patience with which they met it, and the meekness of wisdom with which they encountered every effort to persuade or threaten them from their stedfastness.

Notwithstanding these triumphs of the priests, it was evident that a great step had been gained, and a great blow struck against their despotic rule. Strange as it may appear to those not acquainted with Ireland, the continued living existence of any number of converts after the cursing, is in itself no slight blow to their imaginary gigantic power, as the following will prove.

"I understand," said Mr. Wilkins to a respectable farmer's wife, "that you said you would not sell the milk and butter to my family if I sent Paddy O'Connor or his children for it, for the priest forbade you to speak to him; now, my woman, I never interfered with your going to mass, or anything of the kind; but I am determined not to deal with any one that acts the part of an unnatural monster; and such I consider the person who treats a fellow-creature of the same flesh and blood, as they do a pig, when they meet it, to pass without speaking. Go away, my woman. I would prefer sending elsewhere, at any inconvenience, to buying from you, while you insult the God who made you and them, to please the priest or any man."

The woman coloured and went away; and a few days afterwards, John Looney's wife came and said to one of Mr. Wilkins's family :

"Oh! ma'am, Mrs. Hanlon bid me say, she is very sorry. She now sees she did wrong in not speaking to the converts, and hopes the master will forgive her; and, says she to me, 'Sure, then, Mrs. Looney, what showed me I was wrong, was this-sure now, 'tis over six weeks since the priest's curse was put upon 'em, and see how they are all alive and well after all!'"

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CROP-LIFTING, AND FLIGHT TO AMERICA.

ON one Monday morning in the harvest, about a month after the cursing, a farmer, a tenant of Mr. Rockdale's, of the name of McAuliffe, whose children had attended the Scriptural school for a long period, but had been withdrawn by the parents at the time of the cursing, called at Paddy's cabin, accompanied by one of his sons, an intelligent lad of about sixteen. This family had got a smattering of Protestant notions when the children used to bring home the Bible, and repeat their tasks, and this very lad had retained his Irish Testament unknown to the priest.

"Did you hear, Paddy," said McAuliffe, "what the Sheehans did yesterday? sure they're all off to America; and a good penny, I tell you, they took in their pockets. The landlord may go whistle for his rent now."

“You don't tell me so ?" said Paddy; "well, 'twasn't very good of 'em to take away what they bound themselves to pay, when they got their lase."

"Oh! but you know, Paddy, the priests tells us the landlords are all tyrants and terminathors, and I seen the same in the newspaper the priest lends about. I suppose Ned Sheehan thinks it was too much he paid this time back."

"Why," said Paddy, "Tom Sheehan (God be with him wherever he is, poor fellow!) tould me, Mr. Rockdale didn't force his father to pay any rent, since the praties

failed, only what he wished himself to make up; and Tom tould me, his father gave the Agent a quarter's rent one day, and says he, 'Oh, your honour, sure we had to sell the second feather-bed in our house, to make up this,' and he having the other quarter's rent in his pocket all the time. He said too, 'Oh, your honour, we're living on the Ingy male;' and they all havin a fine piece of bacon, and plenty of bread every day; aye, and a good jug of punch afther it. Tom,' says I, 'that's very wrong, but maybe I'd do it myself, only the Bible says, "Render to all their dues ;" and, "Let no man go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter, for the Lord is the avenger of all such ; " and what good would it be for me to get money that way, and have God's vengeance, instead of his blessin along with it?""

"Oh," said McAuliffe, "sure all the farmers are doin the like 'tis well, I know, they can afford to live well now, on the bacon, and the bread, and the punch, being they pays little rent, and the poor landlords thinks maybe they're starvin, as all them newspapers makes sich a screech about it; sure I heerd Jerry Desmond, that strong farmer over there, say, He'd be sorry to have the praties grow again, for then the landlords would be expecting their rent.' But, sure now, the murther is out, for Ned Sheehan is gone; and sure, we all gother up to as many as two hundred of us yesterday, and cut all Ned's crops for him; and his people-in-law sent him ever so many cars, and whipped it all away before mornin, and Ned said, as he was goin, 'They may go look for it

"'Twas a great shame for you, Jerry," said Paddy, "to have a hand in such a business, and to break the Lord's-day too; you'll find 'twon't end well."

"So my son Denny here said to me, Paddy," said

McAuliffe, "when I axed him to come and help to cut down Ned Sheehan's corn,-Not a leg of me will go, daddy,' says Denny, 'I'd be afeerd I'd cut off my hand with the reaping-hook.'"

Paddy looked at Denny McAuliffe with great satisfaction, saying, "Why, then, God bless you, my good boy, for that; what a pity your father took you from that good school-see how you larned better there in a few months, than the priest taught you and all of us, those many years back; 'tis long before his tachin would keep us from brakin two of God's commandments together, as I thinks takin away the crops on Sunday is."

Poor Denny had been badgered and laughed at, for refusing to go with the crop-lifters on Sunday, by all his family, and the rest, and was delighted to find any one that would stand by him, and praise him for doing right; so brightening up, he said:

"Oh! yes, Mr. O'Connor, I told my own dear daddy, 'twould be to break the fourth commandment, that says, Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labour;' and the eighth, that says, "Thou shalt not steal.'"

"But you know, Paddy," said McAuliffe, "if Ned took away his crops any other day, the landlord can saze 'em ; but, as the law is, he can't do that on Sunday."

"More shame for 'em," said Paddy, "not to make the law about it they were thinkin to do in Parliament, as Dan Downey the Scripture-reader tould me."

"Oh! I suppose," said McAuliffe, with an ironical grimace," they thought us Irish Catholics too fine a pisantry to do the likes of that. We wouldn't do it at all Oh! no, not we, sure!"

at all.

""Tisn't bein Catholic or Protestant, Jerry, I tell you," said Paddy. "But 'tis not governin ourselves by

I

the Bible; that's the thing. The Protestants have fair play for this. But, not so to us, God help us; how can we go by the Bible, when we hav'n't it at all? Sure, I'm tould, the priests never printed their own Bible in Irish at all. Dan Downey tould me the Protestants had to print one in our own native tongue. Why, they aren't raal Irish clargy at all at all, for Dan showed me that the Protestant clargy were descended from Saint Patrick, and that the priests were brought into Ireland about the time of James the First, King of England. He had a little book all about it; 'King's Primmer' I think he called it.”

66

Well, Paddy, I'll get that little book, if I can, and read it. For, if I thought the Protestant clargy were Saint Patrick's clargy, I'd not stay another day with the priests. But, Paddy, what'll you do, now that Tim Donovan is to get Ned Sheehan's land? You know he's very great with the priests, and he hates you for turnin, and I heard say he'd not let a souper be on his land agen Lady-day."

Poor Paddy looked confounded at this news, for he remembered the notice to quit. He had some hope from the Sheehans, but he knew Donovan would show him no mercy. He was uncle to Corcoran, the bailiff, whose advice the agent mostly followed in appointing or removing tenants. This fellow (the bailiff) used, like men of his kind all through the south of Ireland, to take bribes from the tenants, and none dared tell on him, for fear of being ruined by his interest with the agent against them. Poor Paddy remembered, too, the rebuff he had himself got, when last he had an interview with the agent.

"Ah! Jerry, that's bad news for poor Paddy," said he, looking affectionately at his children, as they came up, listening to what they saw made their father so