Behind them the hill seemed a very sea of fire, and it was stretching out wide arms of smoke and flame to encircle them.

Sergeant,' said Slim Jim bitterly, 'I guess we're done. I don't see you're a crack better off than when I found you. I'm blamed if we can get outer this.'

The trooper put a heavy hand on his shoulder.

'A thousand times better off if we die now! A man named Robinson, one of Selby's shepherds, had a hut hereabouts. Could we reach it?'

'Where's the good? He's got a wife an' a kid————’ 'There's a water-hole there,' gasped the sergeant. 'Right you are,' cried Jim cheerfully. forgotten all about that water-hole.

He had actually

They turned off the broad track, and it was a wild scramble through the half-mile of scrub that lay between it and Robinson's clearing. Jim's heart sank more than once. It was a small point -suppose they missed it? Then, indeed, they might throw up their hands, for when this scrub caught, as catch it would in a very few minutes-it was alight already in several places-there would be no hope for them if they were in it.

And then, just as he was giving up hope, the sergeant bent over and gasped faintly, 'A little to the left, a little to the left,' and he turned the mare's head and saw they were on the edge of the clearing. Not before it was time, for the trooper had sunk down helpless to the ground.

It was such a tiny clearing, and the small house alongside a very shrunken water-hole was just dimly visible through the grey haze.

A man started up, and without a word helped Jim to carry his companion to the water.

'Put him in the water, it ain't too deep; my missus 'll do what she can for him. Help us save the shanty, mate.'

And they saved it.

It was a terrible, wearing, cruel fight, but at four o'clock that afternoon, when the rain came down in torrents, the little home was still safe; the trooper was delirious, and the weary woman, who had put her baby in a hole scooped in the ground and covered it with a wet sack while she worked with the men, turned and caught Jim's hand and kissed his face with a passion of weeping.

'You come straight from Heaven, I do b'lieve,' she sobbed. 'The good God sent you,' and the man wrung his hand.

'Mate, mate, I b'lieve the missis is right. I never could ha' done it alone.'

Jim broke into a hoarse burst of laughter. His eyes were nearly burnt out of his head, his hair was singed and his beard gone.

'D'ye know who I am?' he cried; when you do you won't say much for me. I'm Slim Jim, the bushranger. Now I must be off. Let 'em know at the camp, mate, about the sergeant, will you? an' don't let up on me for a bit. I want to cut an' start afresh. Do that for me, mate, will you? The sergeant, he won't be able to tell for a day or two.'

The other man wrung his hand again heartily.

'God be with you, Slim Jim!' called out the woman as he rode away through the desolate blackened country, through the pouring rain, and her blessing seemed to linger with him as he reached. the cave and saw Maddy's anxious face looking out for him.

'We're goin' to start afresh, Maddy,' he said gently. 'We'll slip away across the hills to-morrow an' start afresh. I guess I've earned it.'

It was January '98, the height of the cruel hot summer, and the fire was sweeping down through the long dry grass on to the homestead-the great homestead that was like a township, owned by Block and Sons.

Such a fight as they had for it, but the buildings and the garnered harvests were saved, and the old man and his stalwart sons and grandsons trooped into the big dining-hall, where grandma, with snow-white hair and bright, sparkling, roguish black eyes, waited for them at the head of the table.

"Twas the worst fire I've seen,' said her eldest son, throwing down his hat and mopping his hot face.

She looked across at her husband.

He smiled into her eyes kindly.

''Twasn't near so bad, Maddy, as the fire that give the sergeant such a narrow squeak for his life near Deadman's there, way back in the fifties.'

MARY GAUNT.

HUMOURS OF IRISH LIFE.

IRISH humour, like most things connected with that muchmaligned country, has been worn so threadbare that it requires some courage to approach the subject. I venture to do so on the plea that the humour of Irish life is something quite distinct from the smart sayings made to order for the benefit of Saxon visitors, and therefore in this article I have carefully avoided all stock stories, no matter how good, and only give what we ourselves have met with in our daily life among the people. That strong contrasts exist between the two countries which lie so close together no one can deny, and a distinguished English ecclesiastic has recently alluded to Ireland as the country where everything is upside down. With regard to such an imputation we can only deny the allegation and despise the allegator;' but in many cases it must be allowed that the customs and associations of the two countries are poles apart, and what is dear and sacred to one is absolutely meaningless to the other. Take, for example, an English country churchyard, with its neatly kept grass, carefully tended graves, and delightful halo of Gray's 'Elegy;' then look at an Irish one. If you have courage to climb over the tumble-down tombstones and risk an encounter with the nettles and weeds, you will probably find yourself confronted by the bones of the 'rude forefathers' themselves, and, most likely, a ghastly memento in the shape of a skull or two. Yet even here a kind of grim humour creeps in. Once, on visiting such an enclosure, we noticed amid the grass and nettles, not indeed bones, but an imposing vault, the heavy iron door of which stood open. Inside were rows of coffins, ready for the inspection of any passing visitor, two-footed or four-footed. We drew the attention of the old grave-digger to the fact. Ah!' he said, 'shure that's Misther Tuohy's vault, an' he'ill niver have the door shut; he likes thim within to have air. Ye see that,' he went on, pointing to an erection strongly resembling a pigsty, built against the ruined walls of the little chapel, 'there's two families in there, the Ruanes above and the Murphys below; but, shure, they've got the floor between thim.' It seemed a novel kind of flat;' but, after all, there is nothing new under the sun.

From this subject one seems to pass naturally to that of sickness ; and here humour flourishes. It is true that, with the spread of general knowledge and improved medical aid, 'cures' and superstitions are on the wane, but still the misthress's bottle' is much preferred to the doctor's, and the advice of a 'lucky woman' is of much higher value than that of an M.D. Apart from the medical knowledge required, it is no light matter to undertake to prescribe for one's neighbours, as the following will show. If it's plazin' to yr honor, I'm come to ax for a bottle,' said an old woman. 'I was tuk that bad last night I thought the life 'ud lave me.' After due inquiry into her symptoms she was given a packet of arrowroot, with minute directions how to prepare it. As she scarcely seemed to take them in, a happy thought struck the lady. 'You know how to make starch, don't you?' she asked. 'Yes,' Biddy said, she did. 'Then make it just like that,' said her friend, and add a little sugar to it.' Biddy departed, to return next day with the information that she was like to die afther atin' what Miss Norah gave her, and, with all due respect to her, she couldn't get it all down, it wint so aginst her.' She was requested to bring what remained for inspection, which revealed that the directions as to starch had been literally carried out. She had put blue in it. This was more than equalled by an old man, who arrived one day with a long list of symptoms, including 'a tatherananty that rowled round and round in his inside.' Fortunately the 'mist hress' was good at diagnosis, and he was presented with a powder tied up neatly in white paper. Here, Mike,' she said, 'don't mix this with anything, but take it quite plain, just as it is.' Mike promised and departed, to return rejoicing in a day or two. 'Glory be to God, the misthress's powder had cured him intirely, an', faith, he tuk ivery bit of it, barrin' that much of the sthring' (showing about an inch), 'that was that tough he couldn't get it down.'

There is one specially Irish characteristic which might well be borne in mind by those philanthropists and political prospectors who make Ireland their happy hunting-ground. I mean the universal desire to give satisfaction as well as information, and at all costs to suit our manners to our company. Shure it's as aisy to tell a lie as to tell the thruth' is a maxim we have never found any difficulty in acting up to. Indeed, it is in a great measure this fatal desire to agree quickly, not with our adversary, but our friend, and if possible to go one better, that lands us in so many quagmires. I once had occasion to denounce in strong

terms a particularly brutal agrarian outrage, in which several unfortunate animals had been shot at and mutilated. My hearer, a respectable kind-hearted young man, who would not willingly have injured a fly, thoroughly agreed with me. That's thrue,' he said; 'an' shure, if they were for killin' something, it would have been a dacent thing to have shot a man, and not two poor dumb bastes that couldn't defind thimselves.' The most rigid upholder of the S.P.C.A. could hardly have gone further. Nowhere is the old proverb 'Manners makyth man' so firmly believed in, or acted upon, as in Ireland. Nothing stands to a man or carries him through difficulties like a good manner. Glory be to God that it's your honour's self that's come, and not that little black divil that was here last wake; ivery word he spake it was as if he hot ye in the face with a sod o' turf,' was the greeting received by a Government inspector whose colleague was not remarkable for his courtesy. Another admirable characteristic must not be overlooked. An Irishman is naturally devout, and as a rule accepts the decrees of Providence without a murmur. His climate is as changeable as he is himself, but you rarely hear him grumble. Anything short of a deluge is 'a grand day, glory be to God,' or, if he is completely wet through, a fine soft day for the country.' On one occasion, when it had rained incessantly for weeks, and the crops were almost under water, I said to a man, 'What do you think of the weather, Flannagan?' 'I think,' said Flannagan, looking round at the dripping hedges and soaking fields, I think, Miss, if I was to be makin' weather, an' made the likes of this, there'd be grumblin' at it.' It was wrung out of him, and surely disapprobation was never more delicately expressed. As might be expected, ours is a soil in which blessings and curses flourish in almost tropical luxuriance, and both are dispensed with a liberal hand. Among the causes which insure a plentiful supply of the former may be reckoned the possession of red hair. 'The ould masther's funeral was a grand sight,' said an old woman, but shure the grandest sight of all was to see Masther Andy standin' there with his head shinin' like gould in a bog dhrain. May the Lord bless him an' the barber that barberised him!' We are often credited with a disposition to accept statements without proof of their accuracy, but the following story goes far to disprove such an accusation. 'It's wishin' to inform the family I am that there's a cross baste beyant in the field,' was announced one morning by an old herd. 'Are you sure it's really cross?' some