"Has your little girl been ill?" said I, addressing the mother"she has a sickly look, I think."-"Ah! then, your honour, it's she that has been ill, God help her-so ill, indeed, Sir, that I had no notion in the world she would ever over id; but God has been better to me than I deserve, blessed be his name for id." "I am glad to find," said I, that you are truly sensible of his goodness, in sparing her to your affection; and I trust you will bring her up in his fear and in his knowledge:-how many children have you besides her ?" "Indeed, Sir," replied the woman, "she's all that ever we have had, an' I often blame myself for lovin' her so much, an' pray that my heart may be weaned a little more from her; bud I can't help lovin' her still-for she has never cost her father or myself a frown, from the hour of her birth to this minnit; and, Sir, it would delight you to hear how she can repate her catechism.-Maybe, Sir," said the poor woman, delighted at the idea-"maybe your honour would be good enough to try her in id ?" That," said I, "is out of my power, as I am unacquainted with the catechism which she has been taught." "She can repate," continued the mother, "a great deal of the New Testament off the book, an' I hope she understands, an', young as she is, practises it too." "I thought," observed I, "that Father Driscoll did not permit any of his flock to read the Bible in his schools; but perhaps he did not know it." "Father Driscoll," replied the woman, bas no controul over me or my child, for I do not belong to his flock. I trust I worship God in spirit and truth, and approach him through faith in Him who gave his life a ransom for sinners. I am a Protestant, Sir.". I am sure you are a Christian," I replied, if this great principle of salvation be truly impressed upon your heart." "Ah, Sir," said she, "it's hard for us to be what we ought to be; there is so much that's evil, corrupt, and against God in our nature, that except we throw ourselves on the mercies of our Redeemer, we have no hope; and surely to live without hope, is to live without God in this world. That Redeemer, Sir, blessed for ever and ever be his name, was a man of many griefs, and acquainted with sorrows-and if we have sorrows, have we not Him to look to?-if we be heavy laden, will He not bear our burden ?" As she uttered these words, I looked more earnestly at her countenance, and saw a tear stealing silently down her cheek. Her face, indeed, was one in which religion and sorrow, hope and resignation seemed to blend together;-but religion appeared to triumph; for as she wiped the tear away, I saw the serene light of a Christian's consolation beam, with mild and pensive beauty, in her eye, as she silently turned it towards that heaven where dwelt the support of her declining and afflicted spirit. During the conversation, the child had been pulling a little cluster of blue-bells, which she had mingled among the other flowers, according as the colours seemed best to harmonize with each other, or with her fancy. When she had finally arranged them, she approached her mother, throwing at me, as she came, a quick but bashful glance of her beautiful blue eyes. She then put her hand into her mother's, who bent down as the child whispered

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to her for a moment, and whilst speaking she cast another glance as rapid as the former, accompanied by a slight blush, which tinged her pale face with the infant grace and beauty of innonocence. Indeed I don't know, Ellen, my dear, whether the gentleman has little daughters or not," said the mother." She wishes, Sir, to know if you have any little daughters at home." "Indeed I have, my dear, three of them, and the eldest is about your own age and size." The child, after again looking at me timidly, hesitated a moment, and then whispered her mother a second time." She bids me ask, Sir," said the latter, "if you would allow her to give you her nosegay, to bring home to them, as she says it is large enough, when divided, to make one for each." "I will, my dear," said I, "accept your little gift with pleasure, and when I present it to them, I will tell them that the little hands that pulled it are joined together in the worship of God every night and morning; and I am sure it will be truth." She then came over with that diffidence and native modesty which characterize young and ingenuous minds, and put the flowers into my hand. From the appearance of the mother, which was clean, but very plain, I surmised that they lived in poverty and privation; I therefore made the reception of the flowers an argument for giving the child something which I thought might be more necessary to her comfort. But when I attempted to do so, the child withdrew, and refused to accept it. "You are very good, Sir, said the mother; but I would not wish Ellen to receive any thing for doing a kind or civil action. It's her duty, without reward, to be both kind and civil. Besides, we do not stand in need of it, Sir-returnin' you, at the same time, many thanks." Perhaps the child," said I, "might require some nourishing things, that you cannot afford to procure her. "That's true enough, Sir," she replied; "but the Lord, blessed be his name, has raised up a friend, that does not let my poor Ellen want for any thing that's fit for her." "I am glad to hear it," said I; "may I enquire who the kind individual is, who takes such a humane interest in your little Ellen ?" "It is Father James Butler, Sir," returned the woman, "who, through all her sickness (brought on by a could she catched afther risin' out of the mazles,) took care that she should want for nothing.— Many a tear did he shed over her, as she lay moanin' under the load of sickness that overtook her; for he confessed to me, that he loved her bekase she reminded him of one that was gone.--But he said he would soon meet his Ellen in a world where they would never be separated. She was godmother to this child, Sir, and it was afther her she was called. But thank God I am not so bigoted as to deny that he is a true Christian, although his religion is different from mine; and if this child never was called afther Miss Ellen Upton, Mr. Butler would be as ready to be her friend, as he is to assist all those in the neighbourhood, that sickness or misfortune prevents from bein' able to help themselves." 66 Indeed, I agree with you," I replied, "in your character of Mr. Butler." We had a visit yesterday, too," she continued, "from the rector's lady, who, indeed, had she heard

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of Ellen's sickness would have called sooner; but the parish is very large, Sir, and she lives upwards of five miles from our house, which you may see there, beside that little knowe.-She is, indeed, a good and a Christian woman, God bless her."

They here made me another curtsey, and turned into a little lane that led towards their house. I then resumed my book-my horse, who knows my habits, stealing forward at a snail's pace. In this manner, I advanced about forty perches or so, when I heard two voices behind me-one of which I instantly recognised as Dimnick's. I placed myself in such a position in the gig, that, whilst I had my eye on them, I appeared to be contemplating the beauty of the surrounding country. Dimnick was coming along, with his hat off, and a long set of beads in his hands, making up (as I afterwards understood) by performing the office of St. Joseph, for the time he lost with Father Butler in the earlier part of the day. The other was a personage who at first left all my penetration at fault, as to who or what he was, or could be. At all events, he was certainly above six feet high-wore a long beard, by which I judged that he wished to distinguish himself as a person set exclusively apart for religious purposes. His hat had a steeple-crown upwards of a foot high, which made him appear of a gigantic size, and the leaf of it fell down over his shoulders, like that of a coal-porter. He wore no shoes, but had on a pair of martyeens,* that went down to his ancles. What the colour of his coat was, or whether he wore one or not, I could not say; for his huge body was completely enveloped in a blanket, which he had secured upon him with a leathern belt, that buckled round his middle. He had two bags upon his back, and one hanging across his breast. Under his left arm he carried a large bullock's horn, bottomed with leather, and corked with a plug of paper-beneath which hung a tin canteen. In his left hand he bore a long oaken cudgel, called a cant, with an iron spike in the end of it; and in his right a string of beads, at least twice the length of Dimnick's. This colossus and Paddy went forward, bandying Irish prayers alternately, until they had advanced about ten perches before me. As they passed, Paddy shut one eye, as usual, and gave me a look full of a bitter and malicious spirit, tempered, however, by a chuckle of triumph, produced by the trimming which he imagined he had given me that morning.

In the course of a few minutes after they had passed, the prayers were finished, and each put his beads in his pocket and his hat on his head; Paddy then got on at a quicker rate, and the other slackened his pace, as if he waited until I should drive up to him. He was certainly a formidable looking fellow, and without at all derogating from my own courage, I have no hesitation in saying, that I should wish to avoid him in a lonely place; as nothing but the sternest necessity could drive me upon single combat with such a man-mountain, or induce me to grapple with him and his half-dozen of bags.

* Stockings without feet.

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Here, however, there was no danger, as reapers were employed in almost every field about us. 1 therefore felt some curiosity to know what kind of a being he might be, or whether he was tame or otherwise; and he himself seemed willing enough to come to an explanation, for he hung back as if waiting till I advanced. "Well, my honest fellow," said I when I came up to him, "I have been endeavouring to penetrate that blanket of mystery you have about you for the last ten minutes; but to no purpose-what occupation, may I ask, do you follow ?" "What occypation is id?-why then, your honour, I'll tell ye that preachin' the Gospel." "Preaching the Gospel!" said I in astonishment, " why man you look to be any thing but an apostle." Do ye think so?" said he. Undoubtedly," I replied, "I am of that opinion." "I believe you," he answered; "I know I'm not wan iv your apoastles, for I don't go in a coach and six, nor in a jig even, (casting a glance at myself,) but plaze God I'm not a traneen the worse iv that, I'm thinkin'." Certainly not," I answered, "but may I enquire of what sect you are the ornament-what religious persuasion is blessed by your apostolic labours?" Why," said he, hitching up his bags, "don't you know by my hat I'm a Quaker ?" “No,” said I, I could never find out that secret by your hat: no Quaker wears a steeple crown to his." "Well then," said he, "if I'm not a Quaker, I'm a high-churchman, iv coorse, since ye must know id." "I don't see how that follows," said I. "May-be, yer honour," he replied with a grin, "that's bekase ye havent got an eye in the back iv yer head." I now suspected either that the fellow was a humourist, or that he determined to be insolent. I resolved, however, to try him a little further. "Well," I enquired, "what success have you had in preaching?" "Why, Sir, odd as you think me, I have saved many a soul in my time." Are you sure of that?" I enquired. "As sure as that you're in that jig you're sittin' in." "I should wish to hear," said I, "how you effected that important object."

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Well if you would," he returned, " put a half-crown there," stretching out a prodigious paw across the road. I thought I would not have been justified in throwing away half a crown upon such a sturdy knave; but as I am fond of character, I gave him a shilling, that I might get a little more out of him. He looked at the money for a moment, and after a shrug or two of disappointment, put it under his fore tusk, and giving it a bend as if it were tin, looked at it again ;--" It is good," said he, peering at me from under the steeple hat. "Now," said I, "let me know how you saved so many souls in your labours." " "Well," said he, " squirting an old chew of tobacco about a perch across the road, 66 see what it is to make a fool's bargain ;-how did I save so many?—why by goin' bare-footed summer and winther, for any man that goes that-a-way will save soles. An' now ye have the worth iv yer money I think," said the sturdy villain, as he turned into a gap that led across the fields to a small village, about a quarter of a mile from the road. "Do you know who or what that man is?" I enquired from two men who were

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mending a part of the road where he turned off. "That's Owen Devlin, the pilgrim," said one of them." A pilgrim !" said I, "what do you mean exactly by a pilgrim ?" "A pilgrim, Sir," said the man," is a blessed person that goes about from place to place, tachin' an' larnin' prayers an' hymes, an' goin' to Loughderg, an' holy stations, attendin' christenins an' weddins, an' wakes-where they say prayers, and sing rhans, an' may be puts a pebble from Loughderg in the coffin, if they're well thrated. That man, Sir, is wan iv them--an' a blessed an' holy crathur he is—was he speakin' to you Sir?" he asked-" Yes,' said I, "I entered into conversation with him." "That's a wondher, Sir, for id's seldom he spakes wud a Protestant, or any other heretic, at all, at all-an' some o' them makes a vow never to spake to a heretic." "What mean all the bags he carries about him?" I enquired. Why, Sir, that man, poor as he is, has a son in Maynewth-an' he gathers praties, an' male, an' milk, an' whatever else he can get; an' by sellin' them, along wud what odd pences he picks up here an' there, wud sometimes a shillin' now an' then for a prayer or so-he continues to keep the son in dacent close he went first a poor scolard to Munsther, where he got into some farmer's house-an' so Sir, from wan step to another he never pulls bridle, till he gets 'imself into the college iv Maynewth. The father's now goin' to Paddy Dimnick's, I'm thinkin', to have a prayin' bout wud Paddy, or may-be to larn 'im some new prayer.' "Yes," I observed, I certainly saw them together." "Sure enuff, Sir, they're often thegither; an' indeed he hasn't much to brag iv over Paddy, clever as he is for that matther, Barney," said the man, addressing his companion, I'd hould a thrifle that Paddy would say prayer for prayer wud 'im, and hould out longest, afther." "No indeed, Ned, wouldn't he do any sich thing, although I don't deny bud Paddy's as holy, may-be, as Owen, although Paddy's bud a voteen.” "And what's the difference, I enquired, between a voteen and a pilgrim p "Why, Sir, a man livin' at home wud his family may be a voteen, bud a pilgrim has neither house nor family, bud goes about from place to place, as I sed, Sir." "And is Paddy considered a holy man ?" I asked. "Barrin Father Driscoll 'imself, Sir, there's not so holy a man in the parish; he knows a power, Sir, entirely, about prayers, an' the church, an' Scripthur, and there's no end to his fastin' and prayin'-indeed it's the greatest pity in the world that he wasn't made a priest iv-for he can argue Scripthur wud the face of clay"*—he can, thought I, with a face of brass-I now drove on, and could not help reflecting upon the state of ignorance in which it is possible for a Christian country, in the ninteenth century, to be placed, even within the reach and influence of truth's unsullied light. Good God, thought I, is it possible, that such men can say they have lived under the ministry of Christian clergymen ?-legitimate successors, forsooth, of those champions of truth, whose kindling piety, clear, simple, and rational, spread the light of revelation over kingdoms

* With any human being.