received she published them without delay, and the scandals to which they gave rise soon filled the barony with gossip and disputes. Man, woman, and child talked of nothing else. In every hamlet parties for and against Bridget's gospel were formed, till all Innishowen was divided into two great factions, one of which maintained that her revelations came from an angel, and the other that she was in direct communication with Satan. It was remarked that the elder and more pious part of the population uniformly adhered to the first, and the less sober or more interested portion to the latter; but both parties admitted the singular truth of her discoveries as far as they referred to earthly doings, and no doubt remained in the barony regarding the pilgrim's existence. He had been seen by different individuals at strange hours, and in solitary places; but no one, except Bridget and her niece, had ever exchanged words with him. Mary was not ignorant of his comings to the cottage, though she witnessed none of his interviews with her aunt, which always took place long after she had retired to bed. Many a night the girl tried to watch; but somehow sleep overcame her, though even through her slumbers she was conscious of sounds and voices in the house, and her aunt was sure to have a message for somebody in the morning. Indeed, the greater part of Bridget's time was now spent either in dispensing such tidings, or praying for the souls of her deceased friends, all but Ray- | mond O'Dougherty, whom she solemnly pronounced to be safe in heaven. When not thus engaged, the woman was so restless and abstracted, so careless of worldly matters and so engrossed with her revelations, that poor Mary felt strange and solitary in her presence; and a less elastic mind would have been borne down by such a weight of the marvellous, for little relaxation could she find at the farm-house. It was great days with the Dempseys. Their faith in Bridget, though strong, was not unmingled with family pride in the miracle; and the wars which Mary's stepmother waged with interested or unbelieving neigh bors entirely occupied that energetic lady, to the utter forgetfulness of the "conthrary dhrame."

It was not so, however, with the dreamer. Never did Mary see Father O'Brien, even at

the altar, without recollecting May Eve and the gay soldier who seemed her suitor, under favor of the yarra. The girl began to observe also, though at first she thought it was but a simple fancy, that the young priest took particular but concealed notice of her. Father O'Brien had been only two years in charge of the parish; he was a native of Connaught, a province which, with the rest of Ireland, enjoys a gay or rather wild repute. There was a rumor of his reverence having been persuaded into Holy Orders, against some conscientious scruples, by his uncle, a learned dean, who had received his education in the Jesuits' College, in France, which he went back to visit at the outbreak of the Revolution, and was never heard of after. Most people thought the story true. O'Brien had a frank face and a manly bearing; but both belonged to the world rather than the church. He could make himself at home in wake or wedding, was careless of clerical power, and most tolerant to the young; though the stricter portion of his flock, and Bridget among the rest, were by no means satisfied with his laxity on the subjects of Lent and holydays. Easily, yet irreproachably, had the young priest walked in his wild parish, carrying the principle of non-interference to its utmost extent, especially in the case of Bridget Dempsey. She belonged to that small number of the Irish Catholic peasantry whom more than common intelligence and a singularly pure life have raised above the level of an ordinary parish priest's authority. It was said she confessed only to the bishop, and her late increase of knowledge had elevated the lady still higher in spiritual rank; but the rows which arose in field, fair, and still-house over her announcements having by this time demanded the attention of the county police, Father O'Brien found himself also called on to interpose. His resolution to that effect had been widely circulated throughout the preceding week by his old housekeeper, Sheelah, perhaps for the purpose of warning or intimidation; and the scattered parishioners were astir at an unusually early hour on Sunday morning, in order to be in time for what they denominated "the grate hearin'," otherwise Bridget Dempsey's public rebuke by his reverence. trembling.

Mary also arose in fear and It was a terrible day to all the

call at the farm-house on his homeward way. It was past midnight, and a temporary silence had fallen on Connor Dempsey's kitchen; and Mary, restless and uneasy, stepped to its open door to breathe the air of the warm night, and look up at her aunt's cottage. There was not a breeze nor a bough astir in the soft calm air; but, as the girl looked in the direction of her aunt's house, a great light suddenly flashed from its windows; then, as if from above and around her, there was a sound of wild and shrill laughter, passing away till it was lost in the distance, and all in the cottage seemed dark again. Mary's frightened looks and broken words gave the alarm as she staggered in; but it was not till the early breaking of the summer day that the assembled neighbors could make up their minds to proceed with Connor Dempsey at their head, for he would not go without them, to the cottage. All was quiet within, except the hum of low conversation, and her brother's knock was answered by Bridget, who sat there alone with the priest; but her Bible lay on the table, and, having invited them all to enter, the woman in their presence took a voluntary and solemn oath upon it never to reveal to mortal man what had happened that night in her cottage, while the priest, with a low benediction, went his way home.

"Connor, dear!" said Bridget, as soon as he was gone, with more familiarity than she had assumed to her brother for years, "Connor, dear! a'm out ov consate wid this house now; maybe you could put Mary an' me up in a corner ov yours till I get mesilf detarmined what to do."

Connor gave an amazed consent, and the neighbors dispersed unedified; but, on the following Sunday, a new priest officiated at the altar in the glen, and, after a sermon against prying into things people didn't understand, he informed them that the bishop had sent him to look after the parish, as Father O'Brien found the duty too much for him. His housekeeper, Sheelah, from whom endeavors had been made to extract information, assured all inquirers that "his riverince had got a litter from the Pope to go to Roome, an' be made a cardinal for his larnin'." But why or where the priest went was not ascertained. Of course, the event at the cottage afforded large scope for conjecture, and many an explanation was hazarded.

Some presumed that his reverence had discovered a cloven foot on the pilgrim; others, that he was the spirit of his uncle, the dean, who had been killed in France, and was allowed to walk the world for no good. These opinions long divided the legendlovers of Innishowen; but the pilgrim never afterwards appeared within the barony, no could Bridget be induced to speak of him even to the Dempseys. Whatever she had sworn to keep secret was sufficient to prevent her return to the cottage, except for the purpose of collecting her small property previous to a journey to see some distant relations settled on the Autrim coast. Bridget never came back, but found another habitation there, and sent for Mary, who willingly obeyed her summons, though it was remarked that the pilgrim's coming or going had a most subduing effect on Mrs. Dempsey, and Connor was heard to say in private, “ if it wis the Ould Boy himself, he had done some sarvice till Innishowen." Whether in this sentence the honest farmer referred to the increase of his own domestic comforts, the remnants of Bridget's revelations, which were occasionally cast up in quarrels, or the news which a traveller two years after brought from the county Antrim, his neighbors could not determine; but the said traveller's tale was that Bridget Dempsey took rank in her new locality as "a wonderful spinner and a grate Christin," and that the niece had "just been married to the young schoolmasther, an uncommon learned man from Connaught, ov the name of O'Brien," He added, that the wedding was made memorable by the bridegroom wearing the uniform of the Volunteer Corps, then raised in every district against the threatened French invasion; and in that of Antrim O'Brien was a sergeant.

On hearing this report, Mrs. Dempsey observed that "the yarra on the ould grave was the thruest in all the barony;" but neither her own fine grown-up daughters nor any of their young neighbors would ever venture to gather it after Mary's meeting with the pilgrim on May Eve.

HAVE the courage to acknowledge ignorance of any kind; every body will imme diately doubt you, and give you more credit than any false pretensions could secure.

From "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine."

THE VISION OF POLYPHEMUS.

In the noontide of the summer,
When the sea had gone to sleep,
And the purple haze was girdling

All the islets of the deep;
When the weed lay still and floating
From the rock whereon it grew,
And the mirror of the ocean

Seemed a lower heaven of blue;
Then I lay amidst the sea-pinks,
Poring on the ancient song
Of the wise and brave Ulysses,

Kept from Ithaca so long.

Coast by coast I traversed with him,
From Sigæum's distant strand,
Through the clustering heaps of islands,
To the lonely Lotos land.
Thence again, until at morning
Rose the sweet Sicilian hills,
With their wooded gorges cloven
By the leaping of the rills.
And I saw them heave the anchor-
Saw them bounding on the shore-
Saw them rolling on the meadows,

Freed from labor at the oar-
Saw them there, like joyous children,
Milking ewes beneath the shade;
Quaffing draughts more sweet than nectar,
From the bowls that nature made.
Undisturb'd I left them roaming-

Sleep at length came down on me : "Twas the influence of the season, Not the weight of Odyssey!

But my spirit travell'd onwards
With that old adventurous crew-
Ancient story hath its symbols,

That may well concern the new.
In my dream, I saw them lying-

Ten or twelve-the last remains Of the Ithacan persuasion,

Bound in most unpleasant chains. Only one was free from fetters;

He, the fattest of the whole, For the hideous one-eyed giant Turned the spit, and filled the bowl. And I shudder'd as I saw it;

For I knew within my dream "Twas Ulysses, the Fundholder, Serving Giant Polypheme!

With a chuckle said the monster,

"If you're wise, you'll not provoke me: Serve me up another dainty,

For the last did nearly choke me.
You're my cook-you're used to Peeling-
Well, then, peel another fellow!
Don't suppose you discompose me
If you make the rascals bellow!

You began by cooking farmers
From your Ithacan estate:
They were more digestive morsels
Than the food you've served of late.
Mariners I gladly swallow,

But they're somewhat tough and ropy:

But a wailing filled the cavern,

From the wretched creatures bound

"O Ulysses! rise and save us—

Save us from that hell-born hound! Are we not thine own companions? Have we not been true to thee? Valiant offspring of Laertes,

Cut our bonds, and set us free!"

But Ulysses slowly answer'd,

And his cheek was wan and white"If you make so loud a shrieking All of us must die to-night! Don't you see the Giant's sleeping? Let him sleep a little longer! But in answer to Ulysses

יין

Rose the cry of terror stronger. "Can it be our lord and chieftain Who such abject counsel speaks? Is it thou, indeed, Ulysses

Thou the wisest of the Greeks? Have we not beheld our comrades

Swallow'd by that monster there? Lie we not the next for slaughter,

Writhing, moaning in despair? Oh, by all the toils we suffer'd,

Far with thee at windy Troy-
By the honor of thy princess,
By the life-blood of thy boy,
Come and help us, O Ulysses!

Save us ere we perish wholly!"
But the chief again responded,
In a tone of melancholy-
"If it seemeth to Athenė,

And to Zeus correct and proper,
That the whole of you should perish
On the spit or in the copper,
What availeth lamentation?
Cries are but of little use;
Therefore bow ye to the sentence
Of Athene and of Zeus!"

"Ha! thou false and fickle traitor,

Hast thou turn'd against thy kind? Plunge that firebrand in his eyeballStrength remains not with the blind!" "That is not a bad idea!"

Said Ulysses with a smile,
"And perhaps I may adopt it:
But I'll wait a little while;
For our friend, the Cyclops yonder,
Just before he broke his fast,
Pledged his sacred word of honor
That he'd spare me till the last.