the other side, to retake the little prisoner, while I stretched forward on the plank to the full extent of my arm with the same intention. In my impatience, however, to regain the bird, unmindful of the due equipoise of my body, I extended myself too far, and was precipitated into the water. The mill was going, and a rapid flush in the stream, down which I was borne so impetuously towards another world, that Jeremiah Gauntlet's glorious career would have been soon ended in this, if master Charles, forgetful of the bird, and even Miss Geraldine, did not instantly throw off his coat, and plunge after me into the water. With mighty grasp the heroic fellow seized me by the collar, and with strong arm he bore me against the swelling stream, while with the other he nobly buffetted the current, till the dear boy, with his prize rescued from grim death, regained the bank in safety.

"Amazed at my unhoped-for preservation from a watery grave, by the noble

exertion

exertion of a young gentleman whom I followed not as friend or companion, but to serve, I vowed eternal gratitude, and from that blessed moment have held sacred my vow."

"I tell you," says Tom, " it is what very few of your gentlefolks would do for any of us. They expect we will faithfully serve and venture our lives for them; but shew me one among them will endanger as much as his little finger for our preservation. There is my lady, that is so good and pious, God bless her holiness! the first on the list of every public charity, and giving so bountifully her alms every Christmas to the poor; why she would as soon venture to the very gates of hell, with which she is continually threatening us, as near a sick person that might want her assistance. I remember well, Jerry, when captain Plunket was last here, and that he walked out one fine evening with the ladies, in passing a cabin near the road, they perceived a poor naked woman stooped

stooped in the ditch, and striving to drink out of a little stream that rumbled over the pebbles. Her head was uncovered, and her hair hanging loosely about her face, gave an air of wildness to her countenance. Without any person to look to her, the poor woman, in the height of a fever, had quitted her bed to cool herself at this little stream. My lady, as soon as she saw her, ran away with Miss Geraldine and the child, as she would from a mad dog, while captain Plunket, taking her in his arms, carried the poor sick creature out of the ditch, and placed her on her own bed, from whence he stirred not a step till he procured her relief and attendance; though on his return my lady would not suffer him to enter the castle, or approach one of the family, till he was washed all over with warm vinegar, and that we made an autordeffy of his clothes, as Miss Geraldine called it, for fear of spreading the infection."

"Your rich people, friend Tom, have

much

much to value here, therefore they are right to take care of themselves; while we, poor devils! whose support is often precarious and uncertain, may well be prodigal of our lives on an occasion. That however was not the case with captain Plunket; he never considered self where he could serve a fellow-creature, and from a boy he despised all danger. What a brave officer must he be! and what an arrant poltroon have I proved in not going with him! Before this I might have distinguished myself, and would be something, or perhaps a musket or cannonball had settled my business."

"In the last case you are better where you are," said Tom, dryly.

Jerry Gauntlet, unmindful of Tom's remark, paused, cast down his eyes, and heaved a sigh as profound as the thought which seemed labouring in his bosom."Women's sighs and women's smiles," he resumed, in a tone of recovered gaiety, "are the bane of our glory, Tom: they unsoldier

unsoldier a man, and make him what nature never intended. But it is all before us," he continued, in a voice of careless indifference-"what is to be, must be ; he therefore that was born to be hanged, can never be drowned, and what is a man's luck he'll meet with."

In this manner did the two friends continue to converse, occasionally interrupted by the splendid equipages and gay retinues which passed them on the road, till they entered on the long avenue of tall pine and spreading oak that led up to Dermont Castle, where astonishment and admiration at the new scene that presented itself, suspended in wondering and gratified attention all further conversation. Instead of the single taper that was wont to glimmer in the watchtower where the house-steward slept, and the occasional lights appearing and disappearing in the inhabited part of the castle, all was now one blaze of effulgence, that streamed through the windows on the grey wall of

the