1828.] 
been a friend of the family, and the com- 
panion of Miss Hartley from childhood ; 
Sir William was a new man, succeeding, 
unexpectedly, to a dilapidated property— 
who, by the beauty of his person, and the 
brilliancy of his accomplishments, speedily 
succeeded in supplanting the old admirer— 
aman of plainer, though not homely, qua- 
lities. Before, however, confessing the soft 
preference, the lady wishes to consult an 
early school friend—a correspondent and 
confidante—on the propriety of this very 
questionable transfer of her affections. That 
young lady, after a long delay—which does 
not, it seems, tempt Miss Hartley to decide 
for herself—announces her intention to pay 
a personal visit. To Miss H.’s surprise— 
she had not seen her since she left school 
—she comes a perfectly changed being— 
pale, stern, uncommunicative, and, when 
opposed; vehement and peremptory. She 
will tell but little of her own story; but, in 
general terms, she had been—nay, was still, 
madly in love—had been duped and de- 
serted ; and, railing against the perfidy of 
men, she warns her young friend to return 
to her first love; and then takes her leave 
‘abruptly, leaving behind her an impression 
of her being a little cracked. During the 
young lady’s visit, Sir Wm. Judkin is ab- 
Sent, but on her departure he re-appears on 
the scene—is extremely assiduous in prose- 
cuting his courtship ;. and in no long time, 
in spite of all efforts on the part of Mr. 
Henry Talbot to recover his lost ground, 
obtains from the unreluctant girl a confes- 
sion of mutual affection. The wedding day 
is named—though a distant one, for family 
reasons—and, in the meanwhile, from here 
and there a hint with respect to Sir William 
and his motives, and some unaccountable 
conduct on the part of Mr. Henry Talbot, 
‘particularly an cbvious connexion with one 
Rattling Bill, a rogue and a fortune teller, 
and an active agent through the whole story, 
_the reader becomes a good deal perplexed, 
which is the honest man of the two, and, of 
course, which of the parties is finally to be 
the happy man. 
The day of marriage—distant as it was— 
_at last, as even distant days will, approaches ; 
and poor Mr. Henry Talbot, for whom, as 
somewhat the lowliest, we novel readers are 
naturally the most interested, becoming 
desperate, forces an interview, and, when 
_the inflexible, and somewhat unmaidenly 
hauteur of the young lady refuses to listen, 
driven suddenly beyond his purpose, an- 
nounces to her astounded ear, that Sir Wil- 
_liam is already a married man. Not con- 
tent with this, he colleagues with the scamp, 
Rattling Bill, and engages him, with some 
of his comrades, to seize Sir William Jud- 
kin, and carry him that very night, whither 
we know not. Seized accordingly he is ; 
but, luckily for him, he is released by the 
_#ppearance of Father Rourke, subsequently 
Domestic and Foreign. 
75 
a well-known rebel leader, who lays about 
him right and left, and routs the captors. 
Indignant at these outrages, the young 
lady’s father is resolved to bring Master 
Talbot to book, and, accordingly, as a ma- 
gistrate, summons him to appear before 
himself, and a neighbouring magistrate, 
Captain Whaley, and make good his charge 
against Sir Wm. Judkin. The next day 
the parties assemble; and Mr. Talbot, on 
being asked for his proofs, alleges that he 
had been, by circumstances, precipitated 
into the charge prematurely, and was not 
at present prepared to substantiate it—but 
acknowledging that the person from whom 
he received the intelligence was producible, 
Mr. T. is compelled to produce him. This 
personage proves to be Rattling Bill, who 
impudently and flatly denies haying ever 
made any such communication; and Mr. 
Talbot, to his great mortification, is made 
to appear a palpable calumniator. This 
charge dismissed, Sir William, who recog- 
nized Rattling Bill as the aggressor in the 
attack on his person the previous evening, 
charges him with the assault; and Bill, 
without denying it, conducts himself with 
great insolence—so much so, that Captain 
Whaley, who is a very loyal man, and a 
low man withal—and a yeomanry officer as 
well as a magistrate—orders out the ¢éri- 
angles, and proposes to give him a touch of 
the cat to begin with—martial law being 
just then legal, and very much in fashion 
with a certain description of magistrates. 
Things thus growing serious, Rattling Bill 
requests a private audience from Captain 
Whaley, and, making him understand that 
he is a government spy, though notoriously 
associating with Croppies, he insinuates that 
Sir Thomas and Sir William are both of them 
no better themselves than Croppies ; and, in- 
deed, Sir Thomas’s known popularity was, 
with Captain Whaley, a confirmation of the 
charge, though no overt act, nor indeed any 
act of his, ought justly to have exposed him 
to suspicions of disloyalty. On Captain 
Whaley’s reappearance in the hall of jus- 
tice, he announces, very superciliously, his 
intention to dismiss the case—expressing 
his conviction that Rattling Bill had com- 
mitted no offence, and advising Sir Thomas 
and Sir William to look to themselves. 
Rattling Bill, to make good his ground 
with Captain Whaley, had informed him of 
a large body of pikes, at a blacksmith’s, in 
Sir Thomas’s village; and, accordingly, 
that very night, with a party of yeomanry, 
he proceeds to the search ; and, in the style 
of the times, sets fire to the smith’s house 
and forge, seizes the natives, flogs one, and 
whisks another up a sign-post and then lets 
him down again, more than half strangled, 
to undergo interrogatories. The villagers, 
just in time, had got scent of their coming, 
and, for the most part, had withdrawn to 
the neighbouring heights, with their leader, 
