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"Mother," he said, "go away-he will-murder you-as he did

me."

At the same moment, Alice heard sounds as if some one were moving in the upper rooms, and thinking of nothing but the necessity for taking her boy away from this fearful place, she put forth her utmost strength, and raising him in her arms, staggered with him to the door, just as a heavy step was heard descending the staircase. She laid Owen down in the little boat in which she had herself come, and having first unfastened the rope which held the other boat, and sent it adrift, so as to cut off all danger of pursuit, she took up her oars, and began to row with all her might towards the shore.

Next morning, when Murphy returned to Inchmore, he was, to his great surprise, assailed on all sides with questions as to the reason why the light had not shown the night before in its usual place, and on going to Alice's cottage, he found the old man in a state of considerable alarm at the disappearance of his wife. These circumstances, joined to the loss of his own boat, roused the man's fears, and he was soon on his way to the lighthouse, accompanied by a sub-inspector of police, and two armed men.

On reaching it, they found unmistakable evidence of its having been the scene of a severe struggle. The table was overturned, the remains of supper being strewn around, while a long, sharp knife, which Owen was known to be in the habit of using as a bread-knife, lay in a pool of blood on the floor. Upstairs everything had been ransacked, although not in search of plunder, as a little bag of sovereigns-poor Owen's savings-was found untouched in an open drawer. Higher still, the same destructive hand had been at work, the complicated series of reflectors, and the clockwork which caused the lantern to revolve, being much injured. It seemed as if a maniac had been turned loose, in the trim, orderly lighthouse. human being, living or dead, was to be seen. The police officer had just come to the conclusion that the murderer had thrown the body of his victim into the sea, and had himself escaped, when one of the men found on a ledge of rock, as if thrown there by a swimmer about to plunge into the waves, a rough cloth jacket, which Murphy at once identified as being the one worn by Mat Sheehan the evening before. It was afterwards conjectured that, on finding. the boat gone, and his means of escape cut off, he had jumped into the sea, trusting for safety to his powers of swimming, which were considerable. Whether he succeeded in reaching an outward-bound vessel, and so making his way to America, or whether he swam until exhausted, and then sank, was never known; most probably the latter. Certain it is that all efforts to trace him failed.

The second morning after the night on which Murphy had left poor Owen at his post alive and well, some men who were returning from their night's fishing, saw a small boat apparently empty drifting about. On approaching, they found it to contain a woman with wild eyes and terror-stricken face, who sat in the bottom of the boat, supporting on her lap the figure of a young man, with livid features,

closed eyes, and clothes soaked with blood. The oars were gone, and the little boat was entirely at the mercy of the wind and waves, but she did not appear to notice it, her whole attention being given to the young man.

"He is asleep," she said, in answer to their inquiries; "he has been asleep a long time."

When they raised him, and tried to pour spirits down his throat, they found that he was not asleep but dead.

The medical evidence given at the inquest went to show, that poor Owen had been first stunned by a heavy blow, and afterwards stabbed. None of his wounds would in themselves have been fatal, so that he must have died from loss of blood. Murphy was of course examined, as was also Katie Sheehan. The latter appeared much sobered by the terrible consequences of her coquetry, and gave her evidence with many tears. She admitted that she had at one time given her cousin to understand that she would be his wife, and had allowed him to remain under that impression, even when the time had been fixed for her marriage with Owen. The morning of the murder, Mat had overheard some whispered confidences to another girl, about a wedding-gown, and had come to her in a fury to know what she meant. "She had been afeared of him," she said, "and had humoured him even to the extent of letting him think that the gown in question was intended for her marriage with himself."

Old Martin's words must have first shown him how he had been duped, and rage and despair having completely overmastered his always scanty amount of reason and self-control, he had snatched at the opportunity which was, as it were, flung into his hands by Murphy's absence, of wreaking his vengeance on his rival.

The murdered man was laid in Inchmore churchyard by the side of the elder Owen, and Alice was for many months an inmate of the county lunatic asylum. In her ravings, she revealed much of the story of that dreadful night and day, and explained many things that had been before incomprehensible. It was supposed, that on discovering that it was but the dead body of her son which she had rescued, she abandoned her oars in despair, and allowed the boat to drift as the wind and waves listed. No one who realises the horror of the discovery, or the agony of the ensuing hours, will wonder at her reason having given way. She and her husband met with much kindness; application having been made in the proper quarter, a small pension was secured to them, and during the time that Alice was in the asylum, Martin was kindly cared for by friends and neighbours. Their cottage being of course wanted for poor Owen's successor, the little cabin on the cliff, then in a ruinous condition, was made habitable for them, and here it was that Alice returned, at the end of some months, to resume her patient, devoted care of her husband. She was always as I had seen her, quiet and subdued, attentive to the old man's comfort, but seemingly indifferent to all else.

I only saw Alice M'Carthy once, as I left Inchmore soon after, but I never lost the interest which had been excited, first by her

appearance, and afterwards by her sad story; and as I kept up a desultory correspondence with the old priest, I learned from time to time the remaining incidents of her life. After the death of her husband, which happened two or three years later, her mind became again unsettled, and she took to wandering about the country, obtaining shelter in the farmers' houses, and doing various little services in return. Father Power drew her pension regularly and paid it to her in small sums, but she always gave it away as fast as she received it, and depended on the kindness of others for her own support. She still kept the key of her little cabin, and sometimes returned to it, when she would spend the whole day, and it was believed the greater part of the night, sitting on the door-step, her eyes fixed on the lighthouse. She was quite harmless, and was much loved by the children for miles round, who were the usual recipients of her money, and to whom she would tell stories of what had happened long ago, "Many hundred years ago," she used to say. She often in these stories curiously confused the two Owens, mixing up the events of her own childhood with those of her son's.

A few days since, I had a letter giving me the last chapter of this sad story. One stormy night, the lightkeeper on duty, who was sitting before the fire in the lower room of the lighthouse, heard a noise as of oars, and on opening the door found outside a small boat, its only occupant being a woman who was trying to fasten it to the iron ring in the wall. Much surprised, he drew the boat in, and on helping the woman into the room, he found that it was Alice, with wild, disordered hair, and spray-soaked clothes, who said that she had come to see her son Owen. The man, who knew her story, spoke gently to her, telling her that Owen was not there just then, and persuaded her to sit down and rest, promising to row her back in the morning. She objected to the delay, saying, "that she must go to Owen; he would be glad to see his mother;" but she was exhausted and numb with cold, and soon sank into a deep sleep, crouching by the fire. The man did not disturb her, but smoked quietly on, and when his mate came to relieve him, the two consulted together, and decided on leaving her there till morning, when they could row her over to Inchmore. Accordingly, when they had prepared breakfast next morning, one of them went over to waken her, that she might share it with them. She did not answer, and when the man, becoming impatient, removed her hands from before her face, they fell heavily at her sides—she was dead. Her words of the night before, "I am going to Owen," had been true ones.

They rowed her over as they had promised, and took her to her cabin, whence she was removed to the little churchyard on the hill, and laid near father and brother, husband and son. With the exception of the old priest, there is no one living now who remembers her in her youth; and in a very few years her story will be forgotten at Inchmore. I have striven to record it faithfully, but unless I had the power of bringing before the minds of my readers the picture which I can call up in my own, of the noble-looking, patient woman, I could not hope to inspire them with even a small share of the interest which I felt in the story of Alice M'Carthy and the Lighthouse at Inchmore.

AUTUMN SONGS.

I.

LOSE the door and drop the latch,

Look no more to see the shadow

Of the beech-tree on the meadow.

Sit you by the hearth to-day;

Come in, come in, for the swallow 's away!

No more piping round the eaves,
Housed are all the golden sheaves.
Like to birds of brilliant feather,
Scarlet leaflets fly together,

Drift and drop like hopes foregone;

Come in, come in, for the swallow has flown!

Misty woods look far from home,
Playful streams grow quarrelsome.
Now your eye will gladly follow
Smoke-wreaths curling in the hollow.
Strong of heart and sweet of mouth,
Come-and the swallow may stay in the south!

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THE SUCCESSFUL EXPLORATION OF AUSTRALIA.
ROBERT O'HARA BURKE.

ON

BY MELBOURNENSIS.

PART I.

N an elevated spot in the finest street in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, stands a conspicuous public monument. Its site is well chosen. It is placed at a point where two large streets, both straight as arrows, cross at right angles. Close by it several fine churches lift their lofty steeples to the clouds, and a short distance behind, at the east end of the street, rises the stately pile of the Treasury, with its broad flight of stone steps and its gracefully arranged gas-lamps. From the base of the monument the street, a mile in length, extends with a fine sweep towards the west. This is the only public monument, erected to the memory of Victorian colonists, of which Melbourne at present boasts. It consists of a group of bronze figures, supported on a solid stone pedestal. The figures which are more than life-size, represent Robert O'Hara Burke, the leader of the celebrated Victorian Exploring Expedition of 1860, and William John Wills, his faithful and heroic companion. Wills is seated on a mound of earth, while beside him, with one hand resting on his shoulder, stands the tall and martial figure of Burke. The stone block which upholds the group bears below four bronze plates representing various scenes of the expedition.

The details of the daring and successful attempt to explore the vast continent, of which Melbourne may be regarded as the chief city, are comparatively little known outside the limits of the Australian colonies. Not many tales of romance, however, possess more interest than the story of the brave men who traversed the immense and solitary wastes of the wilderness, and penetrated to the far-off seas which bound them on the north, and who perished as they returned homeward after nobly accomplishing their enterprise. Some idea may be formed of the heroism of the explorers from the fact that, before the Expedition of 1860, the interior of Australia was a geographical problem that had baffled the many daring attempts which had been made to solve it. Moreover, the theories afloat regarding its hidden depths were calculated to afford anything but encouragement. For the following particulars regarding those theories, we are indebted to the work of a living Australian author, Father J. Woods' "Discovery and Exploration of Australia." According to one supposition, the vast central tract was an inland sea. This opinion was based on the flow of many rivers towards a depression in the interior which is very little raised above the surface of the ocean, while the land round the coast on the west, north, and east, rises gradually to an elevation of several thousand feet above the sea-level. Another theory asserted that it was an immense desert of sand or

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