'When did you arrive in Glasgow?"

'About one o'clock afternoon.' 'Where did you part from him?' 'I took him to the Western Club, of which I am a member, and gave him lunch, and we parted there.' (To the prisoner): Stand up, if you please. Is that the man?" 'It is.'

'Have you any doubt of that?' 'None whatever.'

The Crown counsel rose to crossexamine.

'There must be some mistake, Admiral. Look at him again.' 'There is no mistake. That is I should know him

the man.

any

where.' 'Did you see any one like him?' 'Not that I remember. But since you are so pressing, I should like to hear him speak.'

The Judge said there could be no objection to that, and told the prisoner to address a remark to the witness.

'Ah, Admiral, do you recollect what happened to Dermot Rooney's cow on her birthday?' said the prisoner.

The reminiscence was plainly a diverting one, for the Admiral laughed outright, and said it was the same funny fellow beyond all doubt. And, strange as it was, the jury seemed to think so too. And the Admiral was allowed to retire without further question.

Call Miss Bridget Malone,' said Mr. C.

And a very pretty, ladylike young woman stepped into court, accompanied by her mother.

'You are the daughter of Mr. Malone, the banker of Belfast?' said Mr. C.

'Yes, I am.'

'Do you remember travelling to Belfast by the coach from Waterford on the 23rd of January?' 'Yes, sir.'

"You travelled inside ?'
'Yes, sir.'

'Had you any fellow-travellers?' 'Yes,' said Miss Bridget, with a smile, that gentleman,' pointing to Power,' was with me.' 'All the way ?' 'Yes.'

'Was he agreeable?'
'Very pleasant, sir.'

'Have you ever seen or heard of him since?'

'No, sir. I saw an advertisement in the Belfast newspaper, which I knew must be from him, and so I am here to-day.'

'When did you arrive?'
'Only a few hours ago.'

'Did you know why you were wanted ?'

'Not in the least.'

"You have no doubt it is he?'

'He is not easily forgotten, sir,' said the girl innocently, but with a blush.

'Did he make love to you, then?' interposed the opposite counsel. 'No, sir, unless with his eyes. You know how, sir.'

He had said so, and the evidence was irresistible.

The waiter at the Western Club, the clerk at the coach office, and the guard of the mail, all spoke to his having been in Glasgow on Monday until four o'clock, and having left it by the coach that evening. He arrived in Edinburgh, as the Crown witnesses had said, at nine o'clock at night. The chain was complete, and all idea of concert was excluded by the fact that none of the witnesses knew when they came into court the reason of their being summoned. The case looked like one of mistaken identity, but the strange thing was that the accused had never denied that he was the student in question, and seemed from the first to be familiar with all around him.

The Crown had no choice but to abandon the prosecution, and the prisoner was acquitted; but the mystery which the trial had thrown over the whole affair created an unpleasant impression, and he left Edinburgh next day.

Very shortly afterwards a fact transpired which rendered it at least doubtful whether the crime had been committed at all. medical students, who were friends

Two

of Johnstone, resided at the top of the same staircase. Both of these students had left Edinburgh rather suddenly, immediately after this event, and it was not known where they had gone. But it transpired that they had been in the habit of making experiments in strangulation on themselves-not an unusual thing at that time; and it came to be believed that Power's counsel at the time of the trial had information that Johnstone came by his death in that way, and that the others in their terror had laid down his body at Power's door.

The nine days' wonder soon subsided, and gave place to new topics; and it was many years afterwards that I heard the true version of this singular tale.

It seems there were two brothers, twins, of the name of Power, who were left orphans, and almost without relatives or connections, when they were mere children. They were so wonderfully alike that those who knew them best could rarely distinguish them, and the old maternal grandfather who brought them up took care that they should be educated separately. Reginald the eldest assumed the name of Reynolds, as he succeeded to a small property through his mother. The brothers, after the death of their grandfather, being alone in the world, had the most devoted, even romantic affection for each other, although at the time of this story they had not met for several years.

'Reginald had received a writership to India, and when the events I have spoken of occurred was on his way to pay his brother a farewell visit. Johnstone and Power had met that afternoon, and Power had knocked him down, and was horrified an hour or two afterwards to find Johnstone lying dead at his door. In his alarm he immediately started off by the coach which left for Glasgow at six o'clock, to meet

his brother, and consult what was to be done. The coach stopped at a stage where it met the other, and there the brothers resolved on the romantic course of changing their identity, Power going to London as Reynolds, and Reynolds going to Edinburgh as Power. The rest is easily conceived, but Reynolds remained Power to the end of his life, and never would hear of resuming either his name or his estate. He went out as a medical man to Australia, rose to great eminence, and only died a year or two ago, leaving an enormous fortune. He left a widow whose maiden name was Bridget Malone.

The evening passed away merrily. Sophia and my hermit sung one or two duets very prettily. I had known his sweet although not

powerful tenor in days gone by, and found what I suppose no one knew, that in his solitude he had not only cultivated it carefully, but had acquired considerable skill on the violin. It did me good to see him blush like a boy when he shyly proposed to add this contribution to our evening at home. The Doctor, however, growled at the concord of sweet sounds. He loved to hear his own voice as well as those of others, and was, moreover, as I afterwards discovered, a very good judge of music, and the performances were not quite up to his mark. He promised, under cover of a louder finale than usual, to send me his views on the subject, and these I received a day or two afterwards. I give them accordingly in the state in which I received them.

I

man.

AM standing on the top of Beltard tower, not a real antique, though much more imposing than many of those which help to make up the 257 that are still standing in this castle-ridden county of Clare. Before me is the Atlantic, of which Mrs. Gatty speaks in such raptures in that delightful joint work of 'Gatty père et mère'-The Old Folks from Home. If you have not read it (it came out in '62), buy or borrow it by all means. It will suit you, whatever may be your weakness.' Do you care for social questions? the parson is your Have you any views as to the future of the Irish Church? He gives you his hope (which is mine too) that one day we shall see in Ireland a free Catholic Church, as free from Rome as from England's oath of supremacy; a church which, while pure, will yet suit the genius of the people. Are you antiquarian? Here are details and discussions about crannogues (lake-islands) and Milesian traditions; along with leprechaun and changeling stories for those who care for them. And are you a naturalist? Here Mrs. Gatty's weakness' is your strength. You learn at your ease how on these Atlantic shores are found the rare blue snails (Ianthine fragiles), the crosier nautilus (Spirula Peroni), the real Portuguese man-of-war (Physalia pelagica), besides purple echinuses, Velella spirans, and many more which will make a collector's mouth water.

Well, I don't think I care so much for these things as I ought, certainly not so much as I used to care for them. Man, and above all Irishman, and his belongings absorb me more and more as I grow older. I leave shells and corallines to my sons, four of whom, my travel-companions, are down there in the 'castle' courtyard, helping widow

M'Loghlin to milk her ewes, and telling her (what I had just told them) how Roquefort cheese is made. Tha sheshur mac agum (‘I have six sons') is my ordinary way of introducing myself where Gaelic is spoken. It doesn't tell the whole truth: never mind, I learnt it when six was the total; and Gaelic is hard to learn, especially when one writes it down phonetically. Of the true spelling I know no more than you do, reader. But the phrase has done me good service many a time. It always brings out a plea sant smile, and a guess that 'it was down in the south somewhere you learnt that, sir' (the unsophisticated peasant of Clare, and of many other parts, too, rarely uses the 'yer honner' of the novel-writers), 'for you don't say it quite as we do.' What a more than French politeness in hinting at a possible improvement on your part upon their pronunciation. True for you, Patsey it's from an old Cork woman who has been cooking these fourteen years among the Saxons that I learnt it; and she may well have very little Irish left, so seldom does she hear it spoken. But, reader, you knew long ago, if you are at all up in Celtic literature, how sure a key to the Celtic heart is an evident interest in his language. How do you think the Marquis de la Villemarqué and Emile Souvestre would have got together all those Breton tales (which somebody has lately said are their own manufacture) and ballads if they had not been able to speak the bas-Breton? Did you ever notice how a Welshman's countenance lights up when you say merely good-day in Welsh? And, again, as to the highlanders, read Campbell's Tales of the Western Highlands-a book which proves so clearly the by-many-Southronsstill-unsuspected brotherhood of

6

the Irish Gaedhil and the Highland Gael. 'The would-be-collector of tales,' says Mr. Campbell, sees a strapping fisher-lad before him. The Highlander is suspicious, looks nervously about, seeing the new comer is a stranger. At last, with a quick shy glance, he jerks out "It's a fine day." "Tha n' latha briagh" (the day is fine) replies the stranger; and as he speaks the whole face and manner of his companion change as if by magic; his eyes and his heart open wide, and he exclaims "You have Gaelic! You will take my excuse by your leave, but what part of the Gaeldom are you from?" And at last the gentleman who can talk Gaelic gets a story out of his man, not one word of which a Gall (stranger) could by any possible means have elicited.' Well the Times, which would make it penal to talk Welsh even in Wales, will think me mad; but I really mean one of my little clan of sons to talk Gaelic fluently: and, though unfortunately I am not an Irish or Highland landowner, I quite endorse Mr. Campbell's remark that it would be as well if proprietors would learn a little of the speech of their tenants instead of being so very eager for them to learn English and to give up their mother tongue. This love of their own speech is strong even in the most sophisticated Celts. I hold that this, and not egotism or the incapacity to get up any other language, is at the bottom of the Frenchman's quiet but peremptory way of insisting on everybody talking French with him.

However this may be, even if you 'have no native Irish,' you will get on well in Ireland provided you have native kindliness. This is what makes the charm of books like the Old Folks from Home. Not at all blind to Pat's faults-sometimes, I think, exaggerating them: for Pat is not idle, I know, when the hopelessness of working under the con

ditions to which he has been subject does not depress him-the old folks are at least equally sharpeyed in finding out his virtues. Wherever a thing deserves praise they praise it-the tallness of the men (though at last the parson arrives at the very reasonable conclusion that there are two races of Celts, the tall and the short; and had he gone five years later I fear he would have said that bad feeding and the emigration drain are telling sadly on the breed); the modest grace of the women; the beauty of the children, whose faces Mrs. Gatty remarks are (like those of their mothers) always clean, however dirty their surroundings. Never was race so fond of washing in salt water and in fresh as the Irish Celts: what a deprivation they must find it, when they come to live in a London court and have to depend upon a leaky 'butt.' They praise, too, the general good humour, and the kindly interest taken by all in what a pair of old folks are wanting to do; and in some parts they praise the beauty of the railway stations, teaching with their trim little gardens a lesson to the cottager which Ladies Bountiful and parsons' wives have been teaching the English cottager for centuries.' These and scores more little things like these are noticed and made much of. I almost think we must have passed on that railway half a quarter of a mile of the finest possible hollyhocks. . . . It was beyond anything I have ever seen England, not excepting the pretty evergreeny south-coast line. Think of the line through Durham and Northumberland! Is it not pain and grief to pass through it? Surely the rubbish which accumulated when the rails were laid down and the stations built there has never been cleared away from the dreary untidy spots where it was originally thrown. Thoroughly Irish, some impertinent English critic who has

in