The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, and His Man, Mark Antony O'Toole. W. H. Maxwell

      I grew apace; men called me handsome—and young as I was, more than one suitor had told his tale of humble love. But my heart had never yet been touched; my breast was free from care; and with me, as yet, sorrow was only known by name.

      My brother had just completed his eighteenth year; and a finer lad was never the pride and envy of a village. He was tall, handsome, and athletic. Among the prettiest girls, William was the object of rustic rivalry; and in every manly exercise, the men admitted him to be their superior. And then he was so good-natured and so fearless!—at one moment fondling some playful infant in his arms; at another, when the elements were in their wildest uproar, and the sea broke in thunder on the beach, he would be seen launching the life-boat through a boiling surf, to save some drowning mariner, although to all but the daring spirits who accompanied him, the effort seemed to be equally perilous and unavailing.

      Few days passed over without some acquaintance calling at the cottage; and all were weleome but one—our uncle. The lawyer’s visits were unfrequent. He never eame excepting when he was the bearer of some evil news, or the retailer of some country scandal. If an honest villager was struck with poverty, Josiah Rawlings narrated the misfortune, and always imputed what had occurred to some misconduct of the sufferer. If calumny breathed upon a woman’s fame, the lawyer painted her offending in its blackest colours, and perverted facts to give the rumour confirmation. Whenever Josiah entered, the peace and quiet of our happy home were broken. On no one point could my father and my uncle agree. While they were together, the time was passed in captious argument; and their parting was frequently in anger.

      One autumn evening the noise of a passing vehicle brought me to the window, and I saw a carriage pull up at the Rose and Crown. My unele had been about to inflict one of his unwelcome visits on his brother; but he stopped in the street, peering after the post-chaise, until he saw the passenger alight and enter the inn. The commonest occurrences never failed to excite his curiosity; and in a village where a stranger was rarely seen, the arrival of one who travelled post, was indeed an event that caused a general sensation.

      “I wonder who that chap is who put up at Jobson’s. All I could make out was that he was wrapped up in a blue cloak, and wore a cap with a gold band and tassel. I wish I knew his name, and what his business is,” and the lawyer having settled himself upon a chair, took hold of the Geneva bottle, and proceeded to compound his punch. “You heard,” he continued, “that the Hotham bank failed yesterday? Smith, the grocer, round the corner, had a hundred in their notes. He’s ruined!—serve him right. What business had he to take them?”

      “May Heaven comfort him, poor fellow!” ejaculated the quartermaster. “More is the pity that misfortune should light upon an honest and industrious man, with a young family to support, and his wife dying of consumption. From the bottom of my heart I pity him.”

      “That’s a nice business of Patty Meadows’s, too. I always foretold what would happen.”

      “It’s a villanous fabrication!” exclaimed my father, passionately; “I don’t believe a syllable of the story.”

      “All true,” returned the lawyer, “all true. Last Saturday evening, George Gripe, my clerk, heard the squire’s voiee as he passed the garden; so he clapped his ear close to the fence, and—”

      “I wish to Heaven it had been nailed against the paling,” said the soldier; “the sneaking eaves-dropping scoundrel! Were I to catch him skulking about my house, I would break every rib in his carcase.”

      “Ay, and render yourself liable to an action. Gripp would get sweeping damages.”

      “Curse your damages!” returned the quarter-master. “Every body wonders that you employ a ruffian who swears black or white as bidden, and swallows oaths as he would bolt poached eggs.”

      “I keep him,” said the lawyer, coolly, “because he’s useful. What capital stuff that Hollands is? Does Bill run it?”

      “Run it! What—smuggle?”

      “Ay, to be sure,” returned my worthy uncle. “I hear he’s the boldest boatman on the coast; and they tell me that he saved the shipwrecked Dutchman, when all had given him up as lost.”

      “It is one thing,” replied the soldier, proudly, “to rescue a drowning man;—to rob the revenue, another. My son is no smuggler, Josh; nor ever will be one.”

      “More fool he, then; there’s money to be made that way, and nothing to be got by the other, but bruised bones and a drenched jacket.”

      “Nothing gotten!” exclaimed the honest quarter-master. “Is the grateful outbreaking of the heart of her to whom my boy’s gallantry has restored a husband—or the prayer of lisping childhood for him who saved a father,—are these nothing? What is money acquired by dishonesty, to these?”

      The lawyer grinned sarcastically. “Tears and gratitude!” he repeated. “Will tears and gratitude pay rent?—will tears and gratitude pay taxes? You’re a fool, Dick. I would rather have a five-pound note than the united prayers of the parish.”

      “I believe you,” replied the soldier.

      “And so you may,” returned the miser. “But for your own folly you might have made a fortune, and be now as wealthy as myself.”

      “Heaven forbid I were, Josh! if by the same means.”

      “And wherefore?” inquired the lawyer, with a bitter smile. “Why,” said the soldier, coolly, “just because when Death tapped at the door, I should feel rather uncomfortable at the visit.”

      “Don’t talk of Death; I hate to hear him mentioned.”

      “And I speak only of an old acquaintance. Like friends, we have often looked each other in the face. He passed me by; and when he calls in form—”

      “Pshaw!” said the lawyer, “have done; I hate prosing over an unpleasant subject. What has your daring done for you? For one guinea you can show, I can count down a score.”

      “Yes,” said the quarter-master, proudly, “mine are few in number, but they are worth yours, twice told.”

      “I should like to hear the reason,” said my uncle.

      “‘Tis simple,” returned my father. “On every coin I’m owner of, I can look full-front and say, ‘Have I not earned you honestly?’ But yours, Josh; if widows’ sighs and orphans’ tears alloyed the metal, d——n me,”—the quarter-master swore as they formerly swore in Flanders,—“nineteen out of every twenty you possess would be declared regular raps, and nailed to the counter.”

      “Pish!” said the lawyer, testily. “You have lived a fool, and will die a fool.”

      “I have lived,” said the quarter-master, calmly, “an honest man; and I’ll die a stout one, too. When the order comes, it shall be willingly obeyed. Mine, Josh, shall not be a felon’s hardihood, but the humble dependency of one who believes that mercy is great, and faults will be forgiven. Now, Josh, were old bare-bones at your elbow”—“Confound such nonsense!” cried the lawyer, pushing his unfinished glass away, and catching up his hat hastily. As he crossed the threshold, his murmurings were any thing but prayers; and when the door closed, peace seemed to return again, and all of us felt that “something wicked” had departed.

      Next morning, my father went out according to his custom, and he was absent longer than usual. When he returned, it was announced that lie had formed an acquaintance with the stranger, whose advent had not only roused my uncle’s curiosity, but created a general sensation throughout the hamlet. My father informed us, that his young friend was a lieutenant in a light dragoon regiment; his name, Seymour; his connexions, noble; and, more important still, that he, the quarter-master, had asked him to dinner, and that the invitation was freely accepted.

      At the appointed hour the stranger came. His appearance was very prepossessing,—his manners those of a man who had moved in good society;—and there was, besides, an