your arms this instant, or you are dead
men. Our pieces are levelled at you." They
threw down their arms, retired within the
house, and barred the door. Fortunately for
Mr. Kherwin's party they had no lanthorn
or candle with them; for, had they shown
a light, some of the party would have
fallen to a certainty. What was now to be
done?

The besiegers approached the door of the
house, and desired the bushrangers to come
out; but they returned no answer. To break
in upon them was impossible, for there
were no crowbars, pickaxes, or other such
weapons at hand; while the numerous dogs
on the premises became so vehement and
desperate, it was necessary to shoot and
bayonet several of them. Matters remained
thus until the morning, when the besiegers
withdrew to a distance of about sixty
yards from the house, and there took up a
position in a stock-yard. The besieged,
however, opened fire from loopholes, and in
less than a quarter of a minute twelve rounds
of ball-cartridge were discharged from as
many firelocks. Fortunately none of the
shots took effect. It was therefore deemed
prudent to withdraw, for the present, to a
distance of one hundred yards, and stand
behind a clump of large gum-trees.
Nevertheless, the besieged, whenever they saw a
head, or a hand, or a foot, had a shot at it.
From the number of shots with which they
were simultaneously greeted, Mr. Kherwin
believed that there were at least nine
bushrangers in the house; and, as he was
unprepared for an encounter of this character—
each of his party having only twenty rounds
of ammunition—he was compelled to reserve
his fire. The house, thickly-coated as it was
with mud, was bullet-proof. Mr. Sutter,
therefore, at Mr. Kherwin's instigation, rode
into Paramatta for reinforcements, taking
with him several of the blacks as guides. The
Commandant at Paramatta, sent a sergeant
and ten private soldiers to Mr. Kherwin's
aid.

It was not until the third day, however,
that they arrived at the scene of action; for
they had to take with them two light field-
pieces, six-pounders, and a variety of
implements for effecting an entrance in case the
mud-casing to the house should resist the
cannon-shot for any length of time. The news
soon arrived in Sydney, and numbers of
officers and gentlemen, many of whom had
been robbed on the road by Fox, Pitt, and
Burke, hastened to the spot.

On the morning of the second day, after
the arrival of the military, one of the shots
from a field-piece happened to strike the
door of the stronghold, and shiver it to atoms;
whereupon a woman, with her hair streaming
down her back, and holding in her hand a
large white rag at the end of a stick, came
out of the house, and, approaching the
besiegers, cried out, " We surrender!" The
firing ceased, and the woman was permitted
to return and communicate to the
bushrangers that only ten minutes would be
allowed them to come out, unarmed, and
give themselves up. This they did, and were
forthwith ironed and handcuffed.

The women, it seemed, had aided them in
firing at the authorities. Fox, Pitt, and
Burke, having trained them to the use of
fire arms, and made them expert
markswomen. In the house were found no less
than thirty fowling-pieces, twelve pairs of
pistols, powder and shot in large quantities,
lead for casting bullets, and several swords
and cutlasses. The abode itself had been
cleanly kept. Everything was in the neatest
order; while the land, considering that the
bushrangers were but amateur agriculturists,
was very well tilled. In the dairy was found
both butter and cheese of their own making,
in the store-house salted beef and pickled
pork of their own curing. In short, there
were very few farms in the colony better
stocked. They had abundance of poultry and
pigeons.

Fox, Pitt, and Burke were all hanged in the
Paramatta jail. The women pleaded that
they had been taken away by force; and, as
the plea was accepted, they were placed in the
factory. These women were all under sentence
of transportation for life; but a few years
afterwards they obtained tickets of leave,
became the wives of expirées, and led tolerably
respectable lives.

Several officers made applications to the
governor to have the bushrangers' farm
granted to them, and one of them had the
good fortune to obtain it.

BELTANE, OR MAY-DAY.

IN the days of sun-worship in Britain,* the
Druids kept up perpetual fires on the high-
places of sacrifice. On the first of May (old
style), the great festival of the god, it was a
rule amongst the people to extinguish the
fire on the hearth of every family, and to
rekindle it by sacred embers obtained from
the fire-altars. It is from this circumstance
that May Day was and is still called Beltane
by the peasantry in Lancashire,
Northumberland, and many districts of Scotland. In
Irish the first of May is called La Beal-tine,
or the day of Baal's fire. According to
Jamieson, the Scottish lexicographer, the
term Beltane is derived from Baal-tine, a
word still extant in the Celtic dialects of
Scotland and Ireland. It signifies Bel's-fire,
being composed of Bel, or Belis, one of the
names of the sun in Gaul, and tein, or teind,
signifying fire, or an ember. In the Angus
district a spark of fire is still called a teind;
and in the English language of the present
day we have the same word preserved in the
vocable tinder.
* Number 475, page 526.