be so unnatural and alarming in autumn, whose bounty and beauty they equally disfigure and destroy. The whole summer had been sunless and wet—one, in fact, of ceaseless rain which fell, day after day, week after week, and month after month, until the sorrowful consciousness had arrived that any change for the better must now come too late, and that nothing was certain but the terrible union of famine, disease, and death which was to follow. The season, owing to the causes specified, was necessarily late, and such of the crops as were, ripe had a sickly and unthriving look, that told of comparative failure, while most of the fields which, in our autumns, would have been ripe and yellow, were now covered with a thin, backward crop, so unnaturally green that all hope of maturity was out of the question. Low meadows were in a state of inundation, and on alluvial soils the ravages of the floods Were visible in layers of mud and gravel that were deposited over many of the prostrate corn fields. The peat turf lay in oozy and neglected heaps, for there had not been sun enough to dry it sufficiently for use, so that the poor had want of fuel, and cold to feel, as well as want of food itself. Indeed, the appearance of the country, in consequence of this wetness in the firing, was singularly dreary and depressing. Owing to the difficulty with which it burned, or rather wasted away, without light or heat, the eye, in addition to the sombre hue which the absence of the sun cast over all things, was forced to dwell upon the long black masses of smoke which trailed slowly over the whole country, or hung, during the thick sweltering calms, in broad columns that gave to the face of nature an aspect strikingly dark and disastrous, when associated, as it was, with the destitution and suffering of the great body of the people. The general appearance of the crops was indeed deplorable. In some parts the grain was beaten down by the rain; in airier situations it lay cut but unsaved, and scattered over the fields, awaiting an occasional glance of feeble sunshine; and in other and richer soils, whole fields, deplorably lodged, were green with the destructive exuberance of a second growth. The season, though wet, was warm; and it is unnecessary to say that the luxuriance of all weeds and unprofitable production was rank and strong, while an unhealthy fermentation pervaded every thing that was destined for food. A brooding stillness, too, lay over all nature; cheerfulness had disappeared, even the groves and hedges were silent, for the very birds had ceased to sing, and the earth seemed as if it mourned for the approaching calamity, as well as for that which had been already felt. The whole country, in fact, was weltering and surging with the wet formed by the incessant overflow of rivers, while the falling cataracts, joined to a low monotonous hiss, or what the Scotch term sugh, poured their faint but dismal murmurs on the gloomy silence which otherwise prevailed around.

Such was the aspect of the evening in question: but as the men advanced, a new element of desolation soon became visible. The sun, ere he sank among the dark western clouds, shot out over this dim and miserable prospect a light so angry, yet so ghastly, that it gave to the whole earth a wild, alarming, and spectral hue, like that seen in some feverish dream. In this appearance there was great terror and sublimity, for as it fell on the black shifting clouds, the effect was made still more awful by the accidental resemblance which they bore to coffins, hearses, and funeral processions, as observed by the prophecy-man, all of which seemed to have been lit up against the deepening shades of evening by some gigantic death-light that superadded its fearful omens to the gloomy scenes on which it fell.

The sun, as he then appeared, might not inaptly be compared to some great prophet, who, clothed with the majesty and terror of I an angry God, was commissioned to launch! his denunciations against the iniquities of nations, and to reveal to them, as they lay under the shadow of his wrath, the terrible calamities with which he was about to visit their transgressions.

The two men now walked on in silence for some time, Donnel Dhu having not deemed it necessary to make any reply to the pious and becoming sentiments uttered by Sullivan.

At length the latter spoke.

"Barrin' what we all know, Donnel, an' that's the saison an' the sufferin' that's in it, is there no news stirrin' at all? Is it thrue that ould Dick o' the Grange is drawin' near to his last account?"

"Not so bad as that; but he's still complainin'. It's one day up and another day down wid' him—an' of coorse his laise of life can't be long now."

"Well, well," responded Sullivan, "it's not for us to pass judgment on our fellow-creatures; but by all accounts he'll have a hard reckonin'."

"That's his own affair, you know," said Donnel Dhu; "but his son, master Richard, or 'Young Dick,' as they call him, will be an improvement upon the ould stock."

"As to that, some says ay, an' some says no; but I believe myself, that he has, like his father, both good and bad in him; for the ould man, if the maggot bit him, or that if he took the notion, would do one a good turn; an' if he took a likin' to you, he'd go any lin'th to sarve you; but, then, you were never sure of him—nor he didn't himself know this minute what he'd do the next."

"That's thrue enough," replied Donnel Dhu; "but lavin' him to shift for himself, I'm of opinion that you an' I are likely to get wet jackets before we're much oulder. Ha! Did you see that lightnin'? God presarve us! it was terrible—an'—ay, there it is—the thundher! God be about us, thundher at this hour is very fearful. I would give a thrifle to be in my own little cabin, an' indeed I'm afeard that I won't be worth the washin' when I get there, if I can go back sich a night as it's goin' to be."

"The last few years, Donnel, has brought a grievous change,upon me and mine," replied Sullivan. "The time was, an' it's not long since, when I could give you a comfortable welcome as well as a willin' one; however, thank God, it isn't come to sich a hard pass wid me yet that I haven't a roof an' a bit to ait to offer you; an' so to sich as it is you're heartily welcome. Home! oh, you mustn't talk of home this night. Blood, you know, is thicker than wather, an' if it was only on your wife Nolly's account, you should be welcome. Second an' third cousins by the mother's side we are, an' that's purty strong. Oh, no, don't talk of goin' home this night."

"Well," replied the other, "I'm thankful to you, Jerry, an' indeed as the night's comin' on so hard and stormy, I'll accept your kind offer; a mouthful of any thing will do me, an' a dry sate at your hearth till mornin'."

"Unfortunately, as I said," replied Sullivan, "it's but poor an' humble treatment I can give you; but if it was betther you should be jist as welcome to it, an' what more can I say?"

"What more can you say, indeed! I know your good heart, Jerry, as who doesn't? Dear me, how it's poorin' over there towards the south—ha, there it is again, that thundher! Well, thank goodness, we haven't far to go, at any rate, an' the shower hasn't come round this far yet. In the mean time let us step out an' thry to escape it if we can."

"Let us cross the fields, then," said Sullivan, "an' get up home by the Slang, an' then behind our garden: to be sure, the ground is in a sad plash, but then it will save a long twist round the road, an' as you say, we may escape the rain yet."

Both accordingly struck off the highway, and took a short path across the fields, while at every step the water spurted up out of the spongy soil, so that they were soon wet nearly to their knees, so thoroughly saturated was the ground with the rain which had incessantly fallen. After toiling thro' plashy fields, they at length went up, as Sullivan had said, by an old unfrequented footpath, that ran behind his garden, the back of which consisted of a thick elder hedge, through which