What could have brought her, who belonged to a different though kindred creed, there? Was it that her heart had at last relented, and she resorted to that delicate mode of insinuating as much? She had never been there before; or had some kind friend made her acquainted with the wretched isolation of his life, since she left that part of the country, and did her kind and gentle spirit feel compassion for his desolation? But then her beauty in so short a time what an astonishing change, what a wonderful progress in grace and loveliness, since he had seen her last! And could it be possible that he might even yet have a chance of hope? In this way the poor young man went on building his ideal castles, as he sauntered slowly and meditatively along, until the shades of evening began to fall.

Now, it is a pretty well-known axiom, that people will generally reason in the same way when they have the same facts placed before them, we mean in the ordinary circumstances of life only, because in religion or politics, although the facts may be the same, yet, guided by our prejudices alone, the inferences we draw from them are either north or south, according to the influence of those prejudices. On this occasion old Sam, however, reasoned precisely as his youngest son did. "Joe," said he to his elder, "what do you think o' yon? What brought her to the meeting-house the day, where she never was in all her life afore? What do you think o' that, man?"

"I don't know what to think of it," replied Joe, "it looks odd enough."

"How odd enough? What do you mean by odd enough?"

"Why," replied Joe again, "I can't account for it."

"No, I know you can't, but am not sae-De'il a ane o'yon wean-wean!-haith, she's no a wean now; wouh man, but she's a bonnie creature; but am sayin', deil a ane o' her ever came to meetin' without a purpose, and what do ye call that purpose? Saul, it's as clear as day that she has a hankerin' afther him. The lassie's sensible, and reflected on her conduct till him; and now that she's sorry for't, she wishes to let him see as much; deil anither thing it is."

Well, but what's to be done then," said Joe; "must we court her for him again ?"

"Nae doubt o't, but a'll open a new leaf wi' her now, an if I dinna make her show what for she came to meetin' the day instead o' goin' to church,-that mess o' worldly abomination,-why, am not here, that's all."

"I think," said Joe, "we had better do nothing in the matter until we see himself, and have some conversation with him on the subject."

"Weel, Joe, a don't differ from you there; a think you're right; an' when he comes home, and gets something to eat, a'll cross-examine him on the subject."

When the minister returned in the evening, calm and somewhat more placid than usual, for truth to say, hope had kindled up new aspirations in his heart, he took a slight dinner and a single glass of wine, after

"To what do you allude, father?"

"Hout man, what the deil nonsense is this? a mean yon bonnie wean o' Mrs. Brindsley's-no that she's a wean now; what do you suppose brought her to our place o' sensible worship this day, instead o' going to yon pack of abominations that's set forth in the cathe dral, as they caal it; e'en the very name's a remnant o' popery."

"My dear father," replied the son, "will I never be able to prevail upon you to judge and think of those who differ with you in religious matters with more charity ?"

"Charity! you can't charge me wi' ony waste charity towards them, barrin in religion-a befriend the lost creatures, a serve them when I can, a lend them money when they want it, a leave no Christian duty undone; and a may say the same o' the poor papishes, that's doubly lost, because they worship the pape,-poor benighted heathens; but religion's anither guess matter, and on that subject deil a one o' me wil spare either one or 'tother o' them. Howsomever, let us drap that; yon girl hasna' forgotten you, that's a clear case."

"Father, I am too much of a visionary myself," re plied his son, and I beg of you not to tempt me with false and delusive hopes; her presence at meeting t day may have been accidental only."

"Weel, man, be that as it may, we'll see about it; a'll go to the mither to-morrow and have a talk wi' be about it, or if a can see the lassie hersel', it'll be better still; a think a know how to manage these things, or if a didn't, who'd be your mother the day?"

"Are you determined on going father?" "Ay faith, ye might preach it from the pulpit." "Well, listen to me, my dear father; you may and see Mrs. Brindsley and Maria if you wish; but beg-earnestly beg, that you will do nothing more than intimate to them, that I myself will call there the day after to-morrow, in order to solicit an interview with Maria herself." "Weel, a'll say that too, but in troth a'll say mere than that; but are you goin' to pluck up courage to face her yourself?"

"It is possible-barely possible, that she may have changed; but no, it is a dream-it is a dream!" he exclaimed. "At all events I will see her, but I wish you to prepare herself and her mother for the visit."

He then went to his room, where he sat in appa rently deep thought, occasionally looking into a book, then carelessly shutting it, until the hour of rest arrived, when he retired to bed. The next day about one o'clock, old Sam, big with the certainty of success, was abroad upon his mission, and soon arrived at the neat cottage of Mrs. Brindsley, He was dressed in his Sunday suit, which consisted of a brown coat, black waistcoat, dark

to imagine for a moment that he could have been mistaken.

"Weel minister," said he, when he saw his son, they say all is not goold that glitters, but a say that every thing looks weel yonder. I didna see the lassie hersel', but a did her mother, and what do ye think she tauld me? Why, that she refused two offers for your sake-no that she said for your sake, but I knew her meanin' by her mumpin; haith boy, I think ye'll carry it wi' a flowin' sail the morrow."

The fine eyes of his poor son gleamed with an expression of joy; he took his father's hand and shook it warmly and tenderly, and as he did the tears fell down his pale cheeks.

"God bless you, my dear father," said he "God bless you; you have exerted yourself kindly and affectionately for the happiness of your son; and so, after all, the dream of yesterday was not an empty and illusive fantasy! Thank God; but the happiness will I fear be too great, more than I will be able to bear, for I am not strong, my father."

"You are to see her the morrow at one o'clock," replied the old man, "but don't be disheartened, but speak till her like a man, face to face."

"I will go now and walk in the fields," replied bis son, where for the present we will leave him to his dreams and meditations.

(TO BE CONTINUED IN OUR NEXT.)

THE LAKE HOMES OF THE IRISH.

BY WILLIAM F. WAKEMAN.

THAT within the limits of the United Kingdom a single specimen of what may be considered a kind of Irish Herculaneum should have been recently brought to light, is a fact that may surprise many of our readers. Yet since the year 1839 or '40, the period of the discovery of the long-submerged island at Lagore, county Meath, no fewer than one hundred and sixty ancient stockaded homes of the old Gaelic population of Ireland have been found, and more or less examined.

Though within the last hundred years so much has been written upon the subject of Celtic antiquities, the very existence of the "Crannogues," or wooden dwellings of the ancient Irish, had not been even supposed. Similar discoveries have recently been made in several of the lakes in Switzerland, and in almost every instance a quantity of antiquities of stone, bone, bronze or iron have been found." As from the dawn of the historic period a great intercourse existed between Erin and Alba, and as the language and habits of the ancestors of the great majority of the Scottish people were identical with those of the Scoti or Irish, it is far from improbable that many an ancient Celtic home may be unnoticed beneath the waters of not a few of the Scottish or even English lakes.

Before touching on the subject of the Irish Crannogues, and of the wonderful collection of antiquities they usually contain, we shall slightly glance at the

more known and perhaps earlier habitations of stone, and of which some hundreds of examples still remain in Ireland.

Up to a very recent period it was an opinion generally received amongst archæologists that the only relics of ancient domestic architecture remaining in Ireland, were to be found in the so-called bee-hive houses, or Cloughawns, some, at least, of which are of a prebistoric age; and in structures of a somewhat similar character, which were certainly the dwellings of the early Irish saints. The clonghawns of the ante-Christian period are usually found in groups, and are very generally encompassed by a cashel, or wall, of great strength, pierced for one or two doorways formed of immense stones, and displaying the flat lintel and inclined sides so characteristic of the earliest known structures of Greece or Egypt. In external appearance they differ but slightly from the cells or dwelling-houses of the early Irish ecclesiastics, and may be described as a circular or oval wall constructed without cement, and vaulted by a kind of dome, formed by the overlapping of large stones. Windows there are none. The doorway is similar in character to that at the cashel already referred to, but is invariably small, seldom measuring four feet in height, sometimes even less. It is rarely that any opening by which smoke could escape can be found, though from the frequent discovery of charcoal and of stones marked by fire when the floors have been disturbed, it is evident that fires had sometimes been used within their enclosure. It is likely, however, that in a rude age the simple culinary operations then practised were generally carried on in the open air. The cloughawns which, from their evident connection with monastic buildings of early date, must be regarded as the habita tions of the communities to which the sacred edifices belonged, differ from those of an earlier period, inasmuch as their internal form is almost invariably quadrangular. Greater care also seems to have been expended on the construction of the masonry, more particularly upon the interior, as in many examples the stones are so nicely adjusted to each other, that it would be difficult to insert the point of an ordinary knife between the joinings of any two of them, although in the great majority of instances no mortar appears to have been used. In point of dimensions the cloughawns, whether Pagan or early Christian, do not vary materially. They are generally closed in at a distance of from twelve to sixteen feet from the floor, and their diameter internally rarely exceeds eighteen feet.

Intimately connected with the cloughawn is the subterraneous house or cave, constructed precisely in the same manner, but differing from the former, inasmuch as that it is rarely if ever found unconnected by means of passages, lined and roofed in with stone, with other structures of a similar kind. The subterrane is usually approached by a gallery of considerable length, wider at the bottom than the top, and exhibiting masonry similar to that which is found in the oldest architectural works of which we have any knowledge. From the first chamber passages of a kind identical with that

of the leading gallery, and varying in length from six or eight to twenty feet, conduct to other circular or oval rooms. In a sandhill immediately adjoining the old church of Clady, near Bective, county Meath, a very singular cluster of these subterranean bee-hive houses may still be seen; but they are so commonly found in almost every part of the country which affords a sufficient depth of soil for their construction, that further reference to ordinary examples may perhaps be considered unnecessary. In 1848, during the formation of the railway between Drogheda and Navan, the workmen discovered a portion of a very large and important work of the kind, which was soon visited by hundreds of the inhabitants of the latter town. It consisted of a chamber of quadrangular form, measuring about thirty feet by fourteen, vaulted in the usual way, and about twelve feet in height. The quadrangular form is extremely rare, but no doubt other examples lie undiscovered beneath the soil. Upon disturbing the earth of the Navan chamber, a considerable number of bones belonging to sheep, oxen, and deer, were discovered; and what is important as proving the domestic character of the work, many of the bones bore the marks of a rough saw. Excepting. the bones and a quantity of charcoal, the remains of ancient fires, nothing in this instance was found to indicate that the place had ever been devoted to the purpose of a human habitation; but it is a curious fact, as illustrating a popular tradition very generally current, that these caverns had anciently been used as granaries; that upon being newly reopened, the handmill or quern stone, immemorially used in Ireland for the grinding of corn, is not unfrequently found. A very fine specimen from a chambered rath, situated upon the river Blackwater, near Rathaldron, County Meath, may be seen in the Antiquarian Collection in the Royal Irish Academy.-See page 112 in the Catalogue of the Stone Antiquities, so ably edited by Dr. Wilde. With respect to the uses to which the subterranean chambers had been applied, various opinions have been offered. Before the nature and character of our early national antiquities had begun to be investigated by careful and conscientious writers, they were most peaceably confounded with a class of monument now known to have been sepulchral-as the caverned tumuli of Newgrange, Dowth, and Knowth. By others they were looked upon as granaries, or simply as places of concealment. From the fact of their very frequent Occurrence within the area of a dun or caher, works known to have been constructed during the earliest times as fortified dwellings, we have no hesitation in classing them with the primitive cloughawn, which, it should be remembered, is rarely if ever found where excavations could be practised, except through solid limestone rock; that the chambers discovered in a plain field, unconnected with or unenclosed by a rampart or ditch, were formerly equally unprotected, does not by any means appear certain, as during the agricultural operations of ages even formidable works might have been obliterated, or their defences might have been composed of timber, it being a matter of history that

fortifications of that material were frequently used by the ancient Scotic nations.

It may be asked what evidence have we for referring these plain, simply-constructed works to a period lost in the obscurity of history. Documentary evidence there is certainly little; but by a comparison of their architectural peculiarities with those of monuments of unquestionable prehistoric age, the eye of a practised antiquary will detect a similarity of style which could not be accounted for by accident. Again, their frequent occurrence either as subterranes or cloughawns within the enclosure of raths or cahers, would connect them in many instances with a species of fortification, which is known to have been used in Ireland at least as early as the first century of the Christian era.

It has sometimes been asserted by writers of authority (in their time), that the Scoti or ancient Irish people were in the habit of building in timber only. Their opinions appear to have been grounded upon a few passages found in the writings of Bede the historian, and upon the authority of several MSS. of various periods from the seventh to the twelfth century. The writers of these venerable documents were almost invariably ecclesiastics, and their remarks refer to the construction of buildings devoted to religion, as churches, monasteries, etc. That the practice of building in stone was known in Ireland during a period long antecedent to the arrival of Saint Patrick, is sufficiently attested by monuments universally allowed by the highest archæological authorities of this and other countries to belong to a period older than any authentic annals of the British islands, witness the "giant's chambers," the cromlechs, and the magnificent cairns upon the Boyne.

If the ancient stone habitations of the Irish should ever be regularly classified, the following is probably the order in which the varieties should be described :

Firstly, the subterraneous chambers of a circular or oval form, connected together by passages, and found within the inclosure of a dun or caher; secondly, a similar building found unenclosed, but round which defences of wood, earth, or stone may formerly have existed; thirdly, the cloughawn or bee-hive house, found in the fort or in the plain field; fourthly, the "Saint's house" or cloughawn, of early Christian times; of the latter class a few specimens of the highest interest remain. These had evidently been ancient at a time when it was found necessary to remodel their roofs, and generally to reconstruct the upper portion, and in their alterations, evidently comparatively modern, we find the architectural peculiarities of the twelfth century, a period during which the Irish are described as having first learned the art of building in stone and mortar!-Our limits have not allowed us more than a glance at the curious habitations of stone which Ireland so abundantly possesses. We now come to buildings of timber, perhaps equally ancient, but to which more. interest naturally attaches from the immense number of antiquities usually found within and around. them.

We allude to the crannogues, or artificially-constructed

islands, which the drainage operations recently carried on in various parts of the country have laid bare.

A popular tradition exists, that many Irish lakes contain the remains of submerged cities and towers. Moore has woven the idea into one of his most exquisite melodies.

"On Lough Neagh's banks as the fisherman strays,
When the clear cold eve's declining,
He sees the round towers of other days,
In the wave beneath him shining," &c.

If the lakes, upon being partially drained, have not given us the "round towers," they have in more than one county presented the every-day dwelling-houses of a people who, at an extremely ancient, though as yet undefined age, adopted or constructed these island homes. Before going further it will be proper to describe what the crannogues are. They are artificial islands, usually constructed upon what was probably a shoal in an ancient lake. The engineers of the Board of Works thus describe their general formation: "They are surrounded by stockades driven in a circle from sixty to eighty feet in diameter, but in some cases the enclosure is larger, and oval in shape. The stakes of these are generally of oak, mostly young trees, from four to nine inches broad, usually in a single row, but sometimes in double, and sometimes in treble. The portions of the stakes remaining in the ground bear the marks of the hatchet by which they were felled. Several feet of these piles must have originally projected above the water, and were probably interlaced with horizontal branches, so as to form a screen or breastwork. The surface within the staked enclosure is sometimes covered over with a layer of round logs, cut into lengths of from four to six feet, over which was placed more or less stones, clay, or gravel. In some instances this platform is confined to a portion of the island. Besides these, pieces of oak framing, with mortices and cheeks cut into them, have been found within the circle of the outer work."

About one mile and a half from the village of Dunshaughlin, in the county of Meath, the first great discovery of a little Irish Herculaneum was made about twenty years ago. In cutting a drain for the purpose of reclaiming a considerable portion of bog land which seems sunk in a basin of about two miles in circumference, and which is still popularly styled "The Lake," the diggers came upon an immense quantity of animal remains, consisting of the bones of oxen, sheep, swine, deer, dogs, foxes, etc. A traffic in the bones was carried on for a considerable time in Dublin without exciting any extraordinary notice, but after a while some articles manufactured of iron and some of bronze found their way, along with the bones, to the "marine stores" of the metropolis, and soon excited the attention of collectors of antiquities. Doctors Petrie and Wilde, with, we believe, a mutual friend or two, were the first to visit the scene of the "find," and it is greatly to be regretted that we have no detailed report of their joint observations, though Dr. Wilde has given a most interesting and valuable description of the animal remains.

For some years after the formation of the original drain, little appears to have been done at Lagore beyond the usual operations of turf cutting, during which, however, the bones still turned up, and amongst them, from time to time, a considerable number of antiquities of a kind which we shall presently notice. In 1848 one of the proprietors of a portion of the "Island" opened the ground anew, and during a period of about a month the writer of this article visited the place almost daily, and was afforded every facility for making observations. As far as could be calculated from the small portion of the work uncovered, the circumference of the crannogue might be about six hundred feet. The south-western portion alone appears to have been opened. On this side, and probably upon the others, a double and in some places a triple set of oaken stakes had been driven into the bed of the lake. Within the enclosure, which formed a kind of low mound, a number of huts were discovered very similar in character to the log-house found in Drumkelia bog, county Donegal, and thus described in the twenty-sixth volume of the Archæologia, by Captain W. Mudge, R.N.: “As shown in the plan, the house consisted of a square structure, twelve feet wide and nine feet high, formed of rough blocks and planks of oak timber, apparently split with wedges. The framework was composed of upright posts and horizontal sleepers, mortised at the angles, the end of each upright post being inserted into the lower sleeper of the frame, and fastened by a large block of wood or forelock. The mortices were very roughly cut, as if they had been made with a kind of blunt instrument, the wood being more bruised than cut, and it may be inferred that a stone chisel (celt), which was found lying upon the floor of the house, was the identical tool with which the mortices were cut. By comparing the chisel with the cuts and marks, I found it," adds Captain Mudge, "to correspond exactly with them, even to the slight curved surface of the chisel; but the logs have evidently been hewn with a larger instrument in the shape of an axe, which, I have no doubt, was also of stone, as the marks, though larger than those the chisel would have made, are of the same character, being rather hollow and small cuts, and not presenting the smooth flat surface produced by our common iron axe."

The house described by Captain Mudge is probably the oldest work of the kind hitherto noticed. The timbers of which it was formed had evidently been shaped by stone implements. The huts of the Lagore or Danshaughlin crannogue may be many centuries later, as all the woodwork had been fashioned by instruments of metal, many of which were found within and around the island. The ordinary crannogue hut may be described from several at Lagore. It should be remarked that in about one hundred and sixty lake homes discovered in Ireland, only a very few tolerably perfect huts were found. The building was of a quadrangular form, constructed upon a framework, as in Captain Mudge's example, of upright posts mortised into sleepThe posts were grooved generally to a depth of

ers.