CHAPTER XIV.

THE VOYAGE.PLEASURES OF BENEVOLENCE.

THE ensuing evening they reached Holyhead, and finding a packet about to sail almost immediately, embarked, and in the morning found themselves within the magnificent bay of Dublin, whose encircling mountains rose like golden ramparts tipped with the beams of the rising sun. From the state of the tide they were obliged to anchor at some distance from the city, and their vessel, with a numerous body of low and haggardlooking Irish passengers crowding the deck, the boats which beset them on every side, the irruption of boatmen seizing on luggage, the strange and harsh tones of the vernacular tongue, made Frederick say that he could almost fancy himself approaching some barbarous island.

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Every Englishman or Irishman of influence, Frederick," said his father, "should blush that there are any points of comparison."

As many of the poor passengers were very anxious to be set on shore, having a long day's journey to their homes, Mr. D'Arcy would not engage a boat until they had been accommodated; and when, at length, his party, with some of their fellow-voyagers, were just

seated in one, and about to leave the vessel, a respectable-looking woman appeared on the deck, in great distress that the boat was going without her. She had been sent for from England, where she went on business, in consequence of her husband's alarming illness. The search after a valuable trunk had prevented her leaving the vessel before; and now, if she did not go, the coach would have left Dublin before she could get to it. The boatman said it was impossible to take her and her baggage, as he was already overladen.

"She shall go, however," said Mr. D., with emphasis,

some of us will give up our places," and he looked towards a young gentleman, apparently a military officer; for the only other gentleman was an elderly and infirm person, who had two ladies under his care; and Frederick had been despatched to call on a professional gentleman, whom his father wished to see immediately on his arrival. As the young officer was not disposed to understand Mr. D'Arcy's silent appeal, he hastened himself to the ladder; but the elderly gentleman endeavoured to detain him, saying, "Surely, Sir, our fellow-traveller will remain, and not allow you to leave the ladies without protection."

"Yours and mine will be sufficient, I hope, Sir," replied the young man, bowing to Eliza with all possible assurance; "I am not Quixotic enough to change places with that whining woman." Eliza looked far more pleased than her assumed protector, when, finding the stranger's luggage required two to leave the boat, she quickly stepped up the ship's side to stay with her father; and

the sympathy evinced by all the party in the boat, when the poor woman's joy and gratitude were expressed, with all the warmth of an Irish heart, rendered landing a most agreeable escape to that individual who had sufficiently shown that he had no heart.

As soon as the horses were put to the carriage, Mrs. Cecil and her young friends drove their grateful fellow-voyager to the coach, which was starting at the moment from the inn door; and having seen her happily seated, hastened away from her thankful adieus, to meet the rest of their party.

Mr. D'Arcy learnt from his attorney that his own affairs in the county of were not so pressing as to forbid his remaining a few days, to gratify the young people with the view of Dublin, and the exquisite scenery around it; he had, therefore, determined on doing so, but a circumstance mentioned by the former gentleman, quite casually as it appeared, though perhaps with a benevolent design on his part to direct Mr. D.'s attention to it, led to a change in their plan. The circumstance was this: Mr. H. D'Arcy, the usurper of his cousin's property, after a series of conjugal cruelties, had deserted his wife, allowing her for her maintenance a small property, on which was a good house, where she had established a ladies' school. Before this was legally secured to her, he determined to sell it, being obliged, as he asserted, to do so, to meet the expenses of his long-pending and now lost suit at law; though it was well known that he possessed sufficient property in the foreign funds to render the sale unnecessary. It was,

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indeed, very obvious that enmity to his wife was the real motive, as he had been heard to declare it should not be sold to any friend of hers.

When Mr. D. heard this, he instantly determined on a plan to defeat the malignant design; and his family readily acquiesced in his wishes to hasten on immediately to the town of —, where the sale was to take place in two days. On his arrival, he learnt, from the respectable master of the hotel, that the event had excited much sympathy in the neighbourhood; and he found no difficulty in meeting with a gentleman, quite unconnected with the lady's family or religion, (for she was a Catholic,) to purchase it, that it might afterwards be transferred to himself; and deputing this gentleman to call on Mrs. D. at once, to remove her anxieties, and offering to receive her as a tenant for her own term and price, he proceeded on his journey, lest, by his stay, any suspicion of his intention should be excited. The lady, at first, would scarcely believe that a Protestant could act thus towards a Roman Catholic, and that Protestant, too, a D'Arcy. "He must, I am sure," she said, at length, "be a good man, to show such kindness to the wife of his greatest enemy."

Early the following evening they reached the small town of C, where they were to remain the night; and, as they walked out to see the neighbourhood, and converse with the cottagers, they unexpectedly found themselves in one of those secluded spots where nature seems to concentrate all her charms, and, concealing herself from the gaze of ordinary sight-seers, unveils her highest

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beauties to those who seek and love her. winding path led through a wood, down an almost perpendicular descent, to the bosom of a lovely valley; and, as they carefully threaded their serpentine course, listening to the harmonies of nature, the song of birds, the sighing of the breeze, and the murmuring of the river below, the sudden sound of a harp, accompanied by the clear full tones of a fine manly voice, and the thrilling melody of a child's reverberated in the strong echoes of the valley, quite entranced them. They were singing the following beautiful stanza of their distinguished poet, in an air admirably adapted to the sentiments :

"This world is all a fleeting show,

For our illusion given:

The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow :

There's nothing true but heaven."

One of the young people at length exclaimed, “ Surely, papa, there must be a patriarch in this glen, entertaining a choir of angels." It did not require piety to form at such a moment, associations with heaven. That delicate and exquisite perception of beauty existing in highly-wrought poetic minds, connects itself by natural links, with the original of all that is bright and fair. The choice of the poetry seemed to indicate a cultivated mind, and our young travellers were a little surprised, not to say disappointed, when, on emerging from the wood, they perceived the harper, a meanly-clad young man, sitting beneath the shade of a venerable oak, whose branches