"I leave it to yourselves, my friends," said the pretender, "to give to the real dark man, that you all know so well, and save me from that schemer," and with that he collected some pennies and half-pence. While he was doing so, Moran started his Mary of Egypt,' but the indignant crowd seizing his stick were about to belabor him, when they fell back bewildered anew by his close resemblance to himself. The pretender now called to them to "just give him a grip of that villain, and he'd soon let him know who the imposhterer was!" They led him over to Moran, but instead of closing with him he thrust a few shillings into his hand, and turning to the crowd explained to them he was indeed but an actor, and that he had just gained a wager, and so departed amid much enthusiasm, to cat the supper he had won.

In April, 1846, word was sent to the priest that Michael Moran was dying. He found him at 15 (now 14 1-2) Patrick Street, on a straw bed, in a room full of ragged balladsingers come to cheer his last moments. After his death. the ballad-singers, with many fiddles and the like, came again and gave him a fine wake, each adding to the merriment whatever he knew in the way of rann, tale, old saw, or quaint rhyme. He had had his day, had said his prayers and made his confession, and why should they not give him a hearty send-off? The funeral took place the next day. A good party of his admirers and friends got into the hearse with the coffin, for the day was wet and nasty. They had not gone far when one of them burst out with "It's cruel cowld, isn't it?" "Garra'," replied another, "we'll all be as stiff as the corpse when we get to the berrin-ground." "Bad cess to him," said a third; "I wish he'd held out another month until the weather got dacent." A man called Carroll thereupon produced a half-pint of whisky, and they all drank to the soul of the departed. Unhappily, however, the hearse was over-weighted, and they had not reached the cemetery before the spring broke, and the bottle with it.

Moran must have felt strange and out of place in that other kingdom he was entering, perhaps while his friends were drinking in his honor. Let us hope that some kindly middle region was found for him, where he can call di

sheveled angels about him with some new and more rhythmical form of his old

"Gather round me, boys, will yez

Gather round me ?

And hear what I have to say
Before ould Salley brings me
My bread and jug of tay;"

and fling outrageous quips and cranks at cherubim and seraphim. Perhaps he may have found and gathered, ragamuffin though he be, the Lily of High Truth, the Rose of Far-sought Beauty, for whose lack so many of the writers of Ireland, whether famous or forgotten, have been futile as the blown froth upon the shore.

CATHLEEN NI HOOLIHAN.1

PETER GILLANE.

PERSONS.

MICHAEL GILLANE.-His son, going to be married.
PATRICK GILLANE.-A lad of twelve, Michael's brother.
BRIDGET GILLANE.-Peter's wife.

DELIA CAHEL.-Engaged to Michael.

THE POOR OLD WOMAN.

NEIGHBORS.

SCENE.-Interior of a cottage close to KILLALA, in 1798. BRIDGET is standing at a table undoing a parcel. PETER is sitting at one side of the fire, PATRICK at the other.

PETER. What is that sound I hear?

PATRICK. I don't hear anything. (He listens.) I hear it now. It's like cheering. (He goes to the window and looks out.) I wonder what they are cheering about. I don't see anybody.

PETER. It might be a hurling match.

PATRICK. There's no hurling to-day. It must be down in the town the cheering is.

BRIDGET. I suppose the boys must be having some sport of their own. Come over here, Peter, and look at Michael's wedding clothes.

1 See Mr. Stephen Gwynn's article on The Irish Drama.'

PETER (shifts his chair to table). Those are grand clothes, indeed.

BRIDGET. You hadn't clothes like that when you married me, and no coat to put on of a Sunday more than any other day.

PETER. That is true, indeed. We never thought a son of our own would be wearing a suit of that sort at his wedding, or have so good a place to bring a wife to.

PATRICK (who is still at the window). There is an old woman coming down the road. I don't know is it here she's coming.

BRIDGET.

It will be a neighbor coming to hear about Michael's wedding. Can you see who it is?

PATRICK. I think it is a stranger, and she's not coming to the house. She has not turned up the path. She's turned into the gap that goes down where Maurteen and his sons are shearing sheep. (He turns toward them.) Do you remember what Winnie of the Cross Roads was saying the other night about the strange woman that goes through the country the time there's war or trouble coming?

BRIDGET. Don't be bothering us about Winnie's talk but go and open the door for your brother. I hear him coming up the path.

PETER. I hope he has brought Delia's fortune with him safe, for fear her people might go back of the bargain, and I after making it. Trouble enough I had making it.

(PATRICK opens the door and MICHAEL comes in.) BRIDGET. What kept you, Michael? We were looking out for you this long time.

MICHAEL. I went round by the priest's house to bid him be ready to marry us to-morrow.

BRIDGET. Did he say anything?

MICHAEL. He said it was a very nice match, and that he was never better pleased to marry any two in his parish than myself and Delia Cahel.

PETER. Have you got the fortune, Michael?

MICHAEL. Here it is. (He puts bag on the table and goes over and leans against chimney jamb.)

(BRIDGET, who has been all this time examining the clothes, pulling the seams, and trying the lining of the pockets, etc., puts clothes on dresser.)

PETER (getting up and taking the bag in his hand and turning out the money). Yes, I made the bargain well for you, Michael. Old John Cahel would sooner have kept a share of this a while longer. "Let me keep the half of it till the first boy is born," says he. "You will not," says I. "Whether there is or is not a boy, the whole hundred pounds must be in Michael's hands before he brings your daughter to the house." The wife spoke to him then, and he gave in at the end.

BRIDGET. You seem well pleased to be handling the money, Peter.

PETER. Indeed, I wish I'd had the luck to get a hundred pounds, or twenty pounds itself, with the wife I married.

BRIDGET. Well, if I didn't bring much, I didn't get much. What had you the day I married you but a flock of hens and you feeding them, and a few lambs and you driving them to the market at Ballina? (She is vexed and bangs a jug on the dresser.) If I brought no fortune I worked it out in my bones, laying down the baby-Michael, that is standing there now-on a stook of straw, while I dug the potatoes, and never asking big dresses or anything but to be working.

PETER.

That is true, indeed. (He pats her arm.) BRIDGET. Leave me alone now till I ready the house for the woman that is to come into it.

PETER. You are the best woman in Ireland, but money is good, too. (He begins handling the money again and sits down.) I never thought to see so much money within my four walls. We can do great things now we have it. We can take the ten acres of land we have a chance of since Jamsie Dempsey died, and stock it. We will go to the fair of Ballina to buy the stock. Did Delia ask any of the money for her own use, Michael?

MICHAEL. She did not indeed. She did not seem to take much notice of it, or to look at it at all.

BRIDGET. That's no wonder. Why would she look at it when she had yourself to look at-a fine strong young man? It is proud she must be to get you-a good, steady boy, that will make use of the money, and will not be running through it, or spending it on drink, like another. PETER. It's likely Michael himself was not thinking

much of the fortune either, but of what sort the girl was to look at.

MICHAEL (coming over toward the table). Well, you would like a nice comely girl to be beside you, and to go walking with you. The fortune only lasts for a while, but the woman will be there always.

PATRICK (turning round from the window). They are cheering again down in the town. Maybe they are landing horses from Enniscrone. They do be cheering when the horses take the water well. MICHAEL. There are no horses in it. Where would they be going and no fair at hand? Go down to the town, Patrick, and see what is going on.

PATRICK (opens the door to go out, but stops for a moment on the threshold). Will Delia remember, do you think, to bring the greyhound pup she promised me when she would be coming to the house?

MICHAEL. She will surely.

the door open.)

(PATRICK goes out leaving

PETER. It will be Patrick's turn next to be looking for a fortune, but he won't find it so easy to get it, and he with no place of his own.

BRIDGET. I do be thinking sometimes, now things are going so well with us, and the Cahels such a good back to us in the district, and Delia's own uncle a priest, we might be put in the way of making Patrick himself a priest some day, and he so good at his books.

PETER. Time enough, time enough; you have always your head full of plans.

BRIDGET. We will be well able to give him learning, and not to send him tramping the country like a poor scholar that lives on charity.

MICHAEL. They 're not done cheering yet. (He goes over to the door and stands there for a moment putting up his hand to shade his eyes.)

BRIDGET.
MICHAEL.
BRIDGET.

Do you see anything?

I see an old woman coming up the path.
Who is it, I wonder?

MICHAEL. I don't think it's one of the neighbors, but she has her cloak over her face.

BRIDGET. Maybe it's the same woman Patrick saw a while ago. It might be some poor woman heard we were