ONE evening a very pretty peasantgirl was alone in her father's cottage, preparing supper for the family, when an individual entered, and, after the usual unceremonious fashion of the country, sat down opposite her, beside the fire. It was evident at once what this person's feelings were towards the girl; but, unfortunately for himself, he belonged to a class, which the gentler sex does not, we fear, sufficiently appreciate. Jack Cumeskey, or as he was more commonly called, Jack Rhua, (Anglicé, Red Jack,) was a simple, honest-hearted fellow; somewhat clownish both in mind and person, but distinguished by the most devoted generosity of character. His good qualities gained him universal esteem,but this was not sufficient to satisfy the heart of Jack, whose dreams had become tinged of late with the crimson of a certain sun-burnt cheek; and who, notwithstanding his short and clumsy stature, and the unhappy colour of his round and closely shorn head, dared to aspire to the love of the fairest girl of Ballycorly.

"How are you this evenin', Nelly ?" he said, as he took his seat by the hob. "I'm well, Jack, I'm obleeged to you," said the girl, in a tone much more sprightly than poor Jack's; "and how is yourself?”

"Oh, in troth, Nelly, I'm bravely,— thank God and you; and doin' bravely;" he added, "all to a trifle, or so, that I needn't perplex myself talkin' about."

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And musha what's that, Jacky darlint?" said the other, in the same light and bantering manner.

"Oh, in troth you know bravely what it is," said Jack; "only you think it mighty cute-like not to let on."

"In troth I know nothin' about it." said the girl; "barrin' that there's still some one unlucky thing or other ailin' you; and sigus by it," she added, casting a satirical glance on the full and rubicund countenance of the other, "sure aren't you wastin' to a reg'lar shadow?"

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Oh murdher!" cried Jack, but that's dhroll! Well now! and I said that, if ever I seen one could make themselves laugh like you. But it's no matther, Nelly; I only hope and be always as pray your heart may light."

No, Jack; what was it?" said the girl, a little eagerly.

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No! Faith but I'd take my oath you did; only you want me to be tellin' you now," he cried, with a triumphant air; for he had wit enough to perceive the advantage he had accidentally acquired.

"Why bad cess to your impidence,” exclaimed Nelly; "I want you to be tellin' me!"

"Ah sure you know well you do; and in troth I will tell you, and don't be vexed now, alanna. Well, he said as this-Docthor,' says he, there's no use in talkin', but it's hard to say what a man might do when he meets a girl that's as beautiful as the mornin' dawn, but has a kantankerous way, that the divil couldn't make his own of her.'

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Well, Jack," said the maiden, stooping down to conceal a rising blush, "what is it you're like to do?"

"Oh, by my faix I dont know what I'll do. I suppose I'll dhrown myself, or take a lover's lep off the Rock of Foyle, some mornin'. Any way, Nelly, if I stay in the one mind I'll assasshinate myself somehow or other, never fear me."

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You will, now,

Jack?"

Och! if I dont !"-But poor Jack might have spared his vows of selfdestruction. Nelly, whose womanly heart had yielded for an instant to the force of admiration, had now relapsed into her former mood, and all her lover's protestations being of a rather ludicrous character, produced the very contrary effect to what he desired. He sat looking at the fire, and Nelly stood looking at him;-and certainly his face was an admirable study for a lighthearted girl, particularly as she saw, in its lachrymose and varying expression, a manifestation of her own power.

On raising his head at length he encountered Nelly's eye,-the girl burst out laughing, and Jack, with the in-stinct of a true lover, offered at once the most effectual remonstrance to her ill-timed mirth. He leaped up, and flinging his arm round her neck, without leave or license ardently pressed

the lips of the fair scorner. He quickly, however, freed her from his embrace; for the weighty metal spoon, with which Nelly had been examining the boiling potatoes, descended with all the vigour of the maiden's arm on his unprotected head.

"Whoo!" cried Jack, clapping his hand on his cranium, and springing halfway across the floor. "The devil's in the woman's fist! Oh, bad luck to me," he added in most dolorous accents," if it ben't gone to the bone!"

“Ha! more o' that to you!" exelaimed the girl, her face flushed with anger; "maybe that'll larn you manners agin, you impident blackguard!" Whisht, Nelly M'Evoy,-whisht, I bid you, you catheract-You-youOch, murther! to go split a boy's skull for kissing that ugly mouth of your's, and be danged to you!"

“Well, never heed it," cried Nelly; "it's a mighty ugly mouth, I know; but sure your's is a purty mouth, Jack, and that's a comfort." Nelly knew she might slander, with perfect safety, the sweetest feature of her face; and when poor Jack beheld the white teeth slightly displayed by a satirical smile which curled her rosy lips, and thought of his own stout tusks, and the enormous chasm in which they were contained, he could not resist the ludicrous impression of the contrast.

"Oh no," he said, with a melancholy laugh; “I'm no beauty, the world knows: but sure I'm what God made me, you can't say agin that. And if I'm not a beauty," he added, "maybe I can take a beauty's fancy as well as

ment, not knowing exactly what to say. "And who the divil tould you I had?" he cried at last.

"Sure arn't you afther tellin' me yourself?"

No I'm not afther tellin' you. Why, bad luck to me, woman, do you think would I condescind to murther a decent boy, if it was a thing I had the same notion myself all the while? But it's easy secin', Nelly, what makes you so scornful to me. I'm not as white in the face and as smooth-goin' a chap as Willy O'Brien, forbye being a poor man's son."

"On whisht and don't be makin' a fool of yourself," cried Nelly, blushing to the eyes, and endeavouring to lift off the potato-pot from the crook,' where it hung above the blazing turf.

"Ah whoo! that's the way of it," exclaimed the other. "Well, come out of this, and don't be breaking the little arms of you, anyhow. Here! show us where I'll tunible them," he said, relieving the girl of her load.-"Now, can you say I'm jealous of Willy, you little beauty?"

"Oh, in troth, Jack, you're a decent boy afther all."

"Oh I am a wonderful decent boy, to myself it may be told. But faix only I have a regard for Willy, I'd be settlin' a trifle of accounts with him some o' these days."

Their tete-a-tête was here interrupted by the appearance of a rosy, curlyheaded boy, whose strong resemblance to Nelly at once announced their relationship.

"Well, Jack," he said, looking up with the same playful and mischievous expression which sometimes distinguished his sister's face; "how is Barney gettin' on these times ?" Jack looked at the child, and then at Nelly, and he tried to laugh, but his embarrassment was most painfully evident.

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Whisht, sir, with your impidence," cried the girl, casting a reproving look on the young offender; go off aud call your father in to supper;" and out he flew, glad of an opportunity to escape the anger he had so speedily excited. Poor Jack was sadly crestfallen.

is the ould man's, worse nor mine-a dale worse, the unfortunate ould crathur."

The dusk was deepening as Jack descended to the rivers side, beyond which his father's cabin stood, in the opening of a dark and rugged glen, and by the margin of a small tributary stream, which emptied itself into the river, a few perches below this solitary dwelling. The glen ran up for a considerable distance through a wild and mountainous district, and was divided, about midway by the Rock of Foyle, over which the streamlet fell in a glancing torrent, and thence flowed on, with hardly a glimpse of sun, for the remainder of its independent career. The river in the neighbourhood of Jack's dwelling was wide, but not deep; and it was crossed by means of a number of large stepping-stones which, however, answered only when the water was at its ordinary level. In case of floods which, in the winter season, were of frequent occurrence, this passage was exceedingly dangerous, and the bridge being a mile higher up, at the extremity of Lord ——'s domain, the Cumeskeys, who were the only inhabitants through a considerable sweep of country beyond the river, were cut off in a great degree from all intercourse with their neighbours. As Jack approached he observed his father, a little grey-headed old man, sitting on a bench at their cabin door.

O the Lord help you!" muttered Jack-"it's no wondher what the neighbours says, that you're come to that when the could bed's still the soft

est;" as he got within hearing, however, he assumed a more careless tone. "Well, father!" he cried, " you're sticking to the ould way; just killin' yourself out of the face. Go in I toult you," he added, giving him a friendly push, "and dont be gettin' your death here in the could dews."

"Oh Jacky," cried the other, "there's no use in talkin' to me-sure if I do get my death itself what harm?—I think there's none can allow but I'm too long in it!"

"Whisht!" exclaimed the son," and dont let me hear you say the like. Faix I wonder but an ould man like you would have more sense."

"Well, well, I have no sense nor no throubles either-Blessed be His name that gives me strength to bear them; but I tell you, Jacky, there's them would think it a hardship for a man that strove to keep an honest cha

racther through the worst of times, to find in his ould age he was all along rearin' a son for the gallows."

"Oh by dad, father, I give in to you there; it's a hard case sure enoughbut it's to be hoped there's betther times afore us all yet; and a betther end for Barney than the gallows, bad as he is."

"Ay! you may hope, Jack; but there's a power of differ between the young and ould; and it's what I often think, that hopes in the heart are like the little thorny-backs in that sthrame fornenst us; there's hundreds of them sportin' in it up among the green hills beyant; but hardly one at all you'll see there, where it's flowin' by us could and dark!"

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"Oh in troth that's the truth," said Jack, "but here's Barney," he added with a slight degree of perturbation, as he observed the object of their allusions coming whistling along the glen. On reaching the cabin door, this individual lifted the pipe, which lay cold beside the old man, and entered rather rudely, without taking the slightest notice of either father or son.

"Musha, bad luck to you," muttered the latter, "but you're civil in yourself this evenin.'

"Whist, Jack, you'll only aggravate him," cried the old man, alarmed, lest these words might reach the ear of the person to whom they were addressed.

“Och, by my sowl, father,” exclaimed Jack in a louder tone, "if it goes to that, I'm as good a man as him, the best day ever he was."

"What's that you say, Jack ?" demanded the other, as he reappeared with his lighted pipe at the door of the cabin.

"Oh, it's nothin'," exclaimed the father hastily-" I tell you, Barney, he said nothing about you. Oh musha, musha, amn't I the unfortunate ould

man!"

"Faith it's betther for him to say nothin' about me," said Barney, casting a look on his brother, which stout as he was, almost made him tremble. He returned the scowl, however, and it was consideration for his father's feelings alone which restrained the more open expression of his hostility.

The old man had gone to rest, when the two brothers sat at the dying turf, the elder busy with the contemplation of his own evil schemes, and poor Jack reflecting on his recent and somewhat mortifying interview with Nelly. After a long silence, the former, crushing in

a piece of lit turf, to kindle the new charge of his doodeen addressed his companion

Well, Jack, when do you mane to be bringin' ould Aby's daughter home to us?"

You needn't fret, Barney," was Jack's gruff reply, for he was in the worst possible temper for joking on such a subject.

"Because," continued the other, "I was thinkin' of payin' her a visit myself some of these nights."

Jack looked up in sudden terror— * You were, Barney?" he exclaimed. “Ay," replied Barney, "you know I have a grudge agin' Aby of ould." The hair rose on Jack's head, and a livid paleness was gathering about his lips.

Barney Cumeskey," he said, in an unsteady voice, "if it's what you mane to hurt or harm Nelly M'Evoy, by the mortial frost I'll make a world's won dher of you."

The individual thus mildly threatened, eyed his brother with a look between admiration and contempt. He seemed not displeased with the indignation be evinced.

"Take it asy, Jack," he said, "and it'll do you good. Arrah, God help you, boy, if you think the Ropairé Ruadh would throuble his head about the likes o' that little grinnin' gipsy, and him that can get ere a girl from Ross to Leighlin without so much as shooil lat avourneen. It was only givin' you a hint I was; for you know," he continued with a significant glance, "I have a way of my own of coortin'."

"Oh in troth, Barney, you have more ways nor manes, that's sartin. But you needn't think I'm goin' to folly your notion; if that's what you're at."

"Faith, I'll be bound you're not," replied the other with a contemptuous laugh: " and troth, Jack, bad as I am now, I'd be sorry to ax you."

“You would, I'm tould," said Jack, who gave but little credit to this declaration, from one who had more than once endeavoured to draw him into his own ungodly courses.

"Oh, honour's bright!" cried the robber; "it's the least the ould man may have one left to close his eyesand that'll not be me," he added, with an assumed recklessness of manner; "barrin' I take out my licence."

"Ay, and give over the free tradin'.

• The Red Rapparee.

Oh well, Barney, it's asy talkin'; but the Lord knows I'd give the ten best years o' my life, ay, and the hand off my body, to see you this night what you once were, when the ould man was the proudest father in Ballycorly."

"Troth, and that's what you'll never see me," said the other hastily.

"Troth I b'lieve it," rejoined Jack. "Troth I b'lieve that, sure enough; but, mark me, Barney, it's a power of gold that's worth a clear characther and a light heart."

"Och Jack, don't be talkin' foolishness," cried his brother; "where's the use of this nonsense? sure if I made my bed I'm not afeard to lie on it. Any way I'll have my fling for a bit, and when the worst comes to the worst, why it's what I think that there isn't one of my name but could meet it like a man."

"Faix, I don't know," said Jack, who nevertheless was not inferior to his brother in courage; "I'd as lieve let it alone; and I have a notion it might be as well for yourself to do the same, stout as you are."

Jack," said the other, after a moment's reverie; "I'll tell you a sacret. I'm beginnin' to suspect some foul play among the boys. Faith I'm beginnin' to doubt there's more Hughy Stapletons among them; and worse nor Hughy maybe, if all was known.”

"Troth, you may swear it-it's often I tould you that, Barney, but you would'nt heed my word."

"Oh well! I'll know all about it afore long. But if ever I'm hard pushed I'll give you warnin' if it's in my power, and then you may stand by me or not as you like."

Barney was right in believing that he could confide more safely in the honest attachment of his brother than in the fidelity of his unprincipled associates. Jack had formerly regarded him with natural pride and affection. and though the former feeling had been long extinguished, the latter still remained fervent as ever in his bosom.

At the period of which we are speaking, the terror of Barney's name had spread far and wide; but though one of the most notorious and desperate offenders known in that country for many years, he had hitherto managed. probably more by good luck than good guidance, to escape in a great degree the power of the law. He had experienced some of its minor penalties;

Come away my dear.

but though tried more than once on capital impeachments, where no moral doubt could remain as to his guilt, he was acquitted for want of sufficient evidence for a legal conviction. This, of course, had only the effect of increasing his audacity, and his influence amongst his associates, who began to imagine that the Ropairé Ruadh had certainly been born under a lucky star, and that he was destined to mount the scaffold, loaded with the honours of a long and brilliant career. It is hardly necessary to observe that persous of Barney's profession, though objects of universal reprobation, generally possess a considerable share of popular sympathy. Their daring and reckless habits their adventurous lives-and, more than all, their generosity and tenderness to the poor, a virtue which has distinguished the most celebrated of our Irish bandits, naturally produce in their favour a feeling of interest and regard.

But Barney Cumeskey, if not altogether excluded from this charitable indulgence, enjoyed it in a very slight degree. There was hardly a redeeming trait in his character He was sanguinary and vindictive, and all that can be said in his favour is, that he was an honest ruffian. He never concealed his feelings, and never accepted a trust in order to betray. This can scarcely be considered to have arisen from any conscientious scruples on Barney's part, but he had the true professional courage, and he scorned to have recourse to unworthy means for the attainment of an object, as long as a more manly and dangerous course lay open before him. Notwithstanding, how ever, the nobility of these sentiments, the Red Robber was equally feared and disliked, and his removal in any way, would have been regarded as a singularly happy event. There was one individual to whom he was an object of peculiar aversion, and this was Aby M.Evoy, the father of our young acquaintance. Aby, who was a man of wealth and character in the country, had suffered a little by the depredations of his lawless neighbour. He had on one occasion succeeded in bringing him to justice, but though the offence and punishment were comparatively trivial, those who knew Barney, said he was not a man likely to forget a service of that nature; indeed he made no secret of his intention to be revenged some day or other on the honest farmer. In personal appear

ance, the robber had considerably the advantage of his brother. The physique of his face was better, though its expression was peculiarly repelling ;— his form was athletic and well proportioned; but he was most distinguished by his dark red hair, from which he derived his surname, and which, from a singular and imprudent species of vanity, he generally wore hanging al most to his shoulders. The other members of this family were, as we have seen, in all respects, the reverse of Barney. Every one was fond of Jack; and the father, notwithstanding the disgrace brought on his house, was universally respected and esteemed. Having borne through life an upright character, there were none who would visit on him, in his old age, the sins of his offspring.

Jack, according to his resolution, ceased almost altogether his attentions to Nelly M'Evoy, particularly when, in spite of his cherished illusion, he be came at length convinced of the impossibility of supplanting his rival. Willy O'Brien was, it must be confessed, a very unexceptionable suitor. So Nelly thought, and she accordingly yielded to him her heart and affections, and her father would, in all probability, have been of the same opinion, but for an ancient feud which had for many years divided the two most illustrious houses of Ballycorly. But this feud could not divide the young hearts of Nelly and her lover. Their attachment was of an early date, and as they had frequent opportunities of being together, they, for a long time, experienced more pleasure than inconvenience from the secrecy in which it was necessary to conceal their love. At length, however, the girl's parents perceived the state of her feelings.

The mother could not find it in her heart to condemn a passion so natural and pure: but her father prohibited, on the severest penalties, any further intercourse with the young “Montague."

Poor Nelly was a fond and dutiful child. She loved her father “as well as a daughter should do;" but her love for another had gained too strong an ascendency, to yield to a feeling which she could not persuade herself came within the limits of filial duty. Had their relative circumstances been different, she might probably have found less ditficulty in complying with her father's command; but Willy was living almost beside her; she would meet him in the mornings ou the green banks of