of Derry, afforded him every facility for gratifying this passion. Almost daily brilliant cavalcades of ladies and gallants rode out through the gloomy gates, to chase the wild deer on the banks of the Foyle, and all day long the ringing of horns and the baying of hounds woke the echoes of the woods which stretched along the river.

The sport had been particularly good, and, wearied with the exciting amusement of the day, a party of ladies and gentlemen were returning to the town. O'Neill was of the number. He rode by the side of a lady, of brilliant dress and not unpleasant features, who evidently thought the Irish chief by her side no unworthy subject on which to try the effect of her charms of person and manner. It was, however, equally evident that the impression she made was not proportioned to her efforts or her expectations. It may have been the cold, searching look which glittered in her eyes as she bent them upon him, or it may have been the hollow, meaningless laugh with which his sallies were received, or the flippancy of the tone in which they were replied to; certain it is that, as the conversation continued, O'Neill's sprightliness of demeanour visibly diminished, his tone became graver, his observations more and more commonplace, and his manner more rigidly polite. He had much experience in casting the character of those about him, and he had, perhaps, learned that a calculating woman is an undesirable acquaintance, that if she be proud as well as crafty, she is not merely disagreeable, she is dangerous. If he did not know it previously, the experience that taught it to him was an expensive one.

"Thou art a heartless truant," said the lady, turning her eyes on the impassive face of her companion. "We miss thee from all our merry meetings."

"My presence would add little to the merriment; I should counterfeit gaiety not to appear a stranger in such scenes."

"Surely thou couldst steal away from the crowd of thy cares for a few short hours by night."

"They are watchful companions, lady," returned O'Neill, with a sad smile; "it is hard to evade their importunity. They not only haunt me by day, they keep watch by my pillow at night."

"Let them come with thee, then; I will warrant thee there is a witchery in bright eyes and fair faces which will scare them away.'

O'Neill shook his head doubtfully. The lady's eagerness to overcome his reluctance increased in proportion as she began to understand the difficulty of doing so. It would be a gratification to her vanity to prevail where so many others had failed; and this satisfaction she was determined to enjoy.

'Thou slightest, then, the power of our charms ?" she asked. "Nay, I am not unjust," replied O'Neill.

"Wouldst prove it ?"

At any cost," was the reply his gallantry dictated.

"Try their virtue."

"Thou dost impose a heavy task, lady," remarked O'Neill.

"Thou becomest ungallant again, Sir Knight," returned his companion. "Methinks I could not have selected lists worthier of thy

prowess than our ball-room, nor imposed on thee a lighter service than to lead the dance to-morrow night with me."

"Would that thou hadst a knight more fitted to obey thy behests. Much do I fear me thy chosen cavalier will not do thee honour. With shame he confesses that he hath not even the harness which would befit the service, or the place where it is to be rendered."

The lady cast a glance at O'Neill's attire.

"I shall be satisfied if my champion appears within the lists armed as he is at present," she observed.

"And booted thus ?" asked the unwilling cavalier, tapping with his whip the long boots of coarse leather which he wore.

"Truly, I could wish his foot gear of finer texture," she replied, smiling; but for the amendment I will myself provide. We are no longer privileged to buckle on the spurs of errant-knights departing on adventurous journeys, but we may still be permitted to equip our preux chevaliers for the dance. A pair of boots is rather a novel kind of gift from a lady; but, considering the task I set thee to do, I cannot offer anything more appropriate. Expect, then, this gift; it will find thee in due time. Farewell, Sir Knight. Since thou comest not to the city, we part company here. I hasten to receive the congratulations of my cousin, Sir Charles, on the feat I have accomplished."

The lady inclined her proud head. O'Neill gracefully acknowledged the courtesy, and rode away by the road which led to his camp. His attendants followed, and the cavalcade, much diminished in numbers, pursued its way towards the town.

"Truly there is witchery in bright eyes and a fair face," said a smooth voice by the side of the lady who had been conversing with O'Neill, "since they have prevailed over the moodiness of that scowling rebel."

"You heard my arguments, Mr. Plunkett ?" asked the lady, not a little gratified by the compliment so delicately administered.

"Yes, and wondered much at their effect. I have had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with Owen MacArt, and am surprised that he yielded so easily."

"Yet, methinks it should not require much persuasion to prevail on him to accept what he must feel to be an honour."

"But what he regards it a vast condescension to accept."

'Sir, no man can stoop far to receive the hospitality of Sir Charles Coote," answered the lady, haughtily.

"Nathless, yon starving rebel thinks he has performed an extravagant act of gallantry in doing so at your solicitation. I have the misfortune to know him well, and to know, besides, the estimation in which he holds his entertainer, and, if I might dare to mention it, the ladies of his entertainer's family."

There were stories afloat concerning the family history of the Cootes which gave a peculiar poignancy to the concluding falsehood. The proud beauty winced under the pain so ruthlessly inflicted, and glared for an instant angrily upon her tormentor. The white face of Lucas Plunkett betrayed no sign of emotion under this scrutiny.

Some of which have been preserved to our own time.

66

Only assure me that the wretched marauder has dared to breathe a syllable against the fair fame of our house," she gasped, in a whisper, while the passion that had been excited within her flashed from her eyes.

66

"I have spoken rashly, lady," said Plunkett, with well-assumed Forget the despicable calumnies which I have so incautiously mentioned."

contrition.

"Forget!" she answered, wrathfully. "Prove that our name has been traduced, and the insult shall be forgotten only when it is avenged."

"You must permit me to withhold this evidence," replied Plunkett. "I perceive I have already unwittingly angered where I only

meant to warn."

"You shall tell me all," persisted the lady, cutting her horse with her riding-whip over the shoulders. "I must insist."

"At another time, and in another place, then," whispered Plunkett; "meantime, forget not to forward to your chosen knight the gift you promised him."

"No, no!" she exclaimed, with scorn, "I have been fool enough already. I will waste no more attentions on this base slanderer. Would you have me by further favours provoke further contempt ?"

"No. My meaning was, that in conferring this one, you should find means to punish the insolence which scorned the others."

The angry woman bent an inquiring look upon the features of her companion, but she could trace nothing there which gave a clue to the import of his words.

"I fail to comprehend the suggestion," she observed.

"Transmit your gift through me, and it shall be made intelligible." Again the lady's searching eyes scanned Plunkett's face, but without discovering anything which would explain the somewhat strange proposal he had just made. She understood that his plan, whatever it might be, boded no good to the guest whom she had invited, and she hesitated for an instant to lend herself to a plot against him. But there are few men and fewer women in whom mere respect for the laws of honour can counteract the desire of revenge. Her scruples were easily reasoned away. After all, if her guest suffered any wrong the sufferer was nothing more than a troublesome rebel, whose absence from the country would be a gain to all parties; and he suffered, too, by the hand of one of his own creed and party. It was clear that if there was anything culpable in the proceeding, little of the fault and not very much of the infamy could attach to Miss Coote.

"Be it so," she answered, at length. "I will entrust you with the present I am pledged to send. Fail not to have it conveyed to its destination."

"Doubt it not, lady," replied Plunkett, cheerfully; "thy favoured knight shall dance right merrily. And merry be that dance," he muttered under his breath; "it shall be his last."

Ar the period with which we are concerned an insane dread of witches and witchcraft prevailed throughout Europe. In every unusual phenomenon the excited popular mind beheld a direct interference of some supernatural agent in the affairs of men. Deformity of person, and much more, eccentricity of character, were enough to convict men and women of correspondence with the unseen powers of evil, and this reputation served as a passport to the horse-pond, and in thousands of cases to the stake. Endless tortures were inflicted on the suspected wretches, and numberless lives sacrificed to the terrors of a superstitious age. It is not here the place to discuss the justice of the sentences passed on the hags who were proved to have careered across Europe at night on a broomstick, to hold revel with Satan at Beneventum, or to question the rightness of destroying whole villages in order effectually to suppress the practice of the black art amongst their inhabitants. That old women should be arraigned for such offences, and that these offences entailed such wholesale punishments, were not startling doctrines to the judges or legislators of the seventeenth century. The history of our own land is, happily, unstained by the cruelties to which these superstitions gave occasion throughout the Continent of Europe. But, though burning and drowning were not resorted to as means of extirpating witchcraft, nowhere was the belief in it more sincere, and the corresponding dread of witches more intense, than in Ireland. If a farmer discovered that his dairy was not as productive as usual the misfortune was traced to some old woman of the neighbourhood who had bewitched his cattle. If there were a dearth of eggs, his housewife could remember that a "lone woman" of the locality had cast an "evil eye" on the poultry in passing by; and not unfrequently disasters which affected the members of the family themselves were attributed to the same dark influence. In cases of this kind, the wrong done was not avenged by the death of the supposed malefactor. It was the custom to propitiate rather than to punish: and, for this reason, many whose relations with the evil spirit were far from intimate, bore without remonstrance the character of witch attributed to them by popular opinion. It must be admitted that in some of these instances natural depravity of disposition formed such a good equivalent for diabolical inspiration that it might easily have been mistaken for it. In general, however, the real crime of the witches was that they were older, uglier, less devout, more eccentric, and sometimes, possessed of more knowledge than their neighbours.

In one of the narrowest of the narrow streets of Derry dwelt at this time a member of this much-decried fraternity. She had once been young, though all the children of the street most firmly believed the contrary. She had had friends, who loved her and whom she loved; had enjoyed the pleasures of home, and contributed to create them. But these advantages had been hers long ago. She had lost them a long time since, and the world had punished her, as it always punishes those who are wicked enough to fail in life-it had cast her off. Embittered by her misfortunes, she adopted a mode of life which made her an object of superstitious dread to the world from which she was an outcast. The musty cellar in which she lived was adorned with a varied collection of dried herbs; skins of various animals hung upon the wall; a stuffed owl stared vacantly at the opposite wall from above the shelf on which the old woman kept her few kitchen utensils; and a living black cat sat by the fireside, apparently as constant at his post as the owl. Here in this weird sanctuary, which only some powerful motive of self-interest induced the uninitiated to enter, was the witch supposed to hold her communings with the powers of evil. Here she performed her diabolical rites to the demon she served. Here she wrought those spells which brought disease among the cattle, and blight upon the crops, and death into the households of the neighbourhood. Here, too, she concocted those wondrous mixtures which charmed away the sickness with which offended spirits punished their enemies, as well as the subtler potions which the heart of youth or maiden could not resist. It was whispered that her skill extended beyond the science of charms and philters, and that she was acquainted with drugs and essences of a less harmless character; but the simple peasantry, on whose credulity she practised, had no occasion to put this branch of her knowledge to the test. She had gained the reputation no one knew how.

The old woman was sitting by her cheerless fireside, her long, bony hand clutching a thick staff with which she seemed to prop herself upon the chair; her gaunt figure was bent forward over the embers, and her dull, sunken eyes watched their flickerings and expirings with unconscious steadiness. The black cat, animated by the example of his mistress, was pursuing his customary occupation of observing the fire with unusual energy, and the owl upon his perch seemed more than ordinarily observant. It was growing dark; passengers were rarely afoot in that quarter at such an hour, and the few whom necessity compelled to come abroad made a circuit to avoid the dwelling of the witch, whom they believed to be at that time preparing for her nightly rambles. It would, therefore, have been matter of surprise to the inmates of the cellar, had they been capable of the feeling, that at so late an hour the tramp of a well-booted foot waked the echoes of the lonely street; they would have wondered still more that the wayfarer stopped before their own dreaded dwelling; and their astonishment would have reached its height to observe a tall figure, wrapped in a long cloak, present itself at the door, obstructing the feeble rays of light that struggled to enter by it. Occurrences so unwonted ought to have excited the wonder of all the denizens of the