stretched out his hand and took the gold. The pieces disappeared in the same mysterious way the ginger-beer bottle had slipped out of sight, and Pat said slowly, "I'm at your honor's service, but if we do the job clean I'll expect the balance."

"Agreed," said Mr. O'Spry; "and now Pat," says he, very graciously, "you'll drink a drop with me on the head of the bargain."

The spirits were produced and consumed; and Pat took his leave, after arranging that they should start at ten o'clock that night, unknown to any one, and unaccompanied by the revenue police, for fear of raising a suspicion in the minds of the people of the district that all was not right, and so giving warning to the distillers.

The supervisor was in high glee; he knew that Pat Carey had the reputation of being the most expert evader of the revenue laws in the district, and was delighted with himself at buying him so cheap. "So, master Pat," thought he; "I have my claw on you at last; and the devil take me if I don't get my own out of you again, after bagging your friends. I'll have a rare haul for Lifford." Pat's soliloquy was equally self-laudatory. “Bad luck to your ugly sowl, ye vagabond guager," he muttered; "if I don't have ye neck and crop afore morning, may I never see light. To think I'd turn informer for your dirty five pounds: bad luck to the penny, of it will I keep," and he dived into the miraculous pocket. Chinking the coin, but thinking better of it, he said to himself"After all's said an' done, mayn't I turn it to an honest use, more betoken as I don't intind informing. My intintion's good, an' intintion, the clargey says, is everything." With that he withdrew his hand from his pocket, and continued his journey homewards.

"True to his time, Mr. O'Spry arrived at Pat Carey's humble cabin, and in the dark they set out on their expedition. I need not weary you with details of the journey. They floundered through the mire and bogs, sometimes up to the knees, sometimes to the waist, for you may be sure that Pat did not take him the best road. At last they came to near the end of their tether. They were at the edge of a lake, nearly concealed by the mountains. It cannot be seen at any distance but from one point, until one is brought up by the precipitous banks, which are everywhere else very high and steep. At the point where Carey and O'Spry made the lake, there was a piece of low lying-ground and rush swamp, and in the grey dawn of the morning he could discover a low island, from which smoke ascended as if from several smouldering fires. Objects could not be made out distinctly, but no time was to be lost if they were to steal a march on the occupants of the island. Pat assured the supervisor that nothing was to be feared; that he could make the seizure easy enough, as there were two or three boys in the secret, who would assist his honor if any resistance was offered, and besides weren't they both well armed with horse pistols. "Devil a fear of them, the cowardly curs; they'll be afeard to meddle when they see the broad arr." So saying, he launched a small curragh that was concealed in the rushes, and they both pulled off to the island.

There was no sign of life on the little island except the fires, and Pat and the supervisor stepped ashore. They walked quietly round the mossy margin, and stole upon the party as they lay asleep in their huts close by the distillery.

"Now do the job quick an' easy," says Pat. "Put the broad arr on afore they waken." But the Fates were against them, for one of the

party, Mike McSwine by name, hearing voices through his sleep, leapt to his feet, and shouted "Boys we're all sould. By jabers, here's the guager."

They were to their feet like a shot-twelve of them, and made at first as if they would eat poor Mr. O'Spry; but Pat Carey interposed, and said as how the gentleman wanted to trade, and being a good judge of spirits, had come all the way from Dunfanaghy to taste it at the fountain head. This mollified the men a little, and Pat winked at the guager, as much as to say "I'll manage it all right in a trivet." The leader of the boys produced a black bottle, and Mr. O'Spry, as a matter of policy as well as politeness, was bound to taste. It was a raw morning, and he was fasting, and even our host will admit that it would be very indiscreet in any of us to do as Mr. O'Spry did. But there was no help for it. Having tasted of the produce of one still, he must sample the remainder: and accordingly he had three separate pulls from three black bottles.

"May be," says Mike, "your honor would like it pure from the still eye, I'll draw off a dhrop if you promise not to turn informer; anyhow, as you've come so far to see us, I may as well let you see how we run off' the liquor."

'Yes, yes; by all means. I should like to see that above anything. Do you know, long as I've been in the service, I've never seen a still

run off."

says

"That," Mike, "comes of hunting us poor devils so. You've seen many stillers, I'll be bound, running off. If you'd only take tithes for your own share, an' a worn-out still or two by arrangement with the boys, just to show your activity in the sarvice, it would be mighty comfortable and profitable to both of us. That's the way the ould supervisor did, God be good to him."

"It is an excellent arrangement, and I don't know but I may come to try it in a bit. But you promised to run off a still-just to show me how its done."

"Shure enough I did. Boys is there any fear? Do you think he'll turn informer on us? If I did he gathered his brows, and looked things unutterable at the supervisor, who felt his "doctors" were beginning to take effect, and began to have some misgivings as to his safety. He protested that he had no intention of turning informer, and appealed to Pat Carey whether he had not come in the way of honest trade, guager though he was.

"He looked round for Pat Carey, but no Pat was to be seen. The sun was now shining bright and clear on him, revealing to the half intoxicated guager the true nature of the case. While he was engaged humbugging the smugglers, Carey had quietly withdrawn to the boat, and had pulled himself across the deep and treacherous water, leaving no way of escape for the ill-starred supervisor. The instinct of self-preservation aroused him, and hoarse with passion and drink, he shouted on his deceiver to bring back the boat; but a mocking shout from the distillers was his only answer. Furious at being the victim of a well-contrived plan and having a dim perception that his character and prospects in life were at stake, he threatened with transportation and pains and penalties all the jolly crew on the island. But they paid no attention to his mouthing, and let him cool as he sobered. He was a married man too; and that was the worst of it.

"Well, time wore on from days to weeks, and the supervisor, who secretly left his house on the night he was missed, did not return. He was searched for high and low, but neither helt nor hair' of him could be found. The Lifford Assizes came on and ended, and the boys who were in for illicit distillation were discharged, to the delight of their friends, owing to the absence of the principal witness. The Grand Jury ignored the bills, and they never saw the inside of the dock.

"All this time Mr. O'Spry was engaged at the profitable and patriotic task of cheating the revenue. He had to work for his living, and hard and wholesome it was. Potatoes from the pits, and fish from the loch, seasoned with salt, and washed down with whiskey. It was a fine summer, and they worked till well on in the season, and never thought of moving themselves till the whole of the whiskey and utensils had been taken away in curraghs which the faithful Carey brought. Then the boys thought it best to take steps to close Master O'Spry's tongue; and he had the choice between a swim in the lake and silence. O'Spry readily took the oath, but said that he would be sorry to injure a hair of their heads, as they had treated him kindly when they got him in their power. The truth was, he took to the trade kindly, and thrived amazingly on the plain diet and open-air life of it; and he made up his mind to turn his hand to an honest employment instead of continuing a guager. And besides, as six months had passed since he took French leave of the office, it stood to reason that he should find a successor there on his return.

To make a long story short, Mr. O'Spry turned up one fine day at the excise office, brown as a berry, wearing a sleeved waistcoat lent him by Mike, and a pair of the same gentleman's brogues, his own having been worn out in the service of his country long before. His trousers were patched and ragged. His identity was disputed. He did not look like the lost man, but and if he were the real Simon Pure he was no longer on the books, and another had stept into his shoes. From the office he turned for consolation to his family, but he had grown so fat and was so much altered in other respects, that his wife gave him the cold shoulder too. Her dear sainted husband Mr. O'Spry, had died mysteriously she said. She should never see him again. If she only knew the manner of his death, and the place of his burial, she would be content: she would go and weep there, and come back resigned to her fate. O'Spry looked at his spouse. She actually wore the weeds, and looked remarkably well on it. It was plain she was open to consolation; and indeed she had found a consoler in a thriving dealer who lived close by, and to whom she had unbosomed her sorrow. This reception was too much for the good-tempered O'Spry. He soon adopted means for convincing Mrs. O'Spry of his identity, and the prospective husband dropping in at the time, got a quaker's hint to the door.

And what might that be?" asked our host, whose eyes were gradually closing, as the story lengthened and the night advanced.

"Kicked out, my friend," said Mullan drily. "Did you never hear what gave rise to that expression of the "quaker's hint ?"

"No," said our host, and we'll dispense with the story to-night. Some other time we'll be all attention, but to-night I think we'll put on the night-cap, and steal off to bed without rousing the house."

66

Well, now, when I'm in a talking humour" rejoined Mullan, "you might just let me have my way. I usually don't say a word."

"Ha, ha, ha," roared the jolly host. "That's the best thing ever you said. Why I never saw your mouth closed two minutes in my life. We'll have the night-cap, but not the story."

"But what became of the supervisor?" I inquired. "How was he converted?"

"I should say he was converted from a full-blown guager to an industrious distiller-from a protector to a cheater of the revenue. And I think his last character was the best. He was an altered man, and much respected by the boys whose secret he kept, and gave up all idea of again serving the Queen in the respectable capacity of spy and informer. His morals and his manners were improved by his conversion, which is more than can be said of some of the converts up yonder in Dingle. As to what became of him, I can't well say, but I've been told that he has a flourishing distillery in the county Roscommon. And now for the night-cap!"

We mixed the sleeping cup, drained its contents, and buried ourselves in the snowy sheets, pillowing our heads on lavendar-scented pillows. The sun was well up when I awoke and breakfasted, and thanks to the drink and our host's skill in mixing, no headache marred the pleasurable recollections of the past night.

From Wave, from Air, from every forest tree,
The murmur spoke, "Each thing thine eyes can greet
An Angel-guide can be.'

THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. *

THERE is perhaps no part of the world which has at different times excited a greater amount of interest than the vast numbers of islands that are scattered, as it were broadcast, over the entire surface of the South Pacific Ocean within the line of the tropics. The hundred attempts that were made to reach and to possess the famous spice islands, would afford more food for romance than probably any single page in the history-all whose pages are full of interest-of human adventure in search of the grand objects of human desire. Nor can it be wondered at that the multitude of islands that stud the tropical ocean of the Pacific, have at all times exercised this fascination upon those whose temperaments led them to explore these wondrous secrets, whether of beauty or of terror. In no part of the world will the adventurer find such a vast amount of that novelty which, in combination with the dubious sense of insecurity and self-reliance, makes up the delight of the true adventurer. In these wondrous lands, nature would seem to have heaped together all that goes to impress us with a sense of beauty, whether in its milder, or in its more grand and terrible forms. The eye is fascinated by a profusion of form and colours so vast and so new to Europeans as to give an ever increasing sensation of mingled astonishment and delight. Every conceivable scenery may be met with among these groups, from the low white coral island sparkling in the sunlight like a huge diamond, and wreathed around with all shades of the richest green creepers, up to the most majestic mountain scenery rising crag over crag, and peak towering above peak, till the hills whose bases are robed in all the glorious hues of the tropic's eternal summer, bear on their soaring summits the snows of an equally endless winter. Nor is the terrible wanting to give its full completeness to this wonderful range of beauty. In no part of the world is there so great an accumulation of terrors. Whether it be mountains in all the grand fury of active volcanic action; in the forms of nature possessing deadly powers; or in the fierce and savage character of the human inhabitants, these islands far surpass any other portion of the globe in the element of terror.

It is then, we say, by no means a matter to call for astonishment from us that these islands have been the ne plus ultra of a field for wild and daring adventure. It may perhaps be more naturally wondered at that after so long a time of discovery, the groups of the South Pacific remain to the world at large a mere terra incognita, whose positions children may learn with an indifferent degree of correctness upon the map, but whose wonders and terrors, whose vast resources and greater capabilities are left utterly unknown and disregarded by the great mass of those who might now, and who must eventually, rescue them from their present con"The last cruise of the Wanderer.'" " By John Webster.-Cunninghame, Sydney.