no rest by night or day as long as they remained within the desecrated walls. A series of hand-to-hand conflicts, in which Nial's people suffered severely, ensued, and in the course of a fortnight many of the revolted Irish, repenting of their treason, deserted in twos and threes to our prince's camp. Cooped up in the monasteries, and so vigilantly watched by O'Donnell that they could not come out into the open country to lift preys, Nial's peop'e began to mutiny, when lo, on the night of Michaelmas, the powder stored in the monastery of Donegal took fire (whether accidentally, or by the special interposition of heaven, I know not) and exploded with a terrific crash, that was heard far out at sea; nay, and scared the wild deer in the coverts of Barnesmore. Oh, the appalling spectacle! hundreds of the besieged were blown to atoms, others, and among the rest Nial's own brother, were crushed to death by masses of the rent masonry, and all that night while the woodwork of the buildings blazed like a red volcano, in whose glare friend and foe were distinctly visible to each other, O'Donnell's swordsmen pressed the survivors back across their trenches into the flames, where upwards of a thousand of them perished miserably. Nor should it be forgotten that a ship laden with munitions for the besieged, ran on a rock, and went to pieces that very night, just as she was entering the bay of Donegal. Next morning Nial procceded, unobserved by O'Donnell's troops, along the strand to Magharabeg, and returned under cover of the guns of an English war vessel, with the soldiers he had left in that place, determined to maintain himself to the last, among the smouldering ruins of the burnt monastery. O'Donnell immediately shifted his camp nearer to Donegal and continued the siege till October, when, being informed that the Spaniards had landed at Kinsale, he struck his tents, and marched to their assistance. Let me draw a veil over the disasters which befel our prince, and console myself by recording that O'Dunlevy, a friar of Donegal, received his latest sigh, and that the Franciscan monastery of Valladolid holds his mortal remains. In the year 1602, Oliver Lambert, the English governor of Connaught, seized the entire of our sacred furniture, which he desecrated, by turning the chalices into drinking cups, and ripping up the brocaded vestments for the vilest uses. Thus perished that fair monastery, with its treasures of gold, and silver, and precious books. [September, life, he fled with the great O'Neill to Rome, where they both died and were buried in the Franciscan monastery of the Janiculum. Thus were our poor friars left without a protector, and the rebuilding of the monastery unfinished. The English, who now possess the whole country, suffer the old friars to dree the residue of their years among the mountains and glens, because they know that they must all die out very soon; but they will not allow them to receive any young members. Such is the actual condition of our community in the neighbourhood of that once fair monastery I loved so well, and over whose ruins mine aged eyes have wept. "But father," said Purcell, closing the book, "you have not told us how it fared with Nial Garv." "May God assoil him!" replied Mooney; 'he was treated as he deserved-the English arrested him about two years after the flight of Earl Rory-and although Apsley, the lieutenant of London Tower, reports that Nial did the state as great service as any man of his nation, in the late queen's reign,' nevertheless, he and his son Naghtan, whom they took from Oxford College, are still held in chains, without hope of enlargement. Nial shared the fate of many other traitors ;the English used them for their own purposes as long as they required their infamous services, and when their work was done, flung them to rot in a dungeon." At this moment a lay-brother entered the apartment, and told father Mooney that a courier from the court of the Archdukes was waiting to see him on a matter of serious moment. "Let him come in," replied the good friar, "for assuredly the Archdukes have unequalled claims to our poor attentions." "Father," said the courier, as he crossed the threshold, their Highnesses have charged me with a doleful mission. I have ridden in hot haste from Brussels, to inform you that Bernard O'Neill, son of the great Earl of Tyrone, and page to the Infante, has been found murdered in his apartment this afternoon." "Murdered!" exclaimed the two friars. ""Tis too true," continued the courier; "the fact has astounded all Brussels. The Court goes into mourning this very night, and the obsequies will take place tomorrow, in the cathedral of St. Gudule, where their Highnesses expect the presence of your reverend community." "But what Judas perpetrated the horrid deed ?" demanded the aged friar, covering his face with his hands ;—“ was it some fiend in human shape, like those whom Cecil and Mountjoy employed to assassinate his illustrious father by dagger or poison?" "I know not," answered the courier; "for, as yet, the whole affair is shrouded in mystery. The noble youth was found strangled in his own lodgings, to which the murderers got access in the absence of his tutor and two valets, mere striplings, one of whom was Irish and the other French. Doubtless it would have been too perilous to attempt such an atrocity in the palace of the Archdukes, and the murderers-be they who they may -sought their opportunity in the page's private lodgings. His throat bears marks of violent compression; and, after life was extinct, the perpetrators of this execrable villany suspended the corse by a cord five feet long, to make it appear that he committed suicide. Their Highnesses' chirurgeon, however, affirms, after a careful autopsy, that he was cruelly murdered. Who could think that he would commit suicide?" "He" interrupted the Provincial, his noble soul never harboured such a base thought. Alas! alas! we knew him well, for his father entrusted him to the care of our friars here in Louvain, when he was only nine years old. Would to God that he had brought him with him to Rome, where he would have been farther removed from the sworn enemies of his race and creed! But heaven's will be done, and let us bow to its inscrutable behests. Dear, generous youth, what a hapless lot has been thine-how rapidly hast thou followed thy glorious father to the grave!* Among all thy compeers there was none like to thee, for comely face, virile gravity, and heroic virtue. Foremost in our schools, most distinguished in all science that became thy lofty lineage, thou wouldst have rivalled thy father's deathless deeds, had heaven spared thee to our hopes, and bleeding country. Ah! how often has this old heart thrilled with joy, when I heard the Archduchess call thee the fairest rose in her garland-and oh, with what ill-suppressed emotion have I listened to our Archduke, (whom may God preserve!) telling how, instead of being enervated by four years of court life, thy knowledge of book-lore, love of learned men, and skill in every chivalrous exercise, raised thee far above all thy young competitors. Woe to the impious hand that wrought the heinous deed-woe to the envious heart that conceived it. Envions! alas, doth not experience teach that the sordid and grovelling plod their way through life unharmed and little noticed, while those who channel a distinguished course for themselves, either by the innate force of their own genius, or the perpetuation of ancestral fame, become targets for the poisoned shafts of calumny; nay, and often objects of the murderer's implacable hatred? God rest thee, Bernard, son of Hugh! and since we cannot lay thee in thy father's grave, we will crave it as a boon that thy loved remains be given to us, and interred in our new church, where, unless my forecastings deceive me, many another Irish exile shall await the resurrection. Go, kind sir, and tell their Highnesses, that we will hasten to Brussels to-morrow morning, after having chanted Mass and requiem for the soul so untimeously sent to its account.” "Father," continued the Provincial, addressing his colleague, after the courier had retired, "let us try to snatch a few hours' sleep, if the dolorous tidings we have just heard will suffer it to visit us. We will resame our reading some other time, and I will unfold certain matters of great interest which do not come within the scope of your volume. Pax tecum-rood night!" *Hugh O'Neill died in 1616, just one year before the murder of his son. LAST MOMENTS. BY CAVIARE. ALL day the clouds loom, black and dead, That blows the swallows from the strands; Heavily shine the lilac lights. Along the garden's blossomed wall; The lime trees shake their blanchèd boughs; The casements clash within the hall; The windows darken to the East; She dies before the setting day; Immortal brightness fixed burns Within her dark eyes. Let us pray. The yellow, matted mignonette Amid the universal grey; Her pulse is low, her cheek is fired, Three double violets, a leaf Of blowing myrtle; daisies red, Blue pansies and a wasted rose Are grouped beside the silent bed: She sees them, and her eyes are wet, For, glimmers, through the mournful clime, The flowered hedge-rows round the farm, And meadows fresh with early thyme. Speak low; whilst scarce her breath can stain All day the moon, a golden span, Is bended in the Southern air; The willows whiten by the brooks; VOL. I. The hills are barred with troublous glare. U Sick breathings, from the garden p'ats, The twilight thickens; and, forlorn, The peacock from the paddock cries. Hark, to the bell! 'tis curfew time; At times, great footfalls labour slow The swallows whistle in the thatch; One star shines faintly down the bay. Across the threshold. Let us pray. PADDY JOYCE'S CABIN. GENTLE reader, if thou hast perused with due attention the preceding number of this miscellany, it will be unnecessary for us to describe to thee minutely the scene of the incidents which we are now about to relate; but if thou hast not enjoyed that delectable entertainment, it must suffice thee for the present to know that Glen Inagh, to which thou art about to be introduced, is a certain deep and picturesque valley formed by the ridge of mountains which separates Joyce-Country from Conamara, and the lofty and precipitous group of Bennabeola, which makes so conspicuous a feature in the scenery of the latter wild and barren district. It is now a great many years ago since a stranger, who had been practising Walton's gentle art in the lough from which the glen derives its name, sought shelter one afternoon from a violent storm in one of the cabins which then stood close under the eastern slope of Knock pasheemore. He had already been well drenched before he reached the cabin, and was glad to obtain a seat by the fire until the shower, as he hoped, should pass away. It was, however, no passing shower. The wind, which was from the Northwest, freshened every moment, and sweeping through the opening of Lug-an-tarriv, where the Joyce Country mountains diverge to the North, was reverberated by the mountains on either side, and raged through the glen with a fury like that of a tornado. The frequent recurrence of similar storms had indeed taught the inhabitants the precaution of tying down the roofs of their houses by means of large stones suspended all round, and of adopting the like means to prevent their corn stacks and ricks of turf from being whirled off by the tempest. The scene on the occasion we refer to was appalling in its grandeur. Each mass of cloud, after traversing the Atlantic, and being augmented by the spray on the bold headlands of Moelrea and Cleggan, hurried by the base of Leenane and over the dreary heath that intervened, only to meet the naked sides of Bencorr, thence to be hurled back against Ben-y-vriccaun, filling the glen with horrid turmoil, and pouring out its cataracts of rain uutil every stream was swelled into a torrent, that carried away rocks in its headlong course, and the bogs were converted into a spewy flood. It was such a storm as could only be witnessed among those western mountains so near the wild coast of the Atlantic; and it was a vain hope to expect that it would pass away that evening. "Tis a wild day-Is la feeúne e," said Paddy Joyce, the owner of the cabin, as he went now and then to the door and looked out on the raging tempest with an expression which betrayed no hope of a clear sky for that day. The stranger, who was youthful, and whose appearance indicated high rank and refined manners, sat drying himself by the fire, but enjoyed the glimpses which he thence obtained through the cabin door of the tremendons scene of elemental strife which was passing outside, and the grandeur of which was enhanced by mo mentary apparitions of dark masses of the neighbouring mountains through the broken clouds. To him it seemed one of the most stupendous sights he had ever beheld. "I fear it won't clear up to-night," said Paddy, after watching in vain for some clearance among the scudding clouds; "and it might cost you your life, sir, to get to Derryclare lodge in such weather as this." "Well," replied the stranger, "I'll not regret being unable to go to the lodge, if it be no inconvenience to you that I should remain under your roof to-night." Musha, 'tis a poor place for the like of you," said Paddy; but," he added with earnestness, "if it was a thousand times better, you'd be heartily welcome to it; so if you can put up with it for this night, make your mind easy. And I believe you may as well do so," he continued, giving a last look from the door; "for I am sure the storm will last all night." It is a curious fact that those in Conamara who know English, speak it with a better accent than is heard among the same class in the interior of the country, and that its use was more general among the peasantry of that wild district a few years ago, than with those in the cultivated parts of the Western province. This is accounted for in a curious way by the people, who trace the peculiarity to a time-not a very remote one either -when Conamara was the common retreat of those whom cruel and unjust laws had driven from the pale of civilized society; but in the same proportion that the modern dialect has been usurping the place of the ancient Celtic language elsewhere, the use of English has declined in such secluded places as Glen Inagh. This, at least, was the case at the time of which we are writing; but Paddy Joyce was one of those who still remembered a little of the English which he once spoke with fluency when, residing near the coast, he held close intercourse with the bold smugglers who came that way; altho' his wife and children could only with difficulty speak a few words of English. Paddy Joyce's superior knowledge in this respect was very useful to his guest, who was an Englishman, and who could only judge of Irish by the impression which its rich but unfamiliar sounds made on organs accustomed ouly to the smooth accents of modern idioms. To him it seemed harsh and barbarous, as well as unintelligible; but there was nothing in the manner or expression of those around him to make him suspect that one word was uttered which would not have been spoken had his knowledge of the language been as perfect as their own. Paddy now left the storm to howl and the rain to pour unheeded, and ordering & fresh supply of turf on the fire, joined his guest before the blazing hearth. In a little while a skib, smoking with hot and smiling potatoes, was produced, and deposited on the pot which had just been taken from the fire, and which was thus made to answer the purpose of a table. Some of the best of the potatoes were set apart with eggs and milk before the stranger, to whom hunger rendered the simple fare right palatable. By and by a few visitors, whom curiosity induced to brave the storm, came in dripping with rain from the neighbouring cabins, and found places on sundry loose stones about the fire: the hearth was swept, the social circle drawn close together, and Paddy, who could tell an excellent story in his own way, related various adventures which befel him long ago with the smugglers. He described many a wonderful feat performed by Mârya-na-da-watta, or Mary-of-the-two-masts, a craft rigged like a felucca, and which belonged to Martin O'Malley, of Killeen, the most famous and successful smuggler in those parts, at the close of the 18th century;-how she used to skim the rocks at Cleggan-head, and run within the breakers off Aughrus-point, defying the revenue cutter, which was in pursuit, to follow her; and how she would then deposit in safety, in some inlet of that iron-bound coast. the rich cargo of tobacco and brandy which she had carried from Guernsey, and a great deal more to the same effect. Paddy could also sing a good Irish song, and gave his company the Bonnish Peggy-ny-Ara, or "Wedding of Peggy O'Hara," in which Sweeny, a west Connaught bard of the last century, enumerated with characteristic attributes for each, the guests invited to the marriage-banquet, comprising representatives of all the old families of the country, to whom were added some of the Muintir Crommell, or Cromwell's people, although, as the poet said, it was not right they should be there. All this Paddy interpreted to the satisfaction of his English guest; and his song was followed by a still better one from a young man who sat behind backs, and who threw his whole soul into the beautiful and pathetic strain of the love ditty which he poured forth. As this seems a fitting place to introduce some other members of the fire-side circle to our readers, we may mention that besides Paddy Joyce and his wife, the family consisted of a young man and woman, their only children the former called Mihale Padrig, to distinguish him from other Michaels of the same numerous tribe of Joyce, in the village; and the latter a comely girl of eighteen, called Noreen, (the diminutive of Honora), also with the addition of her father's baptismal name by way of distinction. Noreen Joyce was adorned with personal charms of no ordinary character. Her features were regular, and she had all that gracefulness of figure and carriage in which the peasant girls of Conamara so frequently rival the far-famed beauties of Andalusia. Her complexion, it is true, had suffered a little both from the sun and the rude blasts of winter, but still it seemed fair when observed in contrast with the raven locks which flowed with a slight natural curl down her shoulders; and her sloe-black-eyes beamed with a soft expression from beneath a pair of long and pliant eyelashes. A certain reserve in her manner gave her an air of unsophisticated dignity and although her dress was no better than that of the poorest of her class, being externally limited to a close jacket of red flannel and a petticoat of the same material, yet there were few girls in Conamara who appeared with equal grace in that simple costume. Noreen Joyce, however, had one fault. She was hard-hearted; or, at least, so thought young Emon Joyce, who was her betrothed lover, the PADDY JOYCE'S CABIN. accepted of her parents, but upon whom she looked with a feeling of indifference; his addresses being received merely because she cared for no person in particular, except her parents and her brother. It is unnecessary to tell those who know anything of an Irish cabin, that all the smoke which was produced on Paddy Joyce's hearth, did not usually find its way through the chimney; and on the night in question, it is no wonder if the contending blasts of the storm at the foot of Bennabeola often drove back the blue column that tried to escape through the aperture in the roof, whirling it down again into the faces of those who sat round the fire. This afforded capital sport to a young urchin who had perched himself on the sooty hob, almost behind the fire, and who seemed to delight in grinning, with ludicrous variations of countenance, as the smoke alternately filled his own eyes, or deserted them for those of his neighbours. This inconvenience was by no means so pleasant to Noreen, who was unwilling to distort her pretty features in the presence of her friends. Accordingly, after she had been persecuted by the smoke for a few minutes at one side of the fire, she removed to a place that had been vacated for her at the opposite side; but the change was useless. She had scarcely been re-seated, when a cloud of smoke, driven down by a thundering blast outside, followed her to her new position. ""Tis no lie, what every one says, but the smoke follows the handsomest," said a voice near the spot that had just been deserted by Paddy Joyce's charming daughter. The voice was the same that had so sweetly sung the plaintive song a while before, and was indeed no other than that of the infatuated Emon, who uttered even that simple compliment with a pathos that proved it came from his heart. "If such be the case," observed the stranger, for whom the phrase was interpreted, "no smoke has ever shown better taste, nor do I think it could easily find equal beauty to annoy." Noreen's blush showed that the substance of the compliment was understood by her. than before, and it was only then, as she sat directly opShe looked prettier posite him, that the stranger had an opportunity of observing the effect of her beautiful features in full play. He perceived from the solemn air with which the father listened to his daughter's praise that any repetition of it would not be welcome, so he made no further allusion to Noreen's beanty; but if he curbed his tongue, he could not so easily restrain his eyes, and his glance often met that of the dark-eyed peasant girl, who, as often, shrank from his gaze. Somebody has compared the looks which are exchanged on such occasions to the encounters of an illassorted tournament, when one weak knight is always worsted at the first touch of his antagonist's lance, yet always returns to the conflict, as if tempted by the impunity with which he imagines that he receives the blows. Noreen's dark eye rolled over the whole fire-side circle; even Emon came in for more of her looks than usual; [September, a but, alas! was it not because there was in that circle a fair youth of gentle mien, who had just then said, with an air of such sincerity, that she was a very pretty girl? He had seen the great world, and ought to be good judge of beauty; perhaps, too, he was some great man whose good opinion would have been prized by the fairest ladies; and poor Noreen thought it was no won der if his good opinion were indeed prized by any one. Then, his glances seemed to say that he really thought as he spoke, for she read admiration in his calm, intelligent expression. When Emon or any other admirers hinted anything to her about love, they never looked into her face at all, but seemed to suffer more embarrassment themselves than she did; and now, for the first time in her life, she saw the soul speaking tenderly through that lustrous organ of its communication-the human eye. "Ca duvairt se ?" ("what did he say ?") enquired Emon in a low voice of the bean-a-tigh, several minutes after the stranger's observation; for although Mrs. Joyce never attempted to speak English, it was well known that she understood it tolerably. "He said," replied the mother, in Irish, and in a much louder voice than Emon's whisper, "that Nora is a very, very handsome girl; and that either the smoke or anybody else might search the world all over before a more beautiful colleen could be found." At this paraphrase of the stranger's words, Noreen blushed more deeply than before, and Emon was sorry in his heart he had asked for the interpretation of such a piece of praise uttered by another. "Then will you drop your nonsense?" said the father in an upbraiding tone; does not understand you." "'tis very well the gentleman ""Tis no nonsense at all," rejoined the mother, with good-humoured perseverance. "Sure 'tis only what we'd all say," observed Emon, with a suppressed sigh: "there is not another girl in the world-" "Do you hold your tongue at any rate: what do you know about the world?" said Noreen, interrupting her lover, who could only scratch his head to express his embarrassment. Noreen was never severe on any one but poor Emon. "That is the way the women get their heads turned," observed her father. "And 'tis hard to pity them," chimed in Noreen's brother. He was Noreen looked thankfully at the stranger. the only one who had said anything kind of her, except her mother, and Emon; and the praise of the latter she disregarded. She looked again from one familiar face to another in the group; but although her eyes rested a whole minute on some-even on the begrimed visage of the urchin on the hob-they would not dwell a thousandth part of that time on the countenance that she sought to behold above all the others. stranger was an exceedingly handsome young man, of In fact the gentle and engaging manners; and the ease and homely air with which he enjoyed their hospitality, listening thoughtfully to the plaintive melody of their songs, and |