On the stranger's face was a sly grimace,
As he seized the sacks of grain ;
And, one by one, till left were none,
He tossed them on the wain.

And slily he leered as his hand up-reared
A purse of costly mould,

Where, bright and fresh, through a silver mesh,
Shone forth the glistering gold.

The farmer held out his right hand stout,

And drew it back with dread;

For in fancy he heard each warning word
The supping friar had said.

His

eye was set on the silver net;

His thoughts were in fearful strife;
When, sudden as fate, the glittering bait
Was snatched by his loving wife.

And, swift as thought, the stranger caught
The farmer his waist around,

And at once the twain and the loaded wain
Sank through the rifted ground.

The gable-end wall of Manor Hall
Fell in ruins on the place:

That stone-heap old the tale has told
To each succeeding race.

The wife gave a cry that rent the sky

At her goodman's downward flight:

But she held the purse fast, and a glance she cast
To see that all was right.

'Twas the fiend's full pay for her goodman grey,

And the gold was good and true;

Which made her declare, that "his dealings were fair, To give the devil his due."

She wore the black pall for Farmer Wall,

From her fond embraces riven :

But she won the vows of a younger spouse
With the gold which the fiend had given.
Now, farmers, beware what oaths you swear
When you cannot sell your corn;
Lest, to bid and buy, a stranger be nigh,
With hidden tail and horn.

And, with good heed, the moral a-read,
Which is of this tale the pith,—
If your corn you sell to the fiend of hell,
You may sell yourself therewith.

And if by mishap you fall in the trap,
Would you bring the fiend to shame,
Lest the tempting prize should dazzle her eyes,
Lock up your frugal dame.

TERENCE O'SHAUGHNESSY'S FIRST ATTEMPT
TO GET MARRIED.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "STORIES OF WATERLOO."

YES-here I am, Terence O'Shaughnessy, an honest major of foot, five feet eleven and a half, and forty-one, if I only live till Michaelmas. Kicked upon the world before the down had blackened on my chin, Fortune and I have been wrestling from the cradle ;—and yet I had little to tempt the jade's malevolence. The youngest son of an excellent gentleman, who, with an ill-paid rental of twelve hundred pounds, kept his wife in Bath, and his hounds in Tipperary, my patrimony would have scarcely purchased tools for a highwayman, when in my tenth year my father's sister sent for me to Roundwood; for, hearing that I was regularly going to the devil, she had determined to redeem me, if she could.

My aunt Honor was the widow of a captain of dragoons, who got his quietus in the Low Countries some years before I saw the light. His relict had, in compliment to the memory of her departed lord, eschewed matrimony, and, like a Christian woman, devoted her few and evil days to cards and religion. She was a true specimen of an Irish dowager. Her means were small, her temper short. She was stiff as a ramrod, and proud as a field-marshal. To her, my education and future settlement in life were entirely confided, as one brief month deprived me of both parents. My mother died in a state of insolvency, greatly regretted by everybody in Bath to whom she was indebted; and before her disconsolate husband had time to overlook a moiety of the card claims transmitted for his liquidation, he broke his neck in attempting to leap the pound-wall of Oranmore, for a bet of a rump and dozen. Of course he was waked, and buried like a gentleman,— every thing sold off by the creditors-my brothers sent to schooland I left to the tender mercy and sole management of the widow of Captain O'Finn.

My aunt's guardianship continued seven years, and at the expiration of that time I was weary of her thrall, and she tired of my tutelage. I was now at an age when some walk of life must be selected and pursued. For any honest avocation I had, as it was universally admitted, neither abilities nor inclination. What was to be done? and how was I to be disposed of? A short deliberation showed that there was but one path for me to follow, and I was handed over to that refugium peccatorum, the army, and placed as a volunteer in a regiment just raised, with a promise from the colonel that I should be promoted to the first ensigncy that became vacant.

Great was our mutual joy when Mrs. O'Finn and I were about to part company. I took an affectionate leave of all my kindred and acquaintances, and even, in the fulness of my heart, shook hands with the schoolmaster, though in boyhood I had devoted him to the infernal gods for his wanton barbarity. But my tenderest parting was reserved for my next-door neighbour, the belle among the village beauties, and presumptive heiress to the virtues and estates of Quarter-master Mac Gawly.

Biddy Mac Gawly was a year younger than myself; and, to do her

D

justice, a picture of health and comeliness. Lord! what an eye she had!—and her leg! nothing but the gout would prevent a man from following it to the very end of Oxford-street. Biddy and I were next neighbours-our houses joined-the gardens were only separated by a low hedge, and by standing on an inverted flower-pot one could accomplish a kiss across it easily. There was no harm in the thingit was merely for the fun of trying an experiment-and when a geranium was damaged, we left the blame upon the cats.

Although there was a visiting acquaintance between the retired quartermaster and the relict of the defunct dragoon, never had any cordiality existed between the houses. My aunt O'Finn was as lofty in all things appertaining to her consequence, as if she had been the widow of a common-councilman; and Roger Mac Gawly, having scraped together a good round sum, by the means quartermasters have made money since the days of Julius Cæsar, was not inclined to admit any inferiority on his part. Mrs. O'Finn could never imagine that any circumstances could remove the barrier in dignity which stood between the non-commissioned officer and the captain. While arguing on the saw, that "a living ass is better than a dead lion," Roger contended that he was as good a man as Captain O'Finn; he, Roger, being alive and merry in the town of Ballinamore, while the departed commander had been laid under a "counterpane of daisies" in some counterscarp in the Low Countries. Biddy and I laughed at the feuds of our superiors; and on the evening of a desperate blow-up, we met at sunset in the garden-agreed that the old people were fools -and resolved that nothing should interrupt our friendly relations. Of course the treaty was ratified with a kiss, for I recollect that next morning the cats were heavily censured for capsizing a box of mignonette.

No wonder then that I parted from Biddy with regret. I sat with her till we heard the quartermaster scrape his feet at the hall-door on his return from his club, and kissing poor Biddy tenderly, as Roger entered by the front, I levanted by the back-door. I fancied myself desperately in love, and was actually dreaming of my dulcinea, when my aunt's maid called me before day, to prepare for the stage-coach that was to convey me to my regiment in Dublin.

In a few weeks an ensigncy dropped it, and I got in. Time slipped insensibly away-months became years-and three passed before I revisited Ballinamore. I heard, at stated periods, from Mrs. O'Finn. The letters were generally a detail of bad luck or bad health. For the last quarter she had never marked honours-or for the last week closed an eye with rheumatism and lumbago. Still, as these jérémiades covered my small allowance, they were welcome as a lover's billet. Of course, in these despatches the neighbours were duly mentioned, and every calamity occurring since her "last" was faithfully chronicled. The Mac Gawlys held a conspicuous place in my aunt's quarterly notices. Biddy had got a new gown-or Biddy had got a new piano-but since the dragoons had come to town there was no bearing her. Young Hastings was never out of the house-she hoped it would end well-but everybody knew a light dragoon could have little respect for the daughter of a quartermaster; and Mrs. O'Finn ended her observations by hinting that if Roger went seldomer to his

club, and Biddy more frequently to mass, why probably in the end it would be better for both of them.

I re-entered the well-remembered street of Ballinamore late in the evening, after an absence of three years. My aunt was on a visit, and she had taken that as a convenient season for having her domicile newly painted. I halted at the inn, and after dinner strolled over the way to visit my quondam acquaintances, the Mac Gawlys.

If I had intended a surprise, my design would have been a failure. The quartermaster's establishment were on the qui vive. The fact was, that since the removal of the dragoons, Ballinamore had been dull as ditch-water; the arrival of a stranger in a post-chaise of course had created a sensation in the place, and, before the driver had unharnessed, the return of Lieutenant O'Shaughnessy was regularly gazetted, and the Mac Gawlys, in anticipation of a visit, were ready

to receive me.

I knocked at the door, and a servant with a beefsteak collar opened it. Had Roger mounted a livery? Ay-faith-there it was; and I began to recollect that my aunt O'Finn had omened badly from the first moment a squadron of the 13th lights had entered Ballinamore.

I found Roger in the hall. He shook my hand, swore it was an agreeable surprise, ushered me into the dining-room, and called for hot water and tumblers. We sat down. Deeply did he interest himself in all that had befallen me-deeply regret the absence of my honoured aunt-but I must not stay at the inn, I should be his guest; and, to my astonishment, it was announced that the gentleman in the red collar had been already despatched to transport my luggage to the house. Excuses were idle. Roger's domicile was to be head-quarters; and when I remembered my old flame, Biddy, I concluded that I might for the short time I had to stay be in a less agreeable establishment than the honest quartermaster's.

I was mortified to hear that Biddy had been indisposed. It was a bad cold, she had not been out for a month; but she would muffle herself, and meet me in the drawing-room. This, too, was unluckily a night of great importance in the club. The new curate was to be balloted for; Roger had proposed him; and, ergo, Roger, as a true man, was bound to be present at the ceremony. The thing was readily arranged. We finished a second tumbler, the quartermaster betook himself to the King's Arms, and the lieutenant, meaning myself, to the drawing-room of my old inamorata.

There was a visible change in Roger's domicile. The house was newly papered; and, leaving the livery aside, there was a great increase of gentility throughout the whole establishment. Instead of bounding to the presence by three stairs at a time, as I used to do in lang syne, I was ceremoniously paraded to the lady's chamber by him of the beefsteak collar; and there, reclining languidly on a sofa, and wrapped in a voluminous shawl, Biddy Mac Gawly held out her hand to welcome her old confederate.

"My darling Biddy !"—" My dear Terence!" and the usual preliminaries were got over. I looked at my old flame-she was greatly changed, and three years had wrought a marvellous alteration. I left her a sprightly girl-she was now a woman-and decidedly a very pretty one; although the rosiness of seventeen was gone, and a deli

cacy that almost indicated bad health had succeeded; "but," thought I, "it's all owing to the cold.”

There was a guarded propriety in Biddy's bearing, that appeared almost unnatural. The warm advances of old friendship were repressed; and one who had mounted a flower-pot to kiss me across a hedge, recoiled from any exhibition of our former tenderness. Well, it was all as it should be. Then I was a boy, and now a man. Young women cannot be too particular, and Biddy Mac Gawly rose higher in my estimation.

Biddy was stouter than she promised to be, when we parted, but the eye was as dark and lustrous, and the ankle as taper as when it last had demolished a geranium. Gradually her reserve abated; old feelings removed a constrained formality-we laughed and talked-ay -and kissed as we had done formerly; and when the old quartermaster's latch-key was heard unclosing the street-door, I found myself admitting in confidence and a whisper, that "I would marry if I could." What reply Biddy would have returned, I cannot tell, for Roger summoned me to the parlour; and as her cold prevented her from venturing down, she bade me an affectionate good-night. Of course she kissed me at parting-and it was done as ardently and innocently as if the hawthorn hedge divided us.

Roger had left his companions earlier than he usually did, in order to honour me, his guest. The new butler paraded oysters, and down we sat tête-à-tête. When supper was removed, and each had fabricated a red-hot tumbler from the tea-kettle, the quartermaster stretched his long legs across the hearth-rug, and with great apparent solicitude inquired into all that had befallen me since I had assumed the shoulder-knot and taken to the trade of war.

"Humph!"-he observed-"two steps in three years; not bad, considering there was neither money nor interest. D it! I often wish that Biddy was a boy. Never was such a time to purchase on. More regiments to be raised, and promotion will be at a discount. Sir Hugh Haughton married a stockbroker's widow with half a plum, and paid in the two thousand I had lent him. Zounds! if Biddy were a boy, and that money well applied, I would have her a regiment in a twelvemonth."

"Phew!" I thought to myself. "I see what the old fellow is driving at."

"There never would be such another opportunity," Roger continued. "An increased force will produce an increased difficulty in effecting it. Men will be worth their own weight in money; and d- me, a fellow who could raise a few, might have anything he asked for."

I remarked that, with some influence and a good round sum, recruits might still be found.

"Ay, easy enough, and not much money either, if one knew how to go about the thing. Get two or three smart chaps; let them watch fairs and patterns, mind their hits when the bumpkins got drunk, and find out when fellows were hiding from a warrant. D- me, I would raise a hundred, while you would say Jack Robison. Pay a friendly magistrate; attest the scoundrels before they were sober enough to cry off, bundle them to the regiment next morning; and if a rascal