clothed in heath, broken with lines of grey
rock that resemble the bold and irregular
outlines of fortifications, and riven with
many a gully, expanding here and there
into rocky and wooded glens, which open
as they approach the road.

A scanty pasturage, on which browsed
a few scattered sheep or kine, skirts this
solitary road for some miles, and under shelter
of a hillock, and of two or three great ash-
trees, stood, not many years ago, the little
thatched cabin of a widow named Mary
Ryan.

Poor was this widow in a land of poverty.
The thatch had acquired the grey tint and
sunken outlines, that show how the
alternations of rain and sun have told upon
that perishable shelter.

But whatever other dangers threatened,
there was one well provided against by the
care of other times. Round the cabin stood
half a dozen mountain ashes, as the rowans,
inimical to witches, are there called. On
the worn planks of the door were nailed
two horse-shoes, and over the lintel and
spreading along the thatch, grew, luxuriant,
patches of that ancient cure for many
maladies, and prophylactic against the
machinations of the evil one, the house-leek.
Descending into the doorway, in the
chiar' oscuro of the interior, when your eye
grew sufficiently accustomed to that dim
light, you might discover, hanging at the
head of the widow's wooden-roofed bed,
her beads and a phial of holy water.

Here certainly were defences and
bulwarks against the intrusion of that
unearthly and evil power, of whose vicinity
this solitary family were constantly
reminded by the outline of Lisnavoura, that
lonely hill-haunt of the "Good people,"
as the fairies are called euphemistically,
whose strangely dome-like summit rose not
half a mile away, looking like an outwork
of the long line of mountain that sweeps
by it.

It was at the fall of the leaf, and an
autumnal sunset threw the lengthening
shadow of haunted Lisnavoura, close in
front of the solitary little cabin, over the
undulating slopes and sides of Slieveelim.
The birds were singing among the branches
in the thinning leaves of the melancholy
ash-trees that grow at the roadside in front
of the door. The widow's three younger
children were playing on the road, and their
voices mingled with the evening song of the
birds. Their elder sister, Nell, was "within
in the house," as their phrase is, seeing after
the boiling of the potatoes for supper.

Their mother had gone down to the bog,
to carry up a hamper of turf on her back.
It is, or was at least, a charitable custom—
and if not disused, long may it continue—
for the wealthier people when cutting their
turf and stacking it in the bog, to make a
smaller stack for the behoof of the poor,
who were welcome to take from it so long
as it lasted, and thus the potato pot was
kept boiling, and the hearth warm that
would have been cold enough but for that
good-natured bounty, through wintry
months.

Moll Ryan trudged up the steep "bohereen"
whose banks were overgrown with
thorn and brambles, and stooping under
her burden, re-entered her door, where her
dark-haired daughter Nell met her with a
welcome, and relieved her of the hamper.

Moll Ryan looked round with a sigh of
relief, and drying her forehead, uttered the
Munster ejaculation:

"Eiah, wisha! It's tired I am with it,
God bless it. And where's the crathurs,
Nell?"

"Playin' out on the road, mother; didn't
ye see them and you comin' up?"

"No; there was no one before me on
the road," she said, uneasily; "not a soul,
Nell; and why didn't ye keep an eye on
them?"

"Well, they're in the haggard, playin'
there, or round by the back o' the house.
Will I call them in?"

"Do so, good girl, in the name o' God.
The hens is comin' home, see, and the sun
was just down over Knockdoulah, an' I
comin' up."

So out ran tall, dark-haired Nell, and
standing on the road, looked up and down
it; but not a sign of her two little brothers,
Con and Bill, or her little sister, Peg, could
she see. She called them; but no answer
came from the little haggard, fenced with
straggling bushes. She listened, but the
sound of their voices was missing. Over
the stile, and behind the house she ran—
but there all was silent and deserted.

She looked down toward the bog, as far
as she could see; but they did not appear.
Again she listened—but in vain. At first
she had felt angry, but now a different
feeling overcame her, and she grew pale,
With an undefined boding she looked
toward the heathy boss of Lisnavoura, now
darkening into the deepest purple against
the flaming sky of sunset.

Again she listened with a sinking heart,
and heard nothing but the farewell twitter
and whistle of the birds in the bushes