228 LIONEL LACKLAND. 



I saw the man pass out at the other end of the cavern; 

 the woman stood motionless for a ftw minutes, then pulling 

 a large dark cloak around her, she advanced towards where 

 I sat, passing me so closely as to brush my face with her 

 dress: she walked rapidly on. The murmuring surge tumbling 

 with laughing cadence over the rocky bay alone was heard. I 

 arose, half dead with cold, and trembling with dreadful sus- 

 picion. When 1 arrived at home, there sat Mark, in his old nook 

 at the window, with the same stolid, idiotic expression and 

 contortion of feature ; I looked at him with more earnestness 

 than usual ; scarcely knowing why, I felt a strange misgiving ; he 

 cast a side glance at me, as I gazed on him, then commenced 

 moving his head from side to side, while his features assumed a 

 more idiotic cast than ever ; " psha impossible ! it could not be," 

 muttered T, in answer to my own suspicions, " it could not be." 

 ** Mark ! Mark ! what are you thinking of?" He spoke not, but 

 continued moving his head from shoulder to shoulder. "Mark !" 

 said I, " when were you last gull catching in Tolgarrik ?" I 

 thought he started ; it was mere suspicion. " Tolgarrik," 

 muttered Mark, " Tregagle's King of Tolgarrik ; no, no, maun 

 step in Tolgarrik, ah, ah, Tregagle, Tregagle. Hark ! Master 



Linny, he whistles, whew There's death in Tolgarrik, 



Linny." He relapsed into silence and idiotcy. It could not be, 

 thought I, and soon I was lost in the visions of sleep — Tolgar- 

 rik, Mark, Ellen, Stratton ; awaking with a start, the golden 

 sunbeams of the morning glanced through the lattice upon my 

 bed ; eleven to night ! was it not a dream ? 



With the privilege of my caste, I must leave for a moment the 

 line of progression, and make a necessary diversion : as my brave 

 old friend. Captain O'Flannagan, once said, when he was obliged 

 to order a retreat, I must *' advance backwards." I mentioned a 

 few pages back, that beyond the village the country was rich, and 

 fertile, a fine irregular landscape, spread out as far as the eye 

 could reach ; passing over the drear and blighted " Goat's-moor," 

 with neither tree nor shrub to relieve the seeming interminable 

 prairie, the traveller was suddenly surprised by a change in the 

 scene, as unexpected as it was beautiful ; there beneath him lay 

 the vale, like a fairy oasis, rich in every tint, the green fields and 

 orchards, like the vineyards of gay France, smiling with fruits. 

 Pomona there built her bower " with interlaced branches mix 

 and meet ;" the dew fell upon a myriad of pied blossoms, and 

 the apple might have rivalled the *' pleasant grapes of Eschol." 

 I love to recall that beautiful Eden, a spot so often visited in 

 happier days; so rich and voluptuous is the memory of that 

 scene and its associations, that I would not, for the world, behold 

 it now ; my enthusiasm springs out of the past — apathy, cold 

 freezing apathy belongs to the present. To revisit those places 

 over which the shadows of past events hang like the mystery of 

 superstition, beatified by time — to behold them now with my 



