persevered, and he offered to place a horse, upon which he set great value, at my disposal. Just as we made our final arrangements and had despatched a messenger to Kenmare to provide the disguise, Stephens returned, wet, weary and hungry. He was in the worst spirits: but the case admitted of no delay. The lady with whom he was to travel had to stay one day in Cork, and to overtake her there was the only chance left. There was only one possible way to effect this--to give him the horse and let him ride on to Cork. I at once agreed, and he immediately set off. The loss of the horse imposed on me the difficulty of a journey on foot to Cork, and this rendered the assistance of a man to carry my disguise--who would take a different route from myself--indispensable. Our friend who, in giving his favourite horse to Stephens, told him to try and sell him in Cork and put the money in his pocket, provided me with another horse and car, by which my baggage was to be brought about forty miles. Having settled all preliminaries, he conveyed me to a cabin on the hills, where he provided an excellent dinner, and left me to my musings. They were, it may be well conceived, not of the gayest character. The responsibility and hazards of the attempt before me, narrowed the chances of my destiny to the one alternative, and I could not shake off gloomy phantoms which represented every phase of the last bloody drama which was to close the career of those who loved, too dearly, our ill-fated land. But, come what might, my purpose was definitely fixed. I spent the evening in the deepest gloom, which I endeavoured to dissipate by composing the following stanzas, suggested at the time by involuntary visions of my wife and children at the foot of the gallows:-- THE OUTLAW'S WIFE Sadly silent she sits, with her head on her hand, While she prays, in her heart, to the Ruler above, To protect, and to guide to some happier land, The joy of her soul and the spouse of her love: And she marks by her pulses, so wild in their play, The slow progress of time, as it straggles along; And she lists to the wind, as 'tis moaning away, And she deems it the chaunt of some funeral song. Then anon does she start in her struggles with fear, And she strains at the whispers of every one round, While she brushes away, half indignant, the tear, That will gush, tho' unbidden, at every fresh sound; And she strives to conceal--oh! how idle the task-- The deep lines in her cheek, and the rent in her heart; But her neighbours grow pale as they gaze on the mask, And more lowly and slowly they talk, as they part.