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as soon as he approached it, he saw it was impossible to pass without being overtaken by the avenger, ready to smite him with the edge of the sword. Upon the instant he wheeled about, and bounding towards his pursuer, grappled with him before he had time to make an effectual blow with his cutlass; and now they twisted and strug gled together, like two bull dogs, when they have taken the death gripe of each other's throats. They fell together, and rolled over and over, until the robber, who, although the elder, was the stronger man of the two, tore himself from his antagonist's grasp, and raising himself up, got his knee upon the prostrate man's breast, and his hand twisted in his cravat. We now rushed forward with double speed to the rescue, and I never saw a scene more horrible than the combatants presented when we got near them. The robber's face had been torn by the brambles, from which he made his escape, and had, besides, received a slight cut or two from the policeman's sword when he closed with him, so that his visage was well smeared with blood, while lumps of the clay, in which he had rolled, adhered to it here and there: add to this, that his small dark eyes gleamed with a demon-like fury, as he strove to strangle the man who lay beneath him; and the hideous expression of such a countenance may be easily imagined. The policeman's face was black with suffocation; his eyes were starting from his head, and a fearful gurgling noise issued from his throat, while the blood from his wounded ear flowed down upon his neck, and clotted the fingers of the robber, which, with determined gripe, were stopping the passage of his breath. I know not whether the victorious combatant knew, until we were close upon him, that he had other antagonists to deal with, but it was not till we were very near him, that he threw the halfdead man from his grasp; and catching up the cutlass, which lay on the ground, and which he seemed to have forgotten, while endeavouring to dispatch his adversary in a different manner, he retired backward to the trees, as if determined to fight it out to the

last.

We formed a semicircular line, at rather a respectful distance, in front of this fierce ruffian, who was called upon by Sergeant Waddy to surrend

er, according to the manner and form by the law in that case provided. The reply of the robber, prefaced with a torrent of curses, was, that the first man who came near him, he would cleave his skull, just as "he'd split bogwood;" and this threat he accompanied with a menacing flourish of his weapon, which shewed, that if put to the proof, he was likely to use it with some effect.

"Why thin," said the sergeant, drawing a pistol from his coat pocket, "maybe we'd make you surrindthur without goin' near you. I'll tell you what, by my sowl it's in airnest I am, an' if you haven't a mind to give up yourself, an' your swoord, you'd bether just take a bit of a look round on the worlt, an' bid it good-by, for if you don't surrindthur, before you'd have time to reckon half a hundert of eggs, an' that's sixty, that I may never ate bread, but I'll shoot you dead where you stand!"

While the sergeant was delivering this minatory address, my attention had been partly taken up in observing the motions of our new ally, Mick Rooney, who had evidently some achievement in view relative to the desired capture. He gathered up the skirts of his long coat, and turned them in, so as to form a bundle on his back, and leave his limbs free from the encumbrance of these frieze hangings, and grasping his shillelagh by the middle, he advanced in a circuitous direction towards the robber, with his body bent forward, and every muscle apparently strained as for a spring, while he stealthily approached, like a tiger on the edge of a jungle, stealing forward to bound upon his prey. At the conclusion of the sergeant's address, the robber, either startled at the view of the immediate danger which threatened him, or involuntarily following the advice which had been given him to look round on the world, and bid it farewell, relaxed from the firm and observing air of defiance which he had assumed, and for a moment looked upward. On the instant, Mick Rooney, though at the distance of six or seven yards, sprung forward, and alighting close beside his man, he hit him beneath his sword arm with his cudgel, and at the same moment struck him violently in the back of the leg with his foot. cutlass flew from the robber's hand,

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sheer over the top of the highest of the trees behind him, his heels went into the air, and he fell flat on his back, his head striking the ground with such violence, that for a minute or two he lay as senseless as the sod on which he had fallen.

"Whoo!" cried Mick, jumping into the air, flourishing his cudgel over his head, and putting forth a yell of triumph, such as one might expect from an American savage, when he scatters the brains of his enemy at his feet with a blow of his tomahawk,-" Hah! by Jasus, there's the Tipperary thrip for ye that bates all Munster," he con tinued. "There now; ye may take him, an' tie him up, like a bundle of sticks, and do what ye plaze wid him; if he pisons any more dogs, it's not Mick Rooney's fault, mind that, I tell ye.”

Before the prostrate man had fully come to himself, his wrists were bound together, with the same cravat which a few minutes before he had twisted in order to strangle the policeman, and its owner, who speedily recovered from his semi-strangulation, assisted with no small good-will in binding him. The manner of the fellow when he found himself irretrievably a captive, was sullen and ferocious; he refused to move a step from where he had been seized, and the policemen were under the necessity of forcibly dragging him to the lane from which we had got into the field, where a rope being provided, one end was fastened round his body, and the other to one of the policemen's horses, which proceeding at a quiet walk, the prisoner had no choice but to walk after him, to the high road.

We halted at the first cabin we came to, the inmates of which received us apparently with more respect for our authority, than good-will to the work in which we were engaged. When a criminal is seized, except it be for some very atrocious offence, the natural impulse of feeling is rather to pity the captive; while reason rejoices in the success of public justice. Now the Irish, who are by no means a deliberative people, and who appear, more over, to be possessed with an inherent disinclination to whatever the law or dains, almost universally yield to the impulse of pity when a criminal is detected, and would much rather assist to rescue, than assist to guard him.

In the present case, however, the influence of Sergeant Waddy, and the authority of his office, were sufficient to obtain such accommodation as he wanted; the prisoner was placed in one corner, while at the other end of the room, such provision as an Irish cabin can afford, viz. potatoes, and milk, and eggs, were prepared for our party; it was remembered also, that as the "ould soger" was now to travel against his will, and under the civil authority, it might be a matter of difficulty to prevail upon him to march, and orders were issued to procure a car for his conveyance to Clonmell.

While these matters were in preparation, it luckily occurred to me to ask myself what good I was doing in this robber-catching affair; and the question brought to my mind, that I had a lost parchment to enquire after, the recovery of which would perhaps procure me a grateful and happy smile from Miss Evelyn, whose lovely face I had yet only seen under circumstances of alarm or sorrow. But I felt wholly at a loss how to proceed with the fierce malefactor, who sat before me with a scowl of hatred upon his brow; yet being aware that every hour which was lost in obtaining the requisite information, the chance of making it available was lessening, I resolved to take the sergeant into my confidence to a certain degree, and obtain his assistance as a negotiator. Having described the parchment to him, by a little essay in the art of innocently lying, as the copy of a deed which was wanted immediately, and could not be obtained without considerable expense, I told him of my anxiety to obtain some clew to its discovery, which no doubt the prisoner could give, if his will could be brought to second his ability. "Lave that to me, sir," said the sergeant, continuing the under tone in which our colloquy had been held, "we'll get it out of 'im-only bad look to 'm, he looks so sulky.-Lave the place, every mother's sowl o' yiz," he continued aloud, and standing up, as he addressed about & dozen people, whom curiosity had brought together in the apartment to see the prisoner." Lave the place, I tell yiz, untul the gintleman an' me spakes to the prisoner about partik'lar business." The house was forthwith cleared of all but the prisoner and ourselves. The sergeant cleared his

throat, as one about to say something important, and commenced addressing bis prisoner after the manner follow ing:-"Well, you thief o' the worlt, you see what your thricks has brought you to at last-Be my sowl, my lad, I think you're in a bad way-we seen enough this mornin' to hang you as high as Gilderoy." There was no reply, at which the sergeant looked surprised, and then went on." Why, bad look to ye, robber as you are you might have the manners to spake whin you're spoken to; but in troth it's little that's good you know how to say, so maybe you're bether to hould your tongue. Only listen though to what I'm goin' to say t'ye. Whin Mrs Evelyn's house was robbed the night afore last-rimimbir I don't say you wor there, or that you worn't there but whoever was there, they tuk away a parchmint, that this gintleman,”here with a graceful wafture of his hand, the sergeant performed a kind of introduction of my person to the notice of the robber-" has a great curosity to see. The divil a bit of good the parchmint can do you-I mane the man that tuk it, whoever he was-an' as a frind is a good thing to have, when one is in throuble, you might do worse nor make a frind of this gintleman, be helpin' him to a sight of the same parchmint."

At the close of this speech the prisoner turned his sullen glance first upon me, and then steadily upon the Sergeant's face, as if he would read therein something more than was to be gathered from his speech. Apparently he discovered cunning and sinister purpose in the countenance of the sergeant, which determined his reply. He seemed to feel a triumph in having seen through him, and with something like a sneer he answered, "I think you couldn't do bether than to be after houldin' your prate, Mr Waddy-I'm not a parrot to be made to spake, because you have me in your cage."

"O thin, be my sowl," said the sergeant, angrily, "it's in a stronger cage you'll be soon, an' you'll go up stairs to get out of it."

This was a delicate allusion to the passage from the prison to the scaffold, which in less serious circumstances might have provoked a smile. "You'll get no good of him now," he continued

to me in an under tone-" wait till he has had a night in jail, an' he'll be more raisonabler."

An hour or two had elapsed before the car was brought, on which the prisoner was placed, and we set for ward towards Clonmell when the day was fast approaching to noon. We had not proceeded more than a mile along the road, when the curiosity which our little cavalcade in some measure excited, seemed to be all at once eclipsed by an object of much greater interest, in advance of us upon the road, towards which the people were flying along the sides of the fields; and we could perceive, from a distant cloud of dust approaching us, that some procession was coming for ward. To the eager enquiry of what the matter was, addressed to some of the people running by, the rapid answer was, that "the min" that were "to suffer" that day were coming up.

"Sure enough it is, sir," said the sergeant; "an I had quite forgot it! There's tree min to be hung to-day, about five mile from this, for killin' an ould man an' his wife, and burnin' down the farm-house where they lived. They wor to be sint to the place, for an example to the naybreed, instid of hangin' thim at the front o' the jail; an' here they come."

As he spoke a military guard made its appearance, and in a few minutes we were involved in the midst of the awful procession. There is a sicken ing horror comes over one's soul at the sight of three men going to be put to death for their crimes, which the sight of thirty thousand men, going to engage in deadly combat with one an other does not produce. There is in the circumstances of an execution a dreadful certainty of the event-a horrible formality-a fearful bringing together of the ideas of the living man that is, and the dead man that is so soon to be-of life and strength struggling with death-with every thing to aggravate, and nothing to alleviate, its bitterness-and-in short, it must be a very unpleasant thing to be hanged against one's will, and it is a very sickening thing to look at another in such a predicament. I said that the procession was led by a guard of soldiers-then came three several cars, each supporting one of the doomed men, and by the side of each there

walked a Roman Catholic priest. The first man was elderly, and the calmest of the three-locks that were slightly tinged with grey, escaped from beneath a white cap which he wore. He was pale, very pale, even his lips. They trembled, too, as did his hands also, while he told over a string of beads which he carried. The second had upon his face the flush which commonly attends upon very excessive excitement. He trembled more violently than the other, while he held in his hand a little dirty black book, which was, I suppose, a breviary, from which he appeared to wish to read, but ever and anon his glance was cast upon the crowd, with a wild purposeless glare, such as I had never seen before, except in the insane. The third was anxious to play the bravado, and to appear reckless of his fate; but the ghastly mockery of his behaviour was the most horrible of all. The miserable wretch would strive to smile; but the force of simulation could but ill struggle with nature in such a dreadful plight, and the unwilling features fell away into the expression of abject deadly fear. The intense eagerness of the crowd, too, was very affecting, in the silence of its wrapt attention, or ouly interrupted by a whispered expression of horror, or pity, or an ejaculation of,"God be marciful to their sowls!"

The procession was closed by another guard of soldiers, and had soon passed, but it left an impression which could not, for some little time at least, be shaken off. My attention was, however, rapidly carried from the appearance of the men going to suffer death, to that of our prisoner, for whom the sight he had just witnessed must necessarily have had an interest of a very different kind from that which it imparted to any other of the company. I observed him narrowly, and I saw that it shook him to the very marrow. His face grew deadly pale, and then purple, and then pale again a frantic notion of escape seemed to seize him, he made an effort as if he would jump off the car to which he had been tied, and he put down his mouth, as if to tear asunder with his teeth the handkerchief which bound his wrists. I saw his knees knock fearfully together, so that I almost supposed he was going into a fit, and I called a halt, and got from a ca

bin by the road side, a cup of water which I brought, and as his hands were tied, I held for him to drink. For the first time, he looked like a being with whom one could have some sympathy of feeling-he looked grateful, and became more composed, though still evidently in horrible fear for the fate which awaited him, and which the sight of the men going to be hanged had brought so strongly to his mind.

We now arrived at Jim Barry's cabin, which we had left before daybreak, and where we now proposed to rest some little time.

I proceeded to the inner room where I had slept the night before, leaving the prisoner and his guard in the outer apartment; but I had not been long by myself, when the sergeant came in to tell me that the "ould soger" was grown very quiet, and wanted" of all things to spake to me." I ordered him to be admitted, and the door to be closed; and after that due caution, seldom forgotten by those who have lived in England, to be careful how he might criminate himself by what he was going to say, I listened to his communication.

"I'm an unfortunate man, sir," he said.

"You are indeed," I replied.

"I don't doubt but your honour knows some great people in Dublin," he continued-" some people about the Castle, I dar say?"

"Well-suppose I do-what then?"

"The polis sergeant said that your honour wanted greatly to get back a parchmint that was taken away from Mrs Evelyn's. Now, sir, I might help to get it for you, and I could give more information, that might be of a power of consequence in regard to the pace of this part of the country, if I had a friend to help me out of this trouble that I'm in."

"Trouble! is it by that light name you call the awful circumstances in which you stand-your life is forfeited; it is but this morning that you twice attempted murder." I observed the terror fit coming on again, but he rallied quickly, and replied,-" I only resisted, your honour knows, when I was attacked; and that's what any innocent man might do."

It would be tedious to continue our dialogue; let it suffice to say, that without any promise on my part be

yond that of saying that I would faith fully represent whatever service he should perform, this precious scoundrel proposed to guide us in the pursuit of the robbers of Mrs Evelyn's house, and informed me, that a man who had been a servant of the solicitor of the old lady, and who knew how careful he was of the deed of which I was in search, had planned the robbery, in consequence of watching the deed being taken home, and lurking about the windows until he saw it put up. He had taken it, solely with the intention of extorting a large sum of money for its return, and had it now with him in the retreat to which he had gone with his companions. The robbers, he told us, had gone by a mountain-path towards Cahir, on their way to the neighbourhood of Kilworth mountain, where was their principal rendezvous; but there were several places on the way which they might have stopped at, and he offered to guide us by the track which they had certainly gone. After due consideration of the importance of losing as little time as possible, in following up the pursuit of the robbers, it was determined to accept the offer of our prisoner to be our guide, and farther, that to avoid particular observation, we would remain where we were until the approach of morning, and then go forward upon our journey.

Two hours before day, we left the high road by a path which seemed familiar to all of the party but myself, and I soon discovered, by the aid of an elderly moon, which for an Irish moon gave tolerably good light, that we were in a region of bog and mountain. Following the mountain path with our prisoner, who, for security's sake, was handcuffed to the most powerful man among our party of police, we continued our course at a rapid foot pace, in the direction he had indicated. It led us through what our party called Mr Ponsonby Barker's mountain, and wound along the verge of a ravine or deep gulley, with a mountain stream, brawling at the bottom, while the hill side was broken, stony, and irregular. Here and there, a few wild sheep, startled by the approach of our party, and hurrying forward to gaze, as their manner is, with bewildered eyes at the object that surprised them, apprized us of the proximity of a cabin. The poor on mountain proper

VOL. XXVI. NO. CLIV.

ties in Ireland seem generally to be better off than the poor in the fertile plains. They hold their land at a low rent, and generally have, in addition, an extensive privilege over what is considered barren mountain. This they turn to good account for grazing young cattle, and being usually well supplied with fuel, they are altogether a more comfortable, as well as a more independent class of tenantry than the poor lowlanders. Volumes of mist were rolling up the stupendous sides of the distant Galter mountains, in the grey dawn of a chill autumnal morning, when a turn in the path, which now skirted along the high road, brought us in full view of the little town of Cahir, sleeping in the cold stillness of the half-hour that precedes sunrise. The first view of Cahir is striking and pretty. A steep irregular street, at the near corner of which stands the house of the Lady Glengall, is terminated by a bridge of many arches, through which glides "the gentle Suir," chafed, yet not angry, with some rude mis-shapen stones that eddy and whiten its surface. Beyond the bridge, and rising from the river, stand the ivy-mantled towers of Cahir Castle, while here and there is seen, peeping from its alleys green, the scarlet coat of a sentry, pacing with measured step along some half-decaying rampart or guarded entrance. There are some modern buildings of hewn-stone, in a tasteful ornamental style of architecture, which, when seen in combination with the broad river and a conspicuous sheet of foam, where it flows over a mill weir, a little way up from the bridge, give an airy lightsome appearance to the town, which is very pleasing, at least to a cursory visitor. Cahir is the principal headquarters for cavalry in the south, and an officer's wife, an English lady, told me the town itself was a nawsty dawty hole;" but the horse-barrack is a mile from it.

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Passing through Cahir, where we obtained an accession of several policemen to our party; and ascending the hill on the other side, we quitted the high road, and struck into the flat, stony, poor ground on the left, and journeyed on through an uninteresting country, except for the splendid heights of the Galters, which surround it. After some time we reached a steep hilly road along the side of Kilworth

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