him, whirling in the mazes of a country dance. Pat's philosophy was unequal to the sight, and throwing one arm round the young lady's waist, and giving her partner a douse in the chops with the other, it made as satisfactory a change in their relative positions as he could have reasonably desired, by sending his rival in a continuation of his waltzing movement, to the extremity of the room to salute the wall at the end of it.

Pat, however, was allowed but brief space to congratulate himself on his successful debut in a ballroom, for in the next instant he found himself most ungracefully propelled through the door-way, by sundry unseen hands, which had grasped him tightly by the scruff of the neck, and on reaching the top of the staircase, he felt as if a hundred feet had given a simultaneous kick which raised him like a balloon for a short distance, and then away he went heels over head towards the bottom. It so happened at this particular moment, that three gentlemen very sprucely dressed, had just paid their money and were in the act of ascending, taking that opportunity, as gentlemen generally do, of arranging their hair and adjusting their frills to make their entré the more bewitching, and it is therefore unnecessary to say that the descent of our aëronaut not only disturbed the economy of their wigs, but carried all three to the bottom with the impetus of three sacks of potatoes.

Paddy's temperament had somewhat exceeded a madman's heat before he commenced his aërial flight, and, as may be imagined, it had not much cooled in its course, so that when he found himself safely landed, and, as luck would have it, on the top of one of the unfortunates, he very unceremoniously began taking the change out of his head for all the disasters of the night, and having quickly demolished the nose and bunged up both eyes, he (seeing nothing more to be done thereabouts) next proceeded to pound the unfortunate fellow's head against the floor, before

they succeeded in lugging him off to finish his loveadventure in the watch-house.

That night was the last of Paddy's love and of his adventures in the City of Dublin. His friends were respectable of their class, and on the score of his former good conduct, succeeded in appeasing the aggrieved parties, and inducing them to withdraw from the prosecution on condition that he quitted the city for ever, and, when he had time to reflect on the position in which the reckless doings of the few hours had placed him, he was but too happy to subscribe to it, and, passing over to Liverpool, enlisted with a recruiting party of ours, and became an admirable soldier.

Having given two of the soldiers' stories, it may probably be amusing to my readers to hear one from our side of the wall. It was related by one of our officers, a young Scotchman, who was a native of the place, and while I state that I give it to the best of my recollection, I could have wished, as the tale is a true one, that it had fallen into the hands of the late lamented author of Waverley, who would have done greater justice to its merits.

THE OFFICER'S STORY.

On the banks of the river Carron, near the celebrated village of that name, which shows its glowing fields of fiery furnaces, stirred by ten thousand imps of darkness, as if all the devils from the nether world there held perpetual revels, toasting their red hot irons and twisting them into all manner of fantastic shapes-tea-kettles, ten-pounders, and ten penny nails-I say, that near that village-not in the upper and romantic region of it, where old Norval of yore fished up his basketful of young Norvals-but about a mile below where the river winds through the low country, in a bight of it there stands a stately twostory house, dashed with pale pink, and having a tall

chimney at each end, sticking up like a pair of asses' ears. The main building is supported by a brace of wings not large enough to fly away with it, but standing in about the same proportions that the elbows of an easy chair do to its back. The hall door is flanked on each side by a pillar of stone as thick as my leg, and over it there is a niche in the wall which in the days of its glory might have had the honour of lodging Neptune or Nicodemus, but is now devoted exclusively to the loves of the sparrows.

Viewed at a little distance the mansion still wears a certain air of imposing gentility-looking like the substantial retreat of one who had well feathered his nest upon the high seas, or as an adventurer in foreign lands. But a nearer approach shows that the day of its glory has long departed, the winds are howling through the glassless casements, the roof is plastered by the pigeons, the pigs and the poultry are galloping at large over the ruins of the garden wall, luxuriating in its once costly shrubbery, and a turkey is most likely seen at the hall-door, staring the visiter impertinently in the face, and blustering as if he would say, "If you want me, you must down with the dust."

Had that same turkey, however, lived some six score years before, in the life-time, or in the deathtime of the last of its lairds, he would have found himself compelled to gabble to another tune; for in place of being allowed to insult his guests in his master's hall, he would have been called upon to share his merry-thought for their amusement at the festive board.

That the last laird of Abbots-Haugh had lived like a right good country gentleman all of the olden days, the manner of his death will testify; for though his living history is lost in the depth of time, his death is still alive in the recollections of our existing great grandfathers. He was, to the best of my belief, wifeTess and relationless, nevertheless, when the time approached that "the old man he must die," he did as all prudent men do, made his temporal arrangements

previous to the settling of that last debt which he owed to nature.

The laird, it appeared, was not haunted by the fears of most men, which forbid the inspection of their last testaments, until the last shovelful of earth has secured their remains from the wrath of disappointed expectants, and from a conscious dread, too, that the only tears that would otherwise be shed at their obsequies, would be by the undertaker and his assisttants with their six big black horses; but the laird, as before said, was altogether another manner of man, and his last request was, that certain persons should consider themselves his executors, that they should open his will the moment the breath was out of his body, and that they should see his last injunctions faithfully executed as they hoped that he should rest calmly in his grave.

The laird quietly gave up the ghost, and his last wish was complied with; when, to the no small astonishment of the executors, the only bequest which his will decreed was, that every man within a given distance of his residence was to be invited to the funeral, and that they were all to be filled blind drunk before the commencement of the procession!

This was certainly one of the most jovial wills that was ever made by a dying inan, and it was acted upon to the letter.

The appointed day arrived, and so did the guests too; and although the invitations had only extended to the men, yet did their wives, like considerate folks as they always are, reflect that a dying man cannot have all his wits about him, and had any one but taken the trouble to remind him that there were such things as angels even in this world, they would no doubt have been included, and with that view of the case they considered it their duty to give their aid in the mournful ceremony.

The duties of the day at length began as was usual on those days, by—

"One mile prayers and half mile graces,"

to which the assembled multitude impatiently listened with their

"Toom wames and lang wry faces."

That ceremony over, they proceeded with all due diligence to honour the last request of the departed laird.

The droves of bullocks, sheep, and turkeys, which had been sacrificed for the occasion, were served up at mid-day, and as every description of foreign and British wines, spirits, and ales flowed in pailsful, the executors indulged in the very reasonable expectation that the whole party, would be sufficiently glorious to authorize their proceeding with their last duty so as to have it over before dark: but they had grossly miscalculated the capacities of their guests, for even at dusk when they considered themselves compelled to put the procession in motion at all hazards, it was found that many of them were not more than "half seas over."

The distance from Abbots-Haugh to the dormitory of the parish church is nearly two miles, the first half of the road runs still between two broad deep ditches which convey the drainings of these lowlands into the river; the other half is now changed by the intersection of the great canal, but an avenue formed by two quick-set hedge-rows still marks its former line.

Doctor Mac Adam had not in those days begun to disturb the bowels of the harmless earth, by digging for stones wherewith to deface its surface, so that the roads were perfect evergreens, (when nobody travelled upon them,) but at the period I speak of, a series of wet weather and perpetual use had converted them into a sort of hodge-podge, which contributed nothing towards maintaining the gravity of the unsteady multitude now in motion, so that although the hearse started with some five or six hundred follow