brothers and cousins are content with | than appear to be at fault when he is stirabout, or with stray slices of bacon on questioned, he will draw freely on a ferhigh days and holidays? All those cathe tile imagination. But discretion and drals and showy parish churches, all the your experience should keep you tolerblack suits and succulent repasts, must ably straight if you are not getting up be paid for out of the pockets of a people facts with a purpose. Then, "unbethat calls itself miserably poor; the dues knownst to himself," his talk will be enfor the luxuries of the popular and demo- livened by bulls, and with quaint turns of cratic Church rank before the rent and expression that are richly racy of the the rates and taxes; and when men are soil. And talking of the soil and the repudiating the contracts by which they scenery, though we have left the scenery voluntarily bound themselves yesterday, chiefly to the guide-books, you may have it is a question whether there is not room any variety of both in the course of one for retrenchment here. But possibly, if long day's drive: bleak bog and barren half one hears be true, the devout Catho- moorland; strips of deep though rather lic layman can hardly help himself. It is swampy meadow-land, stretching along said that so long as he is well and lusty, some peat-colored stream; a col, or a he is inclined to "hold" the dues as he gap, as they locally call it, which means a "holds" the rent, and that largesses and tight fit for the road in some depression benevolences to building schemes are out between the shoulders of the lofty purple of his line altogether. The priest who hills; and then a rapid descent into some knows the people possesses himself in fertile strath, where the swift clear patience, squeezing an instalment of his salmon-river is hurrying seawards, break. outstanding debt now and again - till the ing over the rocks and the banks of recalcitrant parishioner is struck down by gravel, under the foliage of feathering sickness. Then in the agony of a death- woods that surround a homelike mansion grapple between avarice and black de in its home fields. Another and a stiffer spair, the penitent is found to be more pull up to another of those " gaps," and malleable metal. as you top the crest of the steep ascent, and look out across a broad table-land of swamp and pool and heather, you feel the fresh sea-breezes fanning your cheek, and know you can be at no great distance from the ocean. The road keeps well clear of the coast, for the coast-line breaks out and inwards, in sheltered bays and storm-lashed headlands. But it is worth while pulling up at the nearest accessible point, and making a pilgrimage on foot along the rough tracks of the turf-carts to have a peep over the brink of the land-line. And there in North Donegal, or any one of the wild western counties, you may look down over the dizzy edge of beetling cliffs, where the great gulls are dwarfed to swallow size over the waves breaking silently far beneath you; while to right and left stretches cape beyond cape, as they have been mined and hollowed from time immemorial by the billows of the Atlantic. But that is a grave subject, and a very delicate one to boot, so we shall change it summarily. If the day be fine, there can be no difficulty in Ireland in shaking off importunate thought, should you be neither landlord, land-agent, nor land-grab ber. You ordered the car overnight at half past nine, so by ten you ought to find it ready packed and waiting for you. Naturally, you first cast a glance at the horse an under-sized animal which looks as if he could go, as indeed he can, although he has no neck to speak of, and has probably been down more than once. You look at the luggage, which is all right; the portmanteau strapped behind the shafts in front, the smaller articles stowed away in the well, and the wraps arranged to form a rest for your back. Then you look curiously at the driver who is to be your guide and companion; and though you may pride yourself on your powers as a physiognomist, you can surmise very little about him. Time and your attempts at conversation will tell. Possibly he is stupid, silent, or morose; but the odds are that he brightens when you speak, and shows himself a brilliant conversationalist. Unless it be involuntarily and unconsciously, he is seldom droll, but he professes to have any amount of local information at your service. It will not do to trust him too far, for rather Change the scene, and transport your. self many leagues towards the south, or even turn inland for a few miles from the storm and surf-beaten shore, and you are on some sea loch or land loch, sheltered upon all sides, with its softly feathering copses and its bright summer lawns, where there are stones on the hilltops, heather and golden furze on the hillsides, and fuchsias and hydrangeas in the cot tage gardens fringing the seaweed-strewn slopes of the sheltered beach. Or wander down one of the southern rivers, beginning some twenty miles below its sources in the dismal peat-bogs, and you may pass on from one enchanting picture to another, never satiated by the monotony of the richest repetition, for fresh surprises, with slight variations, are awaiting you at every turn. Passing over grey old bridges and going beneath ruined keeps, by villages that, like Italian hamlets, look bright in the distance, and are by no means so disagreeable on closer acquaintance, as you begin to breathe rather heavily in the shadows of those woods, the valley widens, the heights fall back, and you are in some such smiling pastoral landscape as that of the Westmoreland dales, or the bright sheep-farms of Liddesdale on the Scottish Border. And almost before you have begun to weary of the grass and the sheep, the banks are closing in upon the narrowing water-way, and you are back again among the rocks, the oaks, and the beeches. These are but slight and flying sketches of what may be seen anywhere, save in the central counties, with little trouble in searching; and though there is no deny ing that touring in Ireland has its inconveniences, yet we can conscientiously recommend it to any one in love with the unfamiliar and the beautiful, and who finds some flavor of piquancy even in a dash of the dull or disagreeable. ALEX. INNES SHAND. From The English Illustrated Magazine. MIDWAY between the Norman seaport Havre, and the city of Paris, there stands, on the very edge of the river Seine, the quaintest little town in the Pays de Caux. Its gabled, half-timbered houses are grouped round a grand old Gothic church just where two green valleys meet, and send a little river trickling through the pebble paved streets, to lose itself in the Seine. This little stream is called St. Gertrude, and before it reaches the street it meanders pleasantly across the marais, as some willow-fringed fields are called. The willow-trees plainly love the little river, for they grow on both sides of it, and bend down caressingly till their grey green leaves make reflections therein, along with the yellow sedges, and the purple loosestrife and paler agrimony, which assert themselves in patches of color against the bank. All these pictures showed vividly on either side of the little stream half an hour ago, but now the sun has sunk behind the trees on the western side of the marais, and grass and leaves and reflections have put on a sombre robe of olive before they go to sleep. The marais lies higher than the town, yet it is lower than the road which leads past it to the gabled, half-timbered houses beside the Seine. A young fellow, seventeen years old or so, sunburned and blue-eyed, with the Saxon-looking face so often seen in the Norman peasant, turns aside from this road as he reaches a by-path, and goes down to a plank bridge across the little stream. The light is now so dim that the cottage near the big willow-tree in the corner of the marais can hardly be made out, but the figure of a woman standing in front of the cottage doorway can be seen a good way off; the lilac cotton jacket above her dark skirt and her snowy linen cap are very distinct against the dim blurred background of cottage and willow. trees. The woman's nose and chin, always near together for she has lost her teeth are now closer than ever, she is smiling such a fond welcome to her boy. "Come, come," she says blithely, "you must want your supper badly, Auguste." She bustles forward and tries to take from him the bundle he carries on his shoulder, while he kisses both her withered cheeks. But Auguste does not smile back in the old face so near his own, and he says, No, no," almost sternly, as he holds the bundle away from her. 66 His mother-they call her La Mère Suzanne in the little town by the Seineturns meekly away and goes back into the cottage, but her head is bent, and she has left off smiling. She knows, by help of that sympathy which exists between a loving mother and her child, that some. thing ails Auguste, and a dread which she cannot put away seems to clasp her heart like an iron band. The sight of her sick husband crouch. ing over the fire recalls her wits. "Yes, yes, my man," she says cheerfully, "here is our Auguste come back, and right hungry too, you may be sure. It is a long walk from Yvetôt, you know, Jules." Auguste has not followed her in his footsteps sound slow and heavy, he loiters outside a minute or two, then goes round to the outhouse. "What ails the lad?" his father says; | to bear," she says meekly to herself, "my "he says nothing and I that have not Auguste will come and tell it to his mothseen him these two days." er." It costs her a struggle to keep down her longing to comfort him. She wants to put her arm round his neck and to ask him to tell her his sorrow; but this might Jules Didier turns round a pale_sallow face, almost covered by a grizzled beard that sorely needs the barber. His eyes are dark and haggard, his face has suffer-vex him "Who can tell?" she says ing plainly marked on it, one arm, too, is missing; but as he rises and stands erect he is a tall man, a thorough contrast to his little, stooping, blue-eyed wife, who looks like a ball as she bends over the fire to fill a brown bowl with soup out of the pot on the hot hearth. Her son comes in just as she sets the steaming bowl on the table. A long roll reaches half across the unbleached homespun tablecloth; a small pitcher of cider, and a gaudy red and blue plate full of huge white radishes are placed on either side. Auguste goes up to his father; he kisses both cheeks, and then merely say ing, "You have supped,” he seats himself, and eats his soup in silence. The father groans as he sits down again, for his joints are old and stiff with rheumatism. Auguste's silence does not seem to him out of the usual course of things, and when one is troubled with one's own ailments one is sometimes less sensitive about the joys and sorrows of others. La Mère Suzanne has such a busy time of it that she can never find a moment to think about herself in. Her Jules, her Auguste, and those three dear dead sons who fell at Magenta and Solferino occupy all her thoughts - the poor mother often wonders where her dear boys' graves are; if there were but a chance of finding them out, she sometimes thinks she would like to make a pilgrimage to Italy, although monsieur le curé says Italy is a long way off farther even than Paris. bravely. The struggle has brought hot tears to her eyes, and she goes quickly away to the outhouse and dries them there on her apron. While she stands at the door and looks out over the cabbage plot a smile comes over her face. Something is creeping about in the gloom, and now a long-haired bushy-tailed grey cat emerges from behind a row of globe-shaped cabbages with leaves curling outwards like a rose. "Mousseline, Mousse, Mousse, what are you doing?' Suzanne laughs merrily as the cat comes close, and lays at her feet a large yellow frog which he has caught among the cabbages, and which by his purring and the arching of his back and tail he intimates is vermin not to be tol erated on the premises. La Mère Suzanne stoops down and pats Mousseline, and the cat rubs itself against her. "Good Mousseline," she says, "good cat! Come in and see Auguste." She stops outside. All within is silent, and when she opens the door she sees that Auguste's face is hidden by his hands, as he rests his elbows on the table. father, roused at last by the unusual silence, is looking round at his son. His To him, however, Auguste's attitude speaks only of fatigue, and Jules's idea is that the lad will get a nap if he is left in peace. But as Suzanne looks at her boy the pain at her heart comes back. She closes the door, and Auguste lifts his head. His dreary craving gaze draws her to him in a moment. Her thoughts just now are full of Auguste. She stands out of his sight, and yet she is watching him. She has been every moment expecting to hear his merry" laugh, and to see his bright face turn towards her with that look of invitation to share his mirth, so dear to a mother's heart. He has finished his soup now, but he only crumbles the bit of bread which is put beside his plate. Then he sighs, and his head sinks on his breast. His mother does not speak, but unconsciously she sighs, too, and her lips quiver. Something has happened to Auguste, that is plain enough; but she will not worry her good, loving boy, he shall take his own time. When the trouble gets too heavy | VOL. LV. 2851 66 LIVING AGE. Outside the door she has been saying, He must be left alone - yes, yes, the poor boy must not be questioned," and now, without her will, she finds her arms round his neck, his head is on her shoul der, and his tears are falling on the front of her gown. "There, there, my jewel, my well be loved;" she rocks his head in her arms, pressing it against her bosom as if he were an infant. She does not question him. Love, that best of teachers, has given to poor, old, ignorant Suzanne the key which unlocks an overburdened heart. She is so emptied of self that she is a part of Auguste, and the poor fellow's heart eases itself without effort into this sympathy anything, and a vague terror came that which does not even offer itself because it is already his. 66 Mother," he says softly, so that his words shall not reach his father, "it has come at last that which we have dreaded." He feels a shiver in in the arms round his neck, he feels, too, that her breath is drawn more deeply, and he tries to smile bravely, though he does not look at her face. "Yes, mother, I am no longer Auguste Didier, I am No. 317. I am drawn for the army of the north." He felt surprised, wounded even, when he saw that her first thought was for his father. She looked round, and held her breath a moment, and then she turned to her boy, her poor face so pale and changed, that instinctively he tightened his hold lest she should fall down in a faint. She kissed Auguste's forehead, and then drawing herself away, she went up to the invalid. "Jules, my man," she said cheerfully, "you are very tired; the day has been hot and weary. Shall not Auguste help you to bed? he too is tired and wants rest." Jules Didier looked wistfully over his shoulder. "I have not heard any news yet," he said with some discontent. 66 Come, Auguste, let us hear what fun was going in the market to-day. Is Rouen as full of travellers as usual, or have the Prussians Mrightened them away? Ah! those Prussians, they are rough customers - eh, my lad? Why, mother, what ails you?" She had been taken unawares; as he uttered those careless words about the Prussians, there rose up before her a battle-field, with her boy, her darling Auguste, fighting hand to hand with dark, fierce-looking men, whom she knew must be German soldiers. she was, perhaps, dying. Death and Suzanne ! The two ideas had never before come to him hand in hand. He rose up pale and trembling, and going over to where she sat he put his one arm round her and patted her bent shoulder. "What is it?" he said, in a hurried, alarmed way. "What have you done to yourself— tell me, Suzanne? What has happened? The last words sounded fretful, for indeed to Jules, who was so often a sufferer, and who had grown accustomed to con. sider himself helpless, it seemed impossi ble that any one so cheerful and active as his uncomplaining wife should be ailing except by her own fault. She looked up at him with scared, pathetic eyes. She did not mean any reproach, she only longed dimly for something which she felt he could not give her. "Kiss me, Jules," she said, and then, as his rough chin rubbed her forehead, she sank back feebly, as if in those few minutes she had grown older. Auguste had stood still when his father spoke. He was young, but he knew what his mother wanted, and in that moment he realized what the loss of him would be to her. He loved his father dearly, but he did not see why he should be spared the grief that had come upon them all. "I will tell you, father," he said hoarsely, "and then you can help mother to bear it. I knew it was coming, but I did not know it would come so soon. Our soldiers have been beaten, they want all the men they can get, and if a fellow is strong there is no escape. I am drawn for the conscription, and I have to march on Monday." His father stood still, his fingers She gave a sudden sharp cry, and fling-clutched nervously at the front of his ing her apron over her head she reeled back against the table. Auguste's arm was round her in an instant, and he placed her in the chair in which he had been sitting. But he did not stoop to kiss her. The young fellow knew that he must play the man if he would not break the hearts of these two who so fondly loved him. At that mo ment his mother's tenderness was a danger which he must avoid. So he walked up and down the stonefloored room-up and down three times, his head bent on his breast, and his hands behind his back. But his father had no eyes for him. It was new to Jules that his wife should ail blouse; he looked sicklier than ever. "It cannot be," he said. "Monsieur le maire said to me, 'Auguste will be exempted; your years of military service your lost arm, the poor lads in Italy; his voice grew husky as he glanced at his wife's bent head. "Monsieur le maire has said that all these things must preserve us our last child, and and I told him. what a good child he was." His eyes shone with tears as they met his son's. Auguste only shook his head for an swer. A MONTH has gone by; or, as they have seemed to Suzanne, thirty long days have passed since the morning her boy marched away with his fellow-recruits. A few words from monsieur le maire had convinced Jules that there was no hope of a release, and then he went back to his customary helplessness, varied, it is true, by unusual diatribes against a government which, he said, sucked the blood of her children. Auguste had left the marais overnight; he said it was better in all ways that the old people should not go with him to Rouen. He told his mother that it would be hard for her to say her last good-bye among strangers, and it might make him weak before his comrades; then, too, he had added lovingly: "It will be so hard for you, little mother, to go back to the home alone." And as she stood and saw him disappear in the darkness, which hid the tears she could not keep back, she said, "His last thought was for me.' She had tried since then to keep cheer. ful, and at the end of the first fortnight there had come to her a great reward for her courage a letter from Auguste. In it be told her he was well, and that so far as he could be happy away from home he liked his new life; he liked some of his comrades too; the officers were kind to him; one of them even employed him to do little personal services. "Dear mother," the letter went on, "monsieur le capitaine says I am willing and handy; truly, if I am, it is to you I owe these qualities." It would be hard to say how many times La Mère Suzanne had read that letter first aloud to Jules, and then over and over to herself out in the garden plot, where an old grey-green pump stood under the shade of a walnut-tree. She had less to do in Auguste's absence, and her thoughts were busier. She often won dered if he got time to mend his stockings as she sat on the edge of the stone trough beside the pump, reading and re-reading the precious letter; then she put it carefully in her pocket and went on knitting at the set of new stockings which she hoped he would come back before long and claim; for, indeed, Monsieur Haulard the tailor, and Clopin the gossiping seeds. man in the little town yonder, had greatly cheered Jules only last Saturday by telling him the emperor would soon drive the Prussians out of the country, and that then the newly raised troops would be disbanded and the soldiers would return to their homes. "The country has lost money enough," Monsieur Haulard said; "it will not want to pay soldiers whom it needs no longer." So few neighbors found their way to the marais to see the lonely couple, that the tailor's and seedsman's wisdom had not been contradicted. In one field in the marais the grass had grown high again, for it was September. There had been a good deal of rain, and as the breeze swept over the after crop the green looked intense against the grey of the willow-trees. It was a warm afternoon, and Mère Suzanne had gone to the front door to cool her hot face. She had been bending over the hearth while she stirred the pot au-feu. She thought the tall grass looked so cool and refreshing. What a cheering sight it would be to Auguste, who was, perhaps, at that very moment marching along a hot, dusty road! She sighed, and then she looked towards the bridge, for she heard the click of the little gate which led into the marais. Some one was coming down the stony path to the bridge - some one who was short, square, and red-faced. This personage walked with a certain air of pos session, and no wonder, for he was Doctor Maubeuge, the owner of the cottage and of the field in which it stood; and not only was he the best doctor that could be found between Rouen and Havre, but he was also a most accomplished antiquary, a member of more than one learned society, and an authority against whose decision there could be no appeal, either in the matter of a Roman coin or a prehistoric monolith. Suzanne ran quickly indoors. "It is the doctor, Jules." She looked round, and seeing that all was neat and in its place she went to the door to receive the visitor. He nodded to her, but it seemed as if, instead of hastening forward, he slackened his pace. Suzanne put her |