SERVING A WRIT.

My father, who, for reasons registered in the King's Bench, spent a great many years of his life in that part of Ireland geographically known as lying west of the law, was obliged, for certain reasons of family, to come up to Dublin. This he proceeded to do with due caution: two trusty servants formed an advance guard, and patrolled the country for at least five miles in advance; after them came a skirmishing body of a few tenants, who, for the consideration of never paying rent, would have charged the whole Court of Chancery, if needful. My father himself, in an old chaise victualled like a fortress, brought up the rear; and, as I said before, he was a bold man who would have attempted to have laid siege to him. As the column advanced into the enemy's country, they assumed a closer order, the patrol and the picket falling back upon the main body; and in this way they reached that most interesting city called Kilbeggan. What a fortunate thing it is for us in Ireland that we can see so much of the world without foreign travel, and that any gentleman, for six and eightpence, can leave Dublin in the morning and visit Timbuctoo against dinner-time! Don't stare! it's truth I'm telling; for dirt, misery, smoke, unaffected behavior and black faces, I'll back Kilbeggan against all Africa. Free-and-easy, pleasant people they are, with a skin as begrimed and as rugged as their own potatoes! But to resume: the sun was just rising in a delicious morning of June, when my father-whose loyal antipathies I have mentioned made him also an earlier riser-was preparing for the road. A stout escort of his followers were, as usual, under arms to see him safe in the chaise, the passage to

and from which every day being the critical moment of my father's life.

"It's all right, your honor," said his own man, as, armed with a blunderbuss, he opened the bed-room door.

"Time enough, Tim," said my father; "close the door, for I haven't finished my breakfast."

Now the real truth was, that my father's attention was at that moment withdrawn from his own concerns by a scene which was taking place in a field beneath his window.

But a few minutes before a hack-chaise had stopped upon the road-side, out of which sprang three gentlemen, who, proceeding to the field, seemed bent upon something which, whether a survey or a duel, my father could not make out. He was not long, however, to remain in ignorance. One with an easy, lounging gait strode towards a distant corner; another took an opposite direction; while the third, a short, pursy gentleman, in a red handkerchief and a rabbit-skin waistcoat, proceeded to open a mahogany box, which, to the critical eyes of my respected father, was agreeably suggestive of bloodshed and murder.

"A duel, by Jupiter!" said my father, rubbing his hands. "What a heavenly morning the scoundrels have-not a leaf stirring, and a sod like a billiard-table."

Meanwhile the little man who officiated as second, it would appear, to both parties, bustled about with activity little congenial to his shape; and, what between snapping the pistols, examining the flints and ramming down the charges, had got himself into a sufficient prespiration before he commenced to measure off the ground.

"Short distance and no quarter!" shouted one of the combatants from the corner of the field.

"Across a handkerchief if you like!" roared the other. "Gentlemen, every inch of them!" responded my father. "Twelve paces!" cried the little man. "No more and no

less. Don't forget that I'm alone in this business."

"A very true remark!" observed my father; "and an awkward predicament yours will be, if they are both shot!"

By this time the combatants had taken their places, and the little man, having delivered the pistols, was leisurely retiring to give the word. My father, however, whose critical eye was never at fault, detected a circumstance which promised an immense advantage to one at the expense of the other; in fact, one of the parties was so placed with his back to the sun, that his shadow extended in a straight line to the very foot of his antagonist.

"Unfair! unfair!" cried my father, opening the window as he spoke, and addressing himself to him of the rabbit-skin. "I crave your pardon for the interruption," said he; "but I feel bound to observe that that gentleman's shadow is likely to be made a shade of him."

"And so it is," observed the short man: "a thousand thanks for your kindness; but the truth is, I am totally unaccustomed to this kind of thing, and the affair will not admit of delay."

"Not an hour!" said one.

"Not five minutes!" growled the other of the combatants. "Put them up north and south!" said my father.

"Is it thus?"

'Exactly so; but now again the gentleman in the brown coat is covered with the ash tree."

"And so he is!" said rabbit-skin, wiping his forehead with agitation.

"Move them a little to the left," said he.

"That brings me upon an eminence," said the gentleman in blue; "I'll not be made a cock shot of."

"What an awkward little thing it is in the hairy waistcoat!" said my father; "he's lucky if he don't get shot himself."

May I never! if I'm not sick of you both!" ejaculated rabbit-skin, in a passion. "I've moved you round every point of the compass, and the sorrow a nearer we are than ever."

"Give us the word," said one.

"The word!"

"Downright murder," said my father.

"I don't care," said the little man; 66 we shall be here till doomsday."

"I can't permit this," said my father.

"Allow me- SO

saying, he stepped upon the window-sill and leaped down into the field.

"Before I can accept of your politeness," said he of the rabbitskin, "may I beg to know your name and position in society?" 66 'Nothing more reasonable," said my father. "I'm Miles O'Shaughnessy, Colonel of the Royal Raspers; here is my card." The piece of pasteboard was complacently handed from one to the other of the party, who saluted my father with a smile of most courteous benignity.

"Colonel O'Shaughnessy," said one.

"Miles O'Shaughnessy," said another.

"Of Killinahoula Castle," said the third.

"At your service," said my father, bowing as he presented his snuff-box: “and now to business, if you please; for my time also is limited."

"Very true," observed he of the rabbit-skin, “and, as you observe, now to business; in virtue of which, Colonel Miles O'Shaughnessy, I hereby arrest you in the king's name. Here is the writ: it's at the suit of Barnaby Kelly, of Loughrea, for the sum of £1,583 195. 71⁄2d., which—”

Before he could conclude the sentence, my father discharged one obligation by implanting his closed knuckles in his face. The blow, well-aimed and well-intentioned, sent the little fellow somersetting like a sugar hogshead. But, alas! it was of no use; the others, strong and able-bodied, fell both upon him, and after a desperate struggle succeeded in getting him down. To tie his hands and convey him to the chaise was the work of a few moments, and as my father drove by the inn, the last object which caught his view was a bloody encounter between his own people and the myrmidons of the law, who in great numbers had laid siege to the house during his capture. Thus was my father taken, and thus, in reward for yielding to a virtuous weakness in his character, was he consigned to the ignominious durance of a prison.

THE GAUGER OUTWITTED.

Young Condy Cullen was descended from a long line of private distillers, and, of course, exhibited in his own person all the practical wit, sagacity, cunning and fertility of invention, which the natural genius of the family, sharpened by long experience, had created from generation to generation, as a standing capital to be handed down from father to son. There was scarcely a trick, evasion, plot, scheme or manœuvre that had ever been resorted to by his ancestors, that Condy had not at his fingers' ends, and though but a lad of sixteen at the time we present him to the reader, yet be it observed, that he had his mind, even at that age, admirably trained by four or five years of keen, vigorous practice, in all the resources needed to meet the subtle vigilance and stealthy circumvention of that prowling animal—the gauger. In fact, Condy's talents did not merely consist in an acquaintance with the hereditary tricks of his family. These of themselves would prove but a miserable defense against the ever-varying ingenuity with which the progressive skill of the still-hunter masks his approaches and conducts his designs. On the contrary, every new plan of the gauger must be met and defeated by a counter-plan equally novel, but with this difference in the char. acter of both, that whereas the excise-man's devices are the result of mature deliberation-Paddy's, from the very nature of the circumstances, must be necessarily extemporaneous and rapid. The hostility between the parties being, as it is, carried on through such varied stratagem on both sides, and characterized by such adroit and able duplicity, by so many quick and unexpected turns of incident-it would be utter fatuity in either, to