old pen with which he had for many years oiled the hinges of his gates when they creaked. and ANECDOTE OF THE PLAGUE. A writer in the Foreign Quarterly Review relates the following anecdote of the plague: "In the village of Careggi, whether it were that due precautions had not been taken, or that the disease was of a peculiarly malignant nature, one after another-first the young, then the old, of a whole family, dropped off. A woman who lived on the opposite side of the way, the wife of a labourer, the mother of two little boys, felt herself attacked by fever in the night; in the morning it greatly increased, and in the evening the fatal tumour appeared. This was during the absence of her husband, who went to work at a distance, and only returned on Saturday night, bringing home the scanty means of subsistence for his family for the week. Terrified by the example of the neighbouring family,' moved by the fondest love for her children, and determining not to communicate the disease to them, she formed the heroic resolution of leaving her home, and going elsewhere to die. Having locked them into a room, and sacrificed to their safety even the last and sole comfort of a parting embrace, she ran down the stairs, carrying with her the sheets and coverlet, that she might leave no means of contagion. She then shut the door, with a sigh, and went away. But the biggest, hearing the door shut, went to the window, and, seeing her running in that manner, cried out, "Good bye, mother," in a voice so tender, that she involuntarily stopped. "Good bye, mother," repeated the youngest child, stretching its little head out of the window. And thus was the poor afflicted mother compelled, for a time, to endure the dreadful conflict between the yearnings which called her back, and the pity and solicitude which urged her on. At length the latter conquered; and, amid SHEPHERDS IN CUMBERLAND.-The cottages in some parts of Cumberland are often widely scattered, and a great number of the people are engaged as have I witnessed in these and other shepherds, herdsmen, &c. Frequently mountainous districts, a delightful illustration of the good Shepherd, wherein it is said, "the sheep know his voice." When the sun is about to set, foot of a chain of mountains, and giving a shepherd's boy advances along the the flocks, which were scattered like a signal by a peculiar call or whistle, spots of snow over those stupendous heights, begin to move simultaneously, and collecting as they pour down the steep descent, approach him in order, without leaving behind one solitary straggler.-Wilderspin's Early Discipline. FEROCITY OF CATS AT TRISTAN D'ACUNA.-When the first settlers arrived here, they brought with them several cats; some of which unfortunately escaped into the bushes, and have increased so rapidly, that they have become quite a nuisance. Poultry had run wild, and the climate was so congenial that they multiplied prodigiously, and were to be found in all parts of the island in abundance; but since the cats have been introduced the poor fowls disappear rapidly. Indeed these wild cats come so near the settlement as to attack and carry off the domestic poultry. I was out a few mornings ago, when the dogs caught one upon the beach. The nature and appearance of the animal seem quite changed; all the characteristics of the domestic cat were gone;' it was fierce, bold, and strong; and stood battle some time against four good dogs, before it was killed. Diary and Chronology. · Wednesday, 1st August. Lammas day; i. e. Lamb Mass, or, according to some "Loaf Mass," it being a day of oblations. The term " Latter Lammas," is used to signify a time that never comes. Monday, 6th August. Transfiguration; in memory of the transfiguration of our Lord's appearance on Mount Tabor. Tuesday, 7th August. Name of Jesus. Dedicated to this by our reformers, instead of Afra, or Donatus, of the Roman calendar. Friday, 10th August. St. Lawrence of Spain. This saint suffered martyrdom about the year 258. Sunday, 12th August. 1762-King George IV. born. Wednesday, 15th August. Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Festival of the Greek and Romish churches, in honour of the ascension of the Virgin into beaven. Illustrated Article. THE ACE OF CLUBS. BY THE 'HARA FAMILY. AT English fairs, business and merriment are kept rather distinct. The buying and selling of sheep, oxen, and horses, commonly occur before the gingerbread-booths, the toy-booths, and the dancing-booths-(such as the dancing in the latter is found to be)-are visited, and take place upon some spot detached from the crowded encampments of pleasure and finery. At Irish fairs, however, important sales, halfpenny adventures in gambling, lovemaking, dancing-("the right sort of a fair")-and perhaps some harmless fighting, used, in our time, to go hand in hand from the opening of the blessed day. Hence, our Irish fair was a less orderly but more rousing scene than one in this inveterately decorous island. While the mind of a serious spectator is filled with the important circumstance of groups of "strong farmers" bargaining about the transfer of fifty or a hundred great horned beasts, his VOL. IX. See page 486. livelier or lighter sensibilities might be appealed to by the oratory of the proprietress of a show of fragile nick-nacks, alarmed lest some of those animals should overthrow and shatter at a touch her whole stock in trade: or a richcheeked country girl, laughing loudly, and struggling "just for dacency," half caused by her half- proffered lips, the uncouth smack which startles our observer, and which is the payment for her swain's "treat" to a grass-green ribbon, or a pair of scarlet garters; or the rub-a-dub of a set of "jiggers," with their cries of ecstacy, strikes upon his ear from some adjacent public-house; or perhaps two "factions," who have been at war-as they would themselves say "ever since their grandfather's time," emit fiercer shouts, as, huddled amongst cattle of all descriptions, and striking the animals as often as their own heads, they fight their twentieth pitched battle for some cause of dispute which neither can explain. About forty years ago, when the reader had most to do with such an assemblage, an accompanying feature, now almost worn out by the progress of gen 253 tility, was observable. While elderly farmers plodded to the important rendezyous strictly in the spirit of men of business, their sons, or perhaps some youthful landholders of four or five hundred acres, pushed in from the country on nearly whole-blood horses, arrayed in the Sunday suit, which, at each weekly mass, made them the stars of their district chapels, purely or chiefly to ride up and down through the throngs of men, women, and beasts, vouching their attractions in the face of half the assembled county, and also in the faces of rural "darkers," of the other sex, who, perched on pillions behind their fathers, and flaming in all colours, came pretty nearly in the same policy, to the great general mart for the day. A group of such gallant amateurs, standing still because they have been blocked up by surrounding droves of cattle, is presented to the reader, at the fair, holden about forty years ago, to which we direct our attention. The young men were all known to each other; and they talked or laughed cheerily, and seemed fully enjoying their day's adventures. "But stop, boys," said one, "here comes Martin Brophy, and if he sees us so merry he'll swear we're laughing at himself." "And then put a quarrel on us all," said another. "Then ye won't spake to him, boys?" asked a third. "What is the use, Jack? Ever since things went so conthrary against him, you can't look but he thinks it a slight, so that there's no managing with Martin; and I, for one, will just let him go quietly by on his poor broken-doon half-blood." 66 Besides, Tom, though an auld head can't be put on young shoulders, (a truth we all stand up for,) Martin done the vengeance entirely, in regard of his behaviour to little Calty Morissy." Yes, and the priest caeling himt for it, at last mass, Sunday-se'nnit (week,)" added a pious person of the party; "but here he is! See, boys!" speaking loudly, and pointing his whip to a drove of cows and oxen, while the eyes of his companions followed his "them browns is the clanest cattle in the fair, to my mind." Martin Brophy passed them with eyes studiously averted in the opposite direction, as if he had determined to an ticipate their slight; and yet his erect carriage, his knitted brow, and his protruded lips, destroyed the ease which should have given to the act its best expression, and suggested, instead, a bitter and haughty consciousness of the presence of his former companions in the carouse, and in the sporting-field. They continued their observations by turns. "There he goes-the proudest and the poorest grandee in Leinster." "Look at the hat!-the poor hair will be growing through it with the next crop." "But the auld green!"-(Martin's coat)—"it aught to bring him new ones by that time, for it's long ago it ran to seed between his shoulders." "And what brings him to the fair, boys?" "To sell auld Nora:" (Martin's skeleton steed.) "Yes-to the tanners." "Or to cut a dash on her backbone." "Ay-before Dora Marum; only she's not here; I stopt at the house, today morning, to know if she'd be at the fair with auld cranky Dan, the father of her; but, no, purty Dora couldn't come. "Then Martin won't take the light out of her eyes, entirely, this blessed day." "Hoot, tut, man-a-live; in jest or arnest, that's all gone by; Dan gave him the cauld shawldher, long ago." They separated to resume the exhibition of their handsome steeds and admirable persons through the fair. We follow the individual of whom they have been speaking. He was a man as young as any of them; better featured than any, notwithstanding that premature sufferings and the conflict of strong passions had thinned and swarthed his cheek; nay, his air, and the character of those features gave him nearer claims than any to a gentleman-like appearance, although, as they had truly remarked, his attire was shabby. He had not overheard a word of the jeers spoken at his expense, but his sensitive mind imagined such a dialogue between his former friends, and imagined it to an extent even beyond the reality; and the petty ferment consequently called up in his bosom, worked his features and temper more violently than greater misfortunes had that day done. They scoffingly wondered why he ap peared at the fair. Martin Brophy could not, himself, have satisfied their idle and cruel curiosity. He could only have stated, were he so inclined, that upon the approach of bailiffs to his house, early in the morning, to seize his furniture-the last of his earthly goods he had run to the stable, saddled old Nora, jumped on her back, and while his mother's low wailings filled his ears, pushed the feeble beast out of sight and hearing of a scene which maddened his heart, but which he could not help; and that then, waywardly yielding to an unaccountable impulse, he had hurried into the thick of another scene, the most unlikely of any he might select, to assuage his angry feelings. "And this," he muttered, "this is the end of slashing Mick Brophy's divilmay-care days; of his hunting days, and his dancing days, and his cockfighting days: ay, and of his good-fellow nights, with their songs, and their brave cursing and swearing, and screeling and tattering. O father! you left us too soon for Mick's good. Luck out of your grave and see him now. Not worth a lady halfpenny stock-lock and barrel; not a dacent tack to his back; the auld mother crying at home to the bare walls in the empty house; Dora Marum lost; and these very kouts* that you left me a head-and-shoulders over-and that I made my aquals only to let them make me what I am at last come to these very scheming, cringing, palavering hounds-Oh!"-yielding to the bitterness of his immediate position" by the light o' the world! I'd amost stop thinking of every thing else that once pleasured me, only for as much good fortune as would again put me where I was-above them; and then, with my foot on their necks, instead of the hand to their hands, as it used to be !" 66 His reverie was interrupted by the quick approach of two bodies of screaming rioters. As they capered past him, he drew, even from their noise and outrage, a renewed cause for embittered regret, Ay! Dullard's faction and Campion's faction!" repeating their war-cries and now soliloquizing rather aloud-"But who shouts Brophy's faction to-day? though I remember the day when if any tenant or follower of his shouted that name, a hundred good alpeens would jump at the sound.". "An' there's one, at laste, to shout it * Paltry fellows. + Sycophantic. yet, Masther Martin," said a low, thicknecked, red-headed lad at his side"whoo!" jumping among a pacific crowd" whoo for Masther Brophy! who'll look crooked at him?-will you? or you?" Martin was much surprised at this unrecognized friend so Quixotically challenging the whole world on his account; but as the hero, after prancing here and there, and peering up hostility into many faces, only earned for his stunted, burly, unwarlike figure, and for the cause it abetted, contemptuous sneers or loud laughter, on the part of the athletic fellows around him, poor Brophy's wonder changed into increased mortification. A little old man, dressed in the common peasant garb of the district namely, coat, vest, breeches and hose, all grey, with a two buckled flaxen wig, and a foxy felt hat, staggered up the street, holding a stick, and every now and then stopping and trying to balance himself in order to make a solemn drunken soliloquy; and upon these occasions he feebly flourished his stick, and seemed to come to the conclusion that he was aggrieved and valiant. "Or you!" continued Martin's knight, as the old fellow met his eye; "mind this, Masther Martin"-speaking under his breath, while he passed Brophy-" a friendlier blow was never sthruck for your good"-and darting on, down tumbled the man of soliloquies, and with a dozen pursuers at his heels, Martin one of them, away scampered the aggressor. For notwithstanding the lad's whisper, Martin could not think that the little old man had anything to do with him, nor with his assaulter. There was in the blow a matter-of-fact kind of character; its very sound on the other's skull might suggest an act without a motive, an effect without a cause. None of the indignant pursuers succeeded in apprehending the red-haired champion; and Martin returned to condole with the inconsiderable victim, sacrificed so much against his will, to his feudal importance. The sire had arisen and gone on. Partly by inquiries, partly by a gory and devious tract, Martin traced him out of the fair, and then out of the town. Spurring his sorry nag, he overtook him upon the road towards his own sad home. The sufferer still staggered, but now more from weakness than inebriety. "Tell me that young rascal's name, daddy." "Throth, an' l don't know the poor boy's name." "Come back into the town, then; he will surely be caught, and you must be ready to take the law of him.” "Why then," in a very kind and simple tone, "I believe we can't do that, either, a-rich," (my son;) "Iowe the poor boy no ill-will, an' sure I von't go for to put him in raal throuble, jest for a little matther of a clipe," (blow,) "of a stick, that I'm sure, afore my Maker, there was no harum in; an I'll engage he's a good, honest, poor slob for all that." "Then let me help you a bit of the road, daddy:" Martin alighted, and throwing Nora's bridle over one arm, caused his tottering companion to lean on the other. After walking along slowly for some time "The blessing be in your path for ever, a-vich; sure here's my poor cabin," said the old man, stopping at the closed door of a very inferior habitation even of the kind he named. "This?" questioned Martin Brophy why, this, I remember, used to be Musha Merry's-and stop" looking attentively into his face-"Yes, now-I remember you too-you are ould Musha Merry, our great fairy-man." "Husth, husth, a-pet manners to them-manin' you no offence, but the best o' good, conthrary-wise: Musha Merry I am - their friend, an' the friend o' the good Christhms, whenever they let me." poor "Oho!" ejaculated Martin, assuming a sneer, but from the effects of his early education, not fully feeling it however—" and didn't you send a body to me, the other day, to tell me not to let the heart be cast down entirely, for all that's come and gone, yet?" "Of a thruth, an' so I did, a-vich; jist out o' the pity is on my soul for your only throubles, an' the kind-of-asort-of a knowledge I have that there's loock in store for you, let the priest scauld you an' curse you, off o' the althar, as often as he likes, please his reverence." "With help from the fairies!" laughed Martin. "O, husth, now again, a-vich, an' call them no names, but lave them to themse'fs, my honey Masther Martin; an' no, in throth no; but wid help from them, sure they haven't the power to give the riches, like others, much as they can do in every thing else." "Then with help from the Barrymount gang?" 66 Avoch, nien, nien, entirely; duv you think, Masther Martin Brophy, my pet, I'd go for to give you the adwice to take part wid them rampanees o' the arth ?-Nien, nien;-and yet,"-speaking more expressively-"there's a way, so there is but husth, again!" the door of his cabin opened, and a group of men and women appeared at it, scraping their feet or dropping curtsies to him. See, here's some o' the poor neighbours waitin' for me to give 'em the good o' the trifle o' knowledge that's come to me, somehow or someway — a good day to ye, neighbours, honies; come in, Masther Martin, a-vich, an' jest tie your bridle to the hasp, and rest yourself on the chair a bit, and when I do my endayvours for the poor Christhms, sure then you an' I can go on wid our own little shanachus-(gossipping.) Doing as he was exhorted, Martin Brophy followed Musha Merry into his cabin. More people than had appeared at the door were tarrying for him under its roof, the greater number women, who sat on the mud floor, with their backs to the mud wall. Martin was aware that, as patients crowd the waiting-rooms of a popular town or city physician, these persons had come to get charms from Musha Merry, for evils inflicted upon themselves, or upon their families, or upon their cows, horses or crops. Occupying "the chair," so described, because it was the only one in the house, Martin looked on attentively, and with more deference towards the wise man's gifts, than his language might have expressed at the door: for unconsciously he agreed in the general homage now paid, in his presence, to the wizard-doctor, if, indeed, he had ever really felt disposed to withhold his share of it. Musha Merry first retired behind a wicker partition, or screen, which run half way across the waste apartment, at its upper end, expressing modestly, an intention to charm his own broken head, before he engaged in the service of any other afflicted person: and after having been invisible for a short time, he reappeared, every previous mark of violence effaced from his cheek and temple, or hidden under a more ample wig, while his crabbed old features simpered all over with their usual insinuating good nature and his glossy grey eyes were almost shut up in the pucker of wrinkles, which the bland expression induced round them. A pale, melancholy over-watched |