Charles were searching in systematically parcelled plots, where lay concealed the Gladstone bag. Wherefore Mr. Lauriston temporized. "Is that all you saw, my dear?" he hazarded.

"All?" demanded his wife in a tone which showed that he had opened ill. "All? What more do you expect, 1 should like to know? Do you think I watching for more? Why he

was

might have kissed her in those thick hedges and I should never have known it. I saw him take off his hat." Mrs. Lauriston's voice was full of horror. "It may have been an accidental meeting; perhaps she was tired."

"Accidental! I can't have five idle, good-for-nothing actors making accidents like that. She led him on as likely as not. I'm sure I can't imagine what any man could see in her, except her eyes; I suppose she's got good eyes. You men never seem to care about anything else but a baby face with big eyes in it. Agatha and Cicely are much better looking, and five young men don't come down into the country to look accidentally into their eyes. I should think not, indeed; they've been properly brought up. I never had such a thing happen to me."

"Yet if it comes to looks, my dear Charlotte" artfully insinuated her lord and master.

"All the less excuse for her," continued his wife a little more calmly. "If she'd been a really pretty girl one might excuse her flirting a little, but to flirt with five men on a house-boat! And she's only got her eyes, as I said, though she seems to know how to use them, in spite of looking so demure. Five men indeed!"

Mr. Lauriston felt that this was a little unfair, but he knew not quite how he could explain it with the tact so necessary in domestic life. He was suffering from the usual masculine inability to follow the rapidity of the Macmillan's Magazine.

feminine intelligence, and realized not for the first time how inferior is mere logic to the unerring brilliancy of intuition. He caught, however, at statistics. "You said you only saw one young man with Miss Doris, my dear, and after all he may not have been one of the party on the house-boat."

"I'm certain of it," asserted Mrs. Lauriston.

This should have satisfied any reasonable husband, but Mr. Lauriston, with a prospect before him of returning to an Eliza-less and therefore omelette-less Bel Alp, was evidently not reasonable just now. "How can you be certain, unless he was the man you

""

saw

"Mr. Lauriston!" exclaimed his indignant spouse. "Mr. Lauriston! Did you suppose I stopped? After we've been married twenty-three years next October too! I shall go and consult my niece. Miss Agatha Neave at least understands what is proper; I have brought her up myself. All you men are alike. All you want to do is to smoke your abominable tobacco, and you don't care if fifty house-boats come here. I believe you would like to Join them yourself." With this Mrs. Lauriston returned to the camp, just in time to find the paragon Agatha drying the last salt-spoon.

Mr. Lauriston at last lit his cigar. "I shall never understand Charlotte," he observed to the curling blue smoke. "But all the same I don't think we shall go back to Bel Alp."

"Ay, it still goes by the name o' the O'Hara's Leap among the folk biding about here. My father was gey fond o' telling how it came to be caa'd that.

He was in Colonel Adair's corps at the time, and so saw the whole thing."

We had toiled up the long steep road, and were now on the top of the

highest cliff.

The old schoolmaster was tired; so we sat down on a grassy dyke, with our backs towards the Glens of Antrim and our faces towards the laughing sea. He was in reminiscent vein, and while we sat there in the sunshine he told me the story.

The O'Hara it's named after was ane o' the auld reduced native Irish gentry. There was a sma' wheen o` them in these parts in my father's young days, but they are a' gone now, and naebody kens or cares whar. It was very different in my father's time. Then they were reverenced by their ain folk, and hated by the new gentry as the rightfu' owners o' a' the broad lands o' the North.

He was the head and the last o' the family that caa'd themselves the O'Haras o' Slemish.

Slemish is that bauld peak ye can see the tap o' on either side o' the Glens. Ah, mony's the merry hour I hae spent amang its bonny banks and braes years lang-syne, when my father had settled doon on a bit farm halfside on it; and mony's the time as a wean hae I wondered ower the story o' the long standing-jump that the deevil took frae it till Skerry Hill five miles or mair awa', when St. Patrick wanted to talk to him on the error o' his ways. That's the story as Presbyterian folk tell it. The mark o' the deevil's hooked snout is still on the stane on the tap o' Skerry whar he lit: I hae seen it mysel'.

Though the O'Haras caa'd themsel's the O'Haras o' Slemish, their stronghold was at Duncairn-a mile or twa up the Glens. It was at ane time a grand place, and the O'Haras were aye mating and fechting wi' a' the best families in the county. But they were an unfortunate lot. There was never trouble in the country but they maun be in it, and they never were in trouble but they came ill out o' it. Their sairest trial was after the siege o' Derry, when King William blew up their

stronghold, seized their lands, and outlawed the whole jing-bang o' them. It was thought that, like mony ither ancient races at that time, they wad hae to seek their fortunes in foreign parts, and maybe it wad hae been better for them if they had; but they had friends at court that got the outlawry withdrawn and part o' their land restored to them-the part the Scots and English newcomers disdained to tak', that is, four or five thousan' acres o' mountain land, maist o' it too poor to grow thistles on. So they built themsel's a new mansion, little better nor a good farmhouse, out o' the ruins, and under the shadow o' their auld castle, and lived there a mournfu', secluded life, revered by their ain folk and hated and avoided by the new gentry and settlers about them.

My father, before he entered the service o' Nabob Starkie, was for a time wi' a sma' landowner by the name o' Montgomery, whose land marched wi' that o' the O'Haras. Mr. Montgomery was a liberal-minded man and had very nee'bourly relations wi' the last O'Hara, though he was no Irisher or papist. And my father was often sent on his business, and sometimes went on his ain, to Duncairn House. Ye ken the last O'Hara's right-hand man was a big soft-faced carle caa'd Eagan MacEagan, who aye had a jug o' whusky handy when a friend happened to caa'. And though, in general, my father only kept company wi' his ain folk, the Scots or Protestants as they're now known, still he was no sae bigoted that he couldna see merit or find pleasure onywhar else.

Ye maun ken my father was a much more intellectual man than maist men o' his position. He took great interest in the auld legends and literature o' the Irish, and big Eagan MacEagan was just fu' o' these. He and his fathers had been hereditary bards to the O'Haras o' Slemish time out o' mind,

and a' the songs that his ancestors had sung, and a' the stories that they had told to the honor and glory o' the O'Haras, he kent by heart. And when the nights were lang and dark, and things were ganging dully at his maister's house, mony a time my father wad slip ower to Duncairn and spend a pleasant and profitable hour or twa ower a basin o' smoking punch, listening to Eagan MacEagan's tales o' the time when the O'Haras were kings in their ain country, and had their ain castles, and their ain soldiers, and their ain hangman, like the best in the land.

Sometimes when my father went ower to Duncairn he wad meet the O'Hara himsel'. He pictured him as a wee bit body, not much better nor a crowle, very cauld in manner and very hot in temper. His hair was redbrown, and so was his beard, which he let grow long, contrary to the custom o' that day. But the queerest thing about him was his eyes. They seemed ower big for his wee face, and aye to be gazing at something awa' in the distance which you couldna see. And their color was red-brown like his hair, and an uncanny light aye shone in them, just as if there was a candle burning behint each o' them; and when he got angry, the candle went up in a bleeze that made you grue a' doon the back.

Then his way o' life was curious. They said that his father, after having his carriage-horses seized by the Orangeman, Lawyer Hogg, at Ballymena, for five punds apiece, had in his fury put his son under an oath never to leave his ain grund except to renew the auld struggle wi' England. However that may be, he never left it, but spent his days and nights reading auld Latin and Irish history books, and doing kindnesses to his ain folk, who, poor bodies, aften sairly needed them. They fairly worshipped him; and weel they might, for he was the only ane o'

a' their ancient gentry about here who, through weal and woe, peace and war, remained true to the auld race and the auld religion.

But the Scots farmers were very suspeecious o' him. Ye ken the Protestant gentry o' that day were a very wild set. They were aye fechting or gambling or drinking or rioting a 'ower the country, and the farmers thought it was an unnatural thing that the O'Hara shouldna take a hand in the pleesures o' his class. Then they seldom saw him, save when they were coming hame late and took the auld Duncairn Road-and a rough bit road it was for a short cut; and he a'ways hated to see them on it. And when they wad meet him in the gloaming, and he wad glare at them wi' those red-brown flaring eyes o' him flashing oot ower his big red-brown beard, they fairly shivered wi' dread. Mony o them held that he wasna merely a papist, but had sold himsel' to the evil ane, body and saul. Ay, and mair nor the farmers shared this view, for twice the Presbytery o' Ballymena discussed in secret session whether he shouldna be delated as a warlock. But my father, who, as I told you, was a very intellectual man, aye maintained it was easy enough to explain his strange way o' life wi'out throwing out ony reflections on his character. When ane thinks o' the insult an Irisher and a papist was in those days liable to be treated wi' when he went amang Protestants, ye can speer why a spunky man like the last O'Hara chose to bide at hame and amang his ain folk.

Weel, as I told you, the O'Hara's right-hand man was big Eagan MacEagan. He was caa'd the steward, but the relation between him and the O'Hara was no the ordinary ane o' maister and servant. MacEagan looked on the O'Hara mair as his owner nor onything else. He wad hae died a dog's death to save him an

hour's uneasiness, wi'out thinking for a minute that he was doing onything beyond his bounden duty. And the O'Hara on his part regarded MacEagan wi' a devotion very different but maybe as strong in its kind, as I think you'll agree by-and-by.

Eagan MacEagan married a lass o' the Laverys o' MacUillan. The Laverys are a family wi' a thraw in them. Sometimes it comes out in them in the body and sometimes in the mind. If it comes out in the body, they are aye misshapen crowles, but usually they are quick in the uptak'; and if it comes out in the mind, they are mere haverals, but usually they are very bonny. Eagan's wife hersel' was a sonsy, redcheeked lass, but wi' no more sense than a hen. She bore Eagan only ane laddie, and he took the thraw in the body. From his birth he was a wee, weakly, wizened-up thing like a last year's apple. The O'Hara, as the laddie grew up, saw he wad never be fit for ony honest work, so he decided to give him a good education, and make him an attorney or something o' that kind. So when young Michael MacEagan was auld enough he sent him to Mr. M'Neil's Academy at Ballymena, and gied him a pony to carry him to and fro.

example o' the French had fired them a' wi' a burning hope o' owerthrowing the government they loathed. Everywhere they were blethering about the principles o' the revolution and the rights o' man, and the chance o' setting up an Irish republic, and laying in stocks o' treasonable literature and auld guns and pikes.

Weel, young Michael, in his shairp way, listened to the talk o' his fellowscholars, and he soon picked up some knowledge o', and became a raging convert to, democratic views. He had good sense enough, though, to say naething aboot these at Duncairn, for he kenned that the O'Hara hated them, and he felt sure that if he, a mere kern o' the O'Hara's, preached to his father such a monstrous doctrine as that the O'Hara was nae better than himsel', though he was his ain son Eagan wad wring his neck wi' as little pity as he wad a chicken's.

Now a' the scholars-and, for that matter, a' the teachers at the Academy were Presbyterians,-the Presbyterians were aye keen on education; and just when young Michael was sent there, the Presbyterians a' ower Ulster were agog ower the French Revolution. Ye ken, ever since the great evictions thirty years afore, when some forty thousand Presbyterian farmers were driven frae Ulster to America, the Presbyterians, both them that went awa' and them that stayed at hame, had borne a bitter hatred o' English rule; and when the American war broke out not lang after, England had bitter reason to know it. Now the VOL. XXXV. 1859

LIVING AGE.

It was just when the Presbyterian discontent was at its height, and a' parties saw that the outbreak o' rebellion was a matter o' days, that the O'Hara directed Eagan to hae some two score head o' kine canted the next fair day at Ballymena. So when the fair day came, twa herds took ower the kine, and Eagan and young Michael drove ower after them to the market. The kine sold weel, and Eagan gieing the herds a couple or three glasses o' ale-Eagan and young Michael taking whusky-sent them hame again, while he and Michael went about the toon seeing some auld friends.

They were at this till the fair was ower. By that time the farmers that had been at the fairand the MacEagans themsel's, I fear -had had a good mony whuskies, and were in no way to think o' what was prudent. So they made what is now caa'd a demonstration against the Government. They were nearly a'