The great granite mountains, scathed with
thunder and furrowed by the lightning's stroke,
no longer see the giant striding from peak to
peak through the violet-coloured mist. No
longer the banshee wails under the leafless thorn-
bush; no longer the tap of the cluricaun's
hammer is heard by the gold-seeker. The black
bog pits have yielded almost their last gold
chain and brooch of the old Danish king, slain
long since, and buried amid gigantic elk bones
blackened pine trunks, and stone axes, down
far below the quaking surface, over which the
snipe zigzags or the bittern booms. The tumbling
waggon jolts by with its cargo of laughing
revellers, where the croppy piper was buried
under the sign-post during the troubles; or by
the heap of stones, once a happy home till the
red night that the Shanavests, or Carders, or
Hearts of Steel, hemmed round its burning roof.
No bleeding nun or ghost of the blaspheming fox-
hunter, who chased the vermin to the very altar,
appears now to scare the English pedestrian;
even the ghosts have emigrated out of Ireland
since the Union. Catholic ghosts, abhorring
Repeal, will not take the trouble to scare
Protestant land agents sneaking about in
disguise, for fear of the flint-piece and the sight
behind the wall. The good old days of female
hangmen, and processions of corpses in crimson
carts are gone by; the ribbonmen no longer
flaunt their ribbons at night upon the Curragh
or in the bawn; the gully, where the foxes
are, no longer has its black peat water stained
with the blood of Molly Maguire's children; the
tullagh's slope is untrodden by the insolent hoof
of the butcher yeoman's chargers; the tubber
(spring) is left by the barefooted pilgrim to the
snipe and the moor-hen; the sliebh is bluer than
ever, because a brighter sun shines on its mountains
of piled sapphire; the old stars shine
cheerier over the scorched headland where
the gull screams and the great droves of silver salmon
still leap and swim; the Dane's rath grows
greener, and the Druid's ghost lies on the grassy
knoll by the sea, listening to the old ocean hymn.

Tide of Lough Erne, let thy floods rise
and hide the ruins of dead men's graves, so
that old wrongs be hidden away and forgotten;
let the Croagh's peak point to a new
heaven and a new earth, so that the crimes
of the old blood-boltered Don and Donagh
be forgotten! Round towers, where the
squall-crow and starling only build, echo once
more with the voice of the prophecy of a
happier future! Shall we never see the day
when the coast of Ireland shall be starry at dusk
with the answering lustres of the warning light-
houses; when her mountains shall be circled—
not with black Phlegethons of bog, but with
smiling fields and belts of cottages; when fleets
of fishing-boats shall fill her bays, and her roads
shall be crowded with merchandise? May the
blessed day soon come when her cities shall
widen and her commerce increase; when her
fisheries shall become as numerous as her
manufactories, the north be white with bleaching-
fields, and the south be yellow with flocks!

Dennis here became uneasy about a seat-
cushion he had lost. " We are sure," he said,
to meet the masthur. He'll want to get up
just because it's dropped somewhere on the road.
Now, if I had had them all right I shouldn't
have seen the sole of his foot."

"What shall you do? The agent will be
stopping your wages," said I.

"If I don't find it to-morrow, I'll just stale
another," said Dennis in a low, quiet, voice.

"Who is that thin man in front, Dennis?"
said I.

"Oh, that's a schoolmaster," said Dennis, " I
know, by his cut, but I won't see him, or he'll
be wanting me to take him to Clifden, and pay
me with a writing lesson. Sorra a one that we
meet but I know, yet they don't know me, that's
the best of it. Here's the two Mr. Bradys.
The top of the morning to you, Mr. Brady!
They're brothers; you wouldn't think, your
honour, there was a drop of blood between them,
no more than there is between you and me"
(abruptly, with true Irish discursiveness). " Do
you see their oiled coats? It's better than any
mackintosh; it's soaked three months in oil; it's
better than all your mackintosh, with the soft
soap and ingy-rubber."

We were now entering Ballynabrig, along
whose suburb road was pouring a train or
country people returning from the fair. Now,
it was a primitive tumbling car, with its flat
shelf and outrigger crowded with grey-stockinged
farmers and laughing colleens; now, it was
a cage-cart full of pigs, who looked out between
the bars, with that calm, observing, friendly
independence peculiar to the Irish pig; now, most
amusing of all, it was a rough, conical-hatted,
old, raw-boned schoolmaster riding a donkey,
with his splay feet stuck in hay stirrups; now, we
met rough graziers wrapped in frieze; country-men
of all ages in the constitutional tail-coat, gilt
buttons, and knee-breeches, and the slip of a stick
stuck under the arm. Every eye was bright with
good-humoured whisky, some sang, all greeted us
with a shout, a flourish of sticks, and a joke.

Now ready, price 1s.,
Uniform with PICKWICK, DAVID COPPERFIELD, BLEAK
HOUSE, &c.,
A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
With Two Illustrations on Steel by HABLOT K.
BROWNE
To be completed in Eight Monthly Parts.
CHAPMAN and HALL, 193. Piccadilly, "., AND
"ALL THE YEAR ROUND" Office, 11. Wellington-street
North, London, W.C.

BACK NUMBERS OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" may always
be had of Messrs. CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly,
W., and at the Office of "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," 11,
Wellington-street North, London, W.C.