mark o' murdher on it!' added the peasant, with the expression of disgust on his countenance, as he took up a handful of straw and endeavoured to rub from the body of the car a few drops of blood which had trickled from the wound the pistol-shot pro luced.

After a few more words were exchanged between the peasants, they bade a melancholy farewell to each other; and with a lowtoned 'God speed you!' which, however, implied, in the fervency with which it was uttered, that they had need of Heaven's special protection, they parted, and each went his separate way.

CHAPTER XL.

IN WHICH RORY SEEKS HIS HOME BUT FINDS IT NOT.

Ir was with a feeling of oppression at his heart that Rory parted from his newly-found acquaintance. What he had seen and taken part in was enough to influence the feelings of a less susceptible person; mecting such an incident almost on the threshold of his home chilled the warm tide of anticipation which had borne him onwards in beguilement upon his return to his native place. But his mother and sister, and the girl of his heart, he was told, were safe and well: which consoled him in the midst of all else that might grieve; and yet, though knowing this, Rory was not as happy as he had been before he encountered the hateful scene he had left-as when, only in the hopefulness of his own nature, he felt at the end of a long journey every mile shorter that brought him nearer to his home.

Then, as he remembered the peasant's alarmed wonder at seeing him, and the supposition he implied to be a general one-namely, that he was dead, he fell into a train of painful thought at the notion of how much his mother and sister must have suffered at his absence. This made him resolve also to approach the cottage cautiously; and, in case chance did not throw in his way some means of acquainting those he loved with his return, he cast about in his own mind how he might let them know it with the least possible surprise, should he himself be the person to inform them.

'I must purtend to be a beggar, or somethin' that way, and

alther my voice, and spake like an owld man, and stoop and hobble, and all to that, and ask thim for charity, and so let thim know by degrees.'

In the revolving such schemes as these did Rory pursue the road homewards, and at last a distant gleam of the river beside his native hills was like sunshine to his heart, and he stretched forward at a brisker pace, to lessen the distance between him and the little boreen, and the hazel hedges, and the cottage which had so often appeared to him in his dreams while he was away; and it was not long until the lane and the hedges were in sight, and Rory ran forward, hurried on by the fervour of his feelings. When he turned into the lane, he crept close to the hedge; and while his heart thumped at his side with eagerness, he approached stealthily towards the cottage, lest his sudden appearance might produce aların; and as he got near the end of the lane, where the view of his native hut should soon be open to him, he paused for a few minutes to endeavour to overcome the choking sensation of anxiety which almost suffocated him, and made him tremble from head to foot.

At last he determined on approaching the house, and making himself known as cautiously as he could; and emerging from the shelter of the hazels, he walked forward the few paces that opened upon him the gable cnd of his little cottage. A few paces more and its front would be revealed; but what a shock for the heart of the poor wanderer was there! Instead of the warm thatch he had left behind, the naked gable stood staring coldly against the sky, and two or three ragged rafters crossed each other irregularly, their charred blackness too plainly telling the fate that had befallen the spot of his nativity.

He was petrified with horror at the sight, and for a few seconds the very stones on which he gazed were not more senseless than he.

On recovering himself, he approached the murky ruiu in hurried and unequal steps, occasionally stopping and exclaiming, in a tone of the deepest agony, 'Oh, God !' He walked round and round it, as if he dreaded to enter the blackened walls; but at length he crossed the threshold, and the aspect of cold loneliness where he had left warmth and companionship, fell like an avalanche upon his heart, and a long-drawn groan was all he could utter.

After the lapse of a few minutes, he turned round with a bewildered eye. His look fell upon the hearth where wet weeds were now growing, and the image of decay in that place of comfort smote him so touchingly that he burst into tears and wept profusely it relieved the heart which was full nigh to bursting, and speech, hitherto frozen, thawed at the melting touch of tenderness.

'And the fire is not there! -and where are they that sat beside it? Where are they?-Oh, my God! my God! my heart will break! And he towld me they were well. Oh, why did he desaive me! Poor fellow, poor fellow! maybe he hadn't the heart to tell me. Och hone! och hone! and is this what I'm come home to! Mother, mother, where are you! Mary dear, where can I find you! or are you gone too, and am I alone within my own walls, with nothing but the grass on my threshold! Oh, father, father! the gravestone over you is not so bleak as these blackened walls to me! Here, where I was nursed and reared, and grew up in love and tendherness; here, to have worse than a grave to come to !-Oh, well for me if I had died, and had never seen this day!'

He threw himself passionately against the ruins and wept convulsively.

After some moments of this vehement grief, he looked once more upon the roofless walls around him, and an expression of intense agony again passed over his countenance as he exclaimed:

'Oh, my Kathleen, and where are you! are you too without a house and home, and a wandherer on the world! And is the heart that adores you only come back to break over your ruined cabin, or, maybe, your grave! Oh, bitther was the day I was forced from you, to lave you, without the heart to love, and the hand to guard you! Och hone! och hone! my life's a load to me if thim I love has come to harm! And where am I to turn? -where am I to find thim? I'm a sthranger on the spot I was born, and the fire o' my own hearth is quenched.'

Again he looked on the ruined cabin, the fragments of charred rafters, and the thick-growing weeds; and though the sight made his blood run cold, yet he could not leave the spot: still he lingered there, making some fresh outpouring of his bitter grief as some new association was stirred within his mind.

At length he left the desolated spot, and returned with a

Z

melancholy step up the little boreen; and, after some minutes of consideration, determined on seeking Phelim O'Flanagan, to learn from him the extent of misfortune which had befallen all those who were dear to him.

He found old Phelim at home; and the surprise of the poor schoolmaster was extreme at the appearance of Rory. The first moment of alarm (for such his emotion amounted to) being past, he hugged him, and wept, and prayed, and thanked God for the restoration of his own boy, as he called him, over and over again.

Rory's instant inquiries for his mother and sister and Kathleen were answered satisfactorily; and the poor fellow dropped on his knees, in acknowledgment of heaven's mercies.

'Oh, Phelim ! a Turk would have pitied me,' said Rory, 'when I got the first sight of the cabin all tatthered to pieces, and the rafthers blackened with the fire!'

"Faith, he would be a Turk, for sartin, if he didn't-the barbarian sa age of the Arawbian deserts might be enlightened with a tindher touch of pity for your sufferin's for though he has no house nor home himself, sure, it 'ud be unnatharal if he wouldn't feel the loss of it for another—for though he lives in the sands, by all accounts, and we live in mud, sure it's all as one, barrin' the difference of the material- as a domus is a domus howsomever it is built. Oh, to see the owld place burnt down was a sore sight! And how did you feel at all, Rory, my poor fellow, when you seen that?'

'I felt as if my own heart was scorched,' said Rory.

"Faith, that is as complate a demonstheration of your feelin's as you could make-Q. E. D.'

'Will you bring me to where they are?' said Rory.

To be sure I will, boy, and that smart.-The Lord keep us, how they'll be surprised!'

'You must brake it to thim, Phelim, for fear they might get a fright.'

'Sartinly, I'll expound it to thim, by degrees; and what with a dark hint, or a bright coruscation of the distant thruth, through the 'newindos I will give thim

'Arrah, never mind the windows, man, but go in at the door, at wanst, and don't keep me waitin' long without, for my heart is burstin' till I howld thim to it'

'I'm neither talkin' of windows nor doors, Rory; but I

say that

it is by distant scintillations, as it were, they must be prepared for the anticipation.'

"Faith, you may well call it an anticipation, for a man to be taken away for a year or betther, and come back safe and sound afther all!'

"Faith, you're a wondherful boy, Rory, sure enough! you are the rale rara avis in terris. How they'll be astonished !'

'Make haste, Phelim, agra- I think every minit an hour till we go,'

'We're off now,' said the schoolmaster, fastening the door of his little hut and leading the way.

'The sun is low already, Rory, avic, and it will be night before we get to Knockbrackin, so we had betther take to the fields--for as the martial law is out still, we must keep off the road as much as we can.'

'Sure, thin, if it's in Knockbrackin they are, I'll go by myself, and don't you be runnin' risks, Phelim.'

‘Arrah, Rory, do you think I'd miss seein' the pleasure that'll be in it this night wid the meeting o' yiz all? No, in throth— not for more money than I could count, though Gough and Voshther is familiar to me: so, come along, boy.'

'God bless you, Phelim ! the heart is warm in you.'

"Thank God, and so it is,' said Phelim. 'Though I'm owld it's not cowld; so there's rhyme and rayson for you too. Come along, boy;'—and the old man led the way at a brisker paco than usual, the ardour of goodnature overcoming the languor of age,

CHAPTER XLI.

JOY VISITS THE HOUSE OF MOURNING BUT DOES NOT SEEM TO LIKE

HER QUARTERS.

Ir was night when Phelim and Rory reached the village. A gentle tap, given by Phelim at the door of a cabin standing somewhat apart from the rest, disturbed its inmates from the melancholy occupation in which they were engaged,