It happened that this house within whose porch he had taken refuge was inhabited by the colonel of the regiment then quartered in the town. It stood at the corner of an open and irregular space, called 'the Green,' where some houses were scattered round a piece of dirty grass, and geese and pigs used to promenade during the day, and the belles of the town in the evening, to hear the band play, and let the officers stare them out of countenance. The barrack lay at the upper end of the street; but the quarters were so indifferent, that the colonel preferred taking up his residence in this house, which was removed from the barrack, it is true; but, to increase his security, which the suspicious nature of the times rendered it necessary, in his opinion, to look after, he had two sentinels stationed there, conducing not only to his safety, but to his consequence, of which the colonel was not a little vain. The narrowness of the foot-way before the house would have rendered sentry-boxes inconvenient in front,-therefore they were placed round the corner; and it was while the corporal was employed in relieving the guard at the flank of the house, that the le of soldiers remained before the porch.

This was for some minutes-for everybody knows that such matters must be conducted with that system and solemnity so necessary to the good of the service.

To relieve the guard, the corporal marches up one of his men to face the sentinel on duty. These two make a rattle with their firelocks and hold them in a transverse position, which looks pretty; then they advance to each other with two long strides, and stick their faces close together, to the manifest danger ci flattening their noses, the corporal standing by all the time, as if to see that they should not bite each other: another slap on their firelocks to rattle them; then the new-comer goes over to the sentry-box, and the other takes his place: then the corporal utters some mysterious grumblings-such as 'Haw!' 'Who!' the men throw their transverse muskets upon their arms, as if they were going to nurse them: another grunt from the corporal-the relieved sentinel joins the main body, the corporal puts himself at their head, gives ancther mysterious growl, and tramp, tramp, they go, again to perform the same interesting and intellectual ceremony at another sentry-box, until, having finished his rounds, the corporal marches back into the guard-house twelve wet men, in lieu of twelve dry ones that ne took out.

While all this pomp and circumstance of glorious war' was going forward, Rory was in agony. No image is insufficient to express the state of excitement his impatient nature underwent during the interval, which he thought an age a bee in a bottle, a&hoolboy in his master's apple-tree, or a hen on a hot griddle, are but faint figures of speech for the purpose. Well was it for Rory that the rain continued to fall so copiously!-the soldiers buried their faces deeply inside the collars of their coats, and cast not a glance towards the porch. Thus, the very inclemency of the night was propitious to the refugee, who was startled once more, however, for a moment, by the return of the corporal, which caused a movement amongst the men. 'They see me now,' thought Rory to himself, and his heart sank when he heard the words • Fall.in.'

'Oh, murdher!' thought Rory: 'if they come in I'm lost.'

They did not 'come in,' however, and after another growl from the corporal, which was unintelligible, the blessed sound of • March!' fell on Rory's ear with something of the same sensation that the announcement of a reprieve produces on a prisoner in the condemned cell; and he saw the file execute a 'right-aboutface,' and go the way whence they came. Every successive trau that increased the distance between Rory and the soldiers took a ton weight off his heart, and as the receding footsteps of the ren faded into distance he breathed freely again.

As soon as the silence was perfectly restored, Rory thought of cmerging from his place of retreat. Had he been a person con versant with the relieving of guards, he would have guessed that some such matter must have been the cause of the scene just recorded; but living a rural life, as he did, such martial mysteries were unknown to him, and while he congratulated himself on heing free from danger and contemplated a retreat, he little dreamt that at the flank of the house under whose porch he stood, a pair of sentinels were on guard. So, when there was no sound to indicate that any one save himself was on the watch (for, it being still raining, the sentries on the flank kept most religiously bound within their sentry-boxes-and small blame to them !), Rory thought he had better be off, and ventured to withdraw his body from the small space between the column and the wall into which he had miraculously jammed himself: but in the doing of this he was obliged, as it were, to jerk himself out and by some

unlucky chance, either in getting himself in or out, the cape of his coat caught in a bell-pull, and in the effort to free himself he felt that he was laid hold of by the shoulder, and heard at the same instant of time the sound of a bell. Those who have felt what it is to be in nervous situations will not wonder that Rory's heart jumped as he felt himself caught, and heard at the same moment a sound whose very purpose is to awake attention. And it was such a bell ;-none of your trifling tinklers, none of your little whipper-snapper sort of bells; not like the bark of a Blenheim, but the bay of a watch-dog; not like a muffinmerchant's, but a dustman's; not merely made to call Molly upstairs, but one of your deep-mouthed devils, doomed to destroy the repose of half a street ;-in short,

Rory stood aghast! Had the metal that composed this 'infernal machine' been molten and cast down his throat, it could not have astonished him more, besides, it seemed as if it would never have done ringing. We hear great complaints in our days of bell-hangers; but those of old, to judge from the case in question, must have been prime hands,-for on it went, ding, ding, ding, as if it really had a pleasure in ringing. Whether it was the specific gravity of the monster that produced so much vivacity in the spring on which it was suspended, or the superior skill of former bell-hangers, may remain a matter of dispute to the curious; but the fact that resulted (and facts are all we have to do with) is, that ere the bell had ceased its villainous vibrations, Rory heard a window raised above his head, and the demand of 'Who's there?' in no very gracious voice.

Rory kept profoundly quiet.

'Who's there?' was again snarled out.

Rory looked up from the shelter of the porch, and saw a head and a nightcap protruded from the window: he was as quiet as a

mouse.

'Sentry!' was the next word Rory heard, given in a most authoritative tone.

A gust of wind, and a dash of rain whirled round the corner, which must have convinced the colonel (for it was he who was

calling from the window) that his voice could not have reached the sentinels in the teeth of the blast which blew his nightcap off his head and dashed it into Rory's face.

Rory was nearly knocked down,-for the smallest thing upsets us when we are alarmed.

'Sentry!' was shouted louder than before.

The soldiers answered the summons. The colonel asked who rang the bell-the sentries did not know.

'You have been asleep!' said the colonel.

'No, your honour,' said the sentry, 'we couldn't; the guard has been but just relieved!'

'Have you seen no one passing?'

'No, your honour,-no one passed at this side; and we marched down the other street not five minutes ago, and not a living soul was seen.'

• Then what could have rung the bell ?'

"Twas only a mistake, sir,' said Rory, whose excitement had been wound to such intensity, that his eagerness to satisfy the question overlooked the consequence to his personal safety in the sound of his voice being heard; but the instant he had spoken, he said to himself, 'The d―l cut the tongue out of you, Rory!'

Fortunately the gusts of wind and splashing of rain rendered all sounds, and the points whence they came, uncertain. Nevertheless, the colonel looked towards the porch ; but seeing no one, he said to the sentry, 'What's that you said about a mistake?'

'No, your honour, I don't mistake,' said the sentry, who was equally uncertain with the colonel if any third person had spoken, and fancied he had been charged with making a mistake.

'Didn't you say something of a mistake?' asked the colonel in one of the panses of the storm.

'No, your honour,' said the sentry.

Just at this moment, when Rory was thinking if he hadn't better make a run for it at once, he heard the bolt of the door behind him gently drawn, and the instant after, a pluck at his coat, and a whispered 'Come in,' made him turn round. He saw the door stand ajar, and a hand beckon him forward, at the same moment that the voice of the colonel from the window said, 'See if there's any one hiding in the porch.'

Rory slipped inside the hall-door, which was softly closed as the sentry walked up the steps.

'There's no one here, your honour,' said the sentry. 'Push the door,' said the colonel.

The sentry did so; but the door had been fastened on the inside.

CHAPTER XI.

SHOWING THAT ONE HALF OF THE WORLD DOES NOT KNOW HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES; AND ALSO, THAT SOFT WORDS CAN BEND HARD IRON, THOUGH THEY DO NOT BUTTER PARSNIPS.

VERY much about the time that Rory O'More rushed from the cellar and endeavoured to make his way out of the town, there was an old tinker, driving an ass before him, making his way into it. From the rudely-constructed straddle of the sorry animal, three or four rusty old kettles, and a budget containing the implements of the tinker's trade, depended; but the straddle was worth more than it looked good for,-for the tinker had so contrived the panels of the lumbering affair, that a convenient space was left within for stowing away tobacco, which he bought from Monsieur de Welskein, and sold at a handsome profit to the peasantry during his wanderings among them-for they could get none so good or so cheap through the legitimate channel: besides, they were glad to give a helping hand to the old tinker, whose poverty and shrewdness conimanded at once their pity and their fear.

It may seem strange to class these two feelings together-but they often exist. They say 'Pity is akin to love ;'-but it is equally true that 'Love is related to fear;'-and thus, perhaps, a sort of collateral relationship may be established between them.

I should not have made any observation on this, but that I do not remember seeing it remarked elsewhere; and when one advances anything new, it is common even to oneself to be startled at it, and a desire is at once engendered to make it manifest that one has not committed an absurdity.

Now, I remember well, when a child, that I was often horrified by the presence of a certain old and disgusting beggarman; yet I constantly gave him alms. There was something in that old