"Stop, James Hutchinson; do not mention their names-do not allude to them—that is, do not make a single allusion to them away from our present business. I cannot bring my mind to look out homeward this evening. 'Tis a smiling shore, to be sure; yet I will not-I cannot turn my eyes towards it, while I am swimming and kicking, for the bare life, upon the breakers."

"Well, William, I shall say as little as possible about wife or father."

"Or there may be another reason, James; I have not seen the face of home-I have not seen any face at home this week past, I believe; and during that week things have happened to make my face not very welcome there, perhaps; nay, they will find out, no doubt, if they have not already found out, that the sight of it is a reproach to them-good, immaculate souls, as they are; and for that reason, cousin James, they shall see little of it till we can give it another expression in their eyes."

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Tut, William; all may be well yet."

“Ay, I know that, James-though I scarce hope it. I shall try it, however. Come-to business; have you been able to do anything?"

66

Why, on your own single note or bond I could not raise a

shilling.'

"Well, we feared as much."

"But," added his cousin hesitatingly, "but

"Then, James, the last resource is tried at last? What did she say? She refused; and why should she not?"

"She did not refuse."

"You have the money then?"

"I took her legal security to the little attorney, and he sends you at once upon it

"How much?" interrupted the other, snatching a pocket-book which James Hutchinson was slowly producing.

"Five hundred pounds, William."

"Well, it may do as much for us as treble the sum. But did she scold much ?"

"Not a word," answered James, continuing to smile assuringly. "Well, then, what did she say?" continued William Hutchinson, forgetting his own recent resolution not to speak, "away from business," of any one at home; " what did poor Fanny say

?"

"Take it,' she said, with my love, and tell him to send me no more messages of apology on such an account, for I will coin my heart for him, if he only instructs me how to do it.'

"You saw no woman's frowns then?"

"Not one."

"Nor any of their other weapons-tears ?"

"A few tears I think I saw. She is an estimable young person—a capital wife!"

"I-an improving scoundrel! Oh, this virtue of hers only dyes me blacker and blacker, by not leaving me a hope of rivalling it !How did she seem to take the story of my necessities?-did she appear doubtful or credulous?"

"Quite indifferent upon that point, I thought; simply anxious to give when you had asked, no matter why or wherefore."

"And yet, James, it was her own, and her all; her very last-the relic of a dowry that I-God! what a mere reptile I have been—and am—to filch, in this manner, upon the doting love of that young creature! Pray, James, how did she look ?"

"O, convalescent; a little too pale and thin, perhaps; and yet not more so than young mothers do, who-"

"By all that's manful I am an unnatural rascal, James—a father for the first time, and I have not yet looked into my child's features! How is the boy?"

"As I heard," answered his cousin again hesitatingly, "why, as I heard

"From her?—she spoke of him?”

"No; we had not time for that; but just after she gave me her acceptance to your bill, my hard-grained uncle, your father"

"He was by?" interrupted William; and he continued, in a dictatorial tone," and he saw you, and heard your conversation with her, of course? And did you, sir, so easily forget my particular charge to conceal your business from him?”

"You are too quick with me; I remembered everything; Fanny and I had settled accounts before he came in.”

"All right then. So he came in to her, speaking of her little boy?" "Yes; scolding her, laughingly, for neglecting the young gentleman for a moment, who, in consequence, was very obstreperous, making a great row through the house for his luncheon."

"And how did Fanny answer him?" demanded the young father, half returning the smiles of his still-smiling cousin.

“Without a word, but with wet though laughing eyes; and then pressing the palms of her small feathery hands together, away she bounded like a young fawn of the forest, seeking its own nestled young ones after a short absence."

"Ay," muttered William, his voice broken.

"Come, come; these little things touch you close, I see; not, indeed, closer than is quite natural, but perhaps too closely for the claims upon your time and self-command at present."

"I own it, James."

"For if ever you were called upon to make an effort for the preservation of your honour, you are now appealed to."

"I will answer the appeal, sir."

"Even since I went into Dublin, on your affairs, to-day, I overheard, in the public street, something that"

"They gossip about me?-scoff at me, as a slight adventurer among them?as the desperate spendthrift, who has not a shilling left to meet the loud calls of impatient honour!-I can guess it all, James!-Shame clings to me-but go on-in the street, you said,-in the public street?"

"Yes; in Grafton Street; as I walked unseen behind your gay young friend Blake—”

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He !-the old major's son ?"

The very same-the son of your father's oldest friend; he was

one of the knot, and all the others were once great friends of yours too; and so, said Blake, with a loud laugh--"

"You need not repeat their insolence; as I said before, I can understand its nature-and they shall answer for it to me, by heaven!" "They shall, William !" cried his cousin James, warmly clasping his hand; " and I, for one, am ready to help you to make them do so. But first of all, we must attend to matters quite as urgent. Make love to Lady Fortune over again; she cannot choose but smile on you now, if only in remorse for all her former slights; so into Dublin with you, as fast as you can-the pocket-book safe in your pocket-win back your losses, and

"Pay those gentlemen," interrupted William Hutchinson, in a growl.

"Yes, pay them, the kouts !*—then get your feather-springs ready, and I'm the man to oil them for you."

"True-most necessary-I go: meet me at about twelve o'clock to-night, in town, on Essex Bridge, and we shall speak more about it. I'm off. I will hire a couple of fellows to pull me across the bay in no time good evening, James.-Yes! one cast more, with everything upon it!-happiness, honour, life-everything!-I do but ask one little run of luck this night, and no hermit ever shunned the world as I will shun it—no husband ever loved a wife so truly, so tenderly, as I will love mine—and as for the slur cast upon my name, no living man, I believe, need tell me how to revenge that. Good-by."

He darted out of the ruin.

"You say so!" questioned James Hutchinson, as soon as he was alone, his teeth setting hard, and his eyes scowling in the direction which his cousin had taken; 66 you say so!—and yet, after all, you impudent idiot, there does live a man who will teach you to revenge it."

CHAPTER II.

After having spoken the words last recorded of him, James Hutchinson also left the ruin. Walking through the village, he stopped at the door of a mean public-house on its outskirts, and inquired for a man of the name of Michael Cassin. To his inquiry a person of middle age, in the dress of a kind of country huntsman, came out to him, scraping and bowing very deferentially.

"Follow me, Mike," he said; and the other again servilely putting his hands several times to the peak of his old black velvetine huntingcap, both took their way towards the sea-shore.

Having gained a spot which commanded a view of the bay, Hutchinson peered through the increasing twilight over the gray

waters.

"There he goes, Mike," he resumed, pointing to a dimly-seen little boat with one sail and a jib, which was making towards Dublin, at a short distance from the shore under them.

"To Kildare Street again?" inquired Mike.

"No, my good fellow, not to Kildare Street to-night. He swears he won't figure again at the club-house table, until he wins elsewhere -in a less fashionable little hell-the wherewithal to enable him to

A term of contempt.

re-appear there like a grandee as usual. Ay, yonder he goes, Mike. Yonder he goes like a madman racing down a nice shelve of smooth grassy land to the edge of a convenient, respectable precipice; ay, and in a few plunges more he will be over it, head and heels."

"And we're to have the laugh ready, while he's tremblin', and ax him why'ud he be fallin' ?" demanded Mike, with a chuckle-perhaps a forced one.

"Yes," replied his patron, whispering fiercely; "yes, and be ready, too, to clap our hands while he cleaves the air from the top to the bottom! You do not know it, Mike-you cannot guess it—you cannot even faintly imagine the causes of my hatred towards that maniac. You know, indeed, as everybody does, that on account of a whim--an unjust, an unnatural, a damnation whim-bred like a maggot in the brains of his old father's father-my father was deprived of the fortune that was his birthright, and cast out, half a beggar, into the world; and that my father's son-myself-has been and is almost a dependant on the bounty of these usurpers: little more than this do you know; and yet even so much were in itself, I think, enough to warrant me in trying to get back my own again."

"Faith an' it's thru fo' you, sir," assented his humble—we might say mean-confidant.

"We were sent to sea together," continued James Hutchinson; "for at that time, when boys, he had an elder brother living, you remember a sickly, whining youngster-but, as heir to my uncle's ill-got estate, the great family favourite, of course; so that they could spare my cousin William to go to school along with me, in the polished and moral academy of the king's sea-service. I believe, too, that about this turn of his life he began to show dispositions and caprices which made it a difficult matter to get good of him at home. At all events, we were midshipmen together on board the same ship. Though a few years younger than I, the whelp was stronger; and with this advantage, and the other nominal superiority of a longer purse, he lorded it over me with a vengeance! Why should I make out a list of all his petty tyrannies? By the round world, the boiling blood tingles in my fingers' ends only to think of them! No; the stings of mere boyhood are not yet forgotten; and-not speaking of any other grounds of detestation-I could destroy him for the very heart-chokings which he then gave me !"

"It was an unasy life, masther James," sympathised Mike Cassin. "To him! the worm!" the speaker went on as if half giving way, for his own self-indulgence, to a pent-up crowd of bitter feelings; and at the same time as if half condescending to make out a case for the approbation of his servile listener, in order to entitle himself to require a service upon it.

"The worm!" he repeated, stamping his foot upon the sward; "and yet, Mike, all that was nothing-nothing in comparison with what I still could tell you. Peter, the wishy-washy brother, took it into his head to die one day, and Mr. Willy was summoned home to take up his place in the family. I came back with him; he would not stir a step, now, without me; for in spite of all his paltry outrages upon me, I contrived, for my own long-headed purposes, to seem his

humble friend-his loving, faithful, dependent, poor cousin. So, arm in arm, we arrived at home; and then, sir, then he baulked me in the most human feeling that ever crept through my lonesome heart; he baulked me in-no matter-no matter what; but let him take the issue! let him feel the strength of the black nature he has made!"

"I think I can guess at what you mean, sir," remarked Cassin; "there was some talk of a lady between you both, at that same time."

Hutchinson half turned away, and for a few moments seemed to speak as if more directly communing with himself.

"Yes; I believed her all that was good, as well as all that was beautiful, and her young image fell upon my heart's darkened waters, and for a time made them too lonely; but 'tis over-'tis over; I hate her! ay, hate her as deeply and as keenly as I do him by whose death alone I can expect to live! You got my letter in the country, Mike Cassin ?"

"Shure, that's the rason why I'm in Howth to-night, your honour."

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Cassin, I'm obliged to remind you-my necessities make me do so that you're my debtor for a good turn."

The huntsman readily admitted this fact, and some conversation ensued between them, in which were reiterated the circumstances to which Hutchinson made allusion. It appeared that Cassin had been arrested a few months before upon heavy suspicion of being a United Irishman, or rebel; that at this time he was in the service of William Hutchinson's father; that grounding his application upon an intimacy -of which the nature was best known to themselves-previously existing between him and his present companion, he had made interest with Mr. James to get him saved from the gallows; and that his young patron accordingly exerted himself with effect, by pleading Cassin's cause to his uncle, Sir Henry Hutchinson, and through him to Major Blake, Sir Henry's particular friend, and during the season. of martial law the arbiter of life and death in all cases of disaffection within his district.

"Listen to me, then," resumed Mr. James; "this rascal-cousin of mine came home to be reinstated in his fine family house yonder; and upon the day that he recrossed its threshold, he had spent about seven summers and winters roving upon the sea; about seven years, mark you a tolerably fair apprenticeship, and fairly entitling him to lay claim to all the follies, and to a few of the vices, which may be learned by a weak head and a weak heart like his, during a floating life. But the world was as new to him as if he had never been on shore; as new as the sea had been when he left the land to serve on it; school-boys of ten years, brought up in the world, knew more about it than he did. And in all this ignorance, its swaggering pleasures caught his eye, and piqued his vanity, and, as he says, his spirit; and he would ape them, and share them, and, in fact, cut a greater dash, here at home, than any man of his circumstances or pretensions."