oak, outside the circle of which all was bright and sunny, while the air smelt sweet and balmy, and the birds twittered and sang amongst the branches over our heads, and thousands of glittering insects, and butterflies, like winged flowers, hummed, and darted, and fluttered through the bright clear atmosphere. But O'Grady began to get restless, and as to Bony, he swore he was starving,-the fellow had eaten three pounds of bread, and a string of sausages to his breakfast-so we took up our guns, and started off to Astigarraga, where we were to dine.

Dinner over, we strolled for a mile or two across some fields beyond the hamlet, bagged a couple of brace of birds, and then began to think of returning to St. Sebastian, for it was already dusk, we had a long walk before us, and not more time than was necessary to reach the town ere the gates were shut for the night. We were now a considerable distance beyond the French road, which we had to cross between Astigarraga and the village of Oyarzun, before re-entering the valley of Loyola.

It was night, a bright and moonlit one, as we arrived within some three hundred yards of the road, the part of which immediately in our front was entirely concealed from view by a rising ground or crest, covered with bushes and brushwood, on the edge of which, as we approached it, the silvery disk of the moon seemed to be resting. To the right the road was visible as it wound down a steep hill, its light sandy-colour contrasting with the dark, wooded rocks on either side. Suddenly the jingle of harness and rattle of wheels were heard, and a travelling-carriage, coming southwards, surmounted the ridge of the road, and commenced descending the hill. It was a heavy, old-fashioned vehicle, painted of a dingy crimson, with coats of arms half covering the panels, perched on immensely high springs, and capable of containing six or eight persons without their being inconveniently crowded. On the top of the coach was a profusion of luggage, the overflowings apparently of a huge boot in front, out of which trunks, and packing-cases, and band-boxes were protruding. Four mules, covered with bells and trappings, were harnessed to this ponderous and well-laden vehicle; the zagal, or postilion, was mounted on the near wheeler, whip in hand, and urging on his team with the usual oaths and vociferations; while on the box were seated two men, whose long grey-coats, faced with scarlet, glazed hats, and brightbarrelled muskets, denoted them to be Zeladores, acting as escort to the travellers. It was evidently a family of emigrants who, having taken refuge in France during the war, were now returning with bag and baggage to their native country.

We began ascending the rising ground which separated us from the road. We lost sight of the carriage, but still heard the noise of the wheels and merry sound of the mule-bells, increasing in loudness as the vehicle drew nearer to us, and was only shut out from our view by the hillock we were climbing. We were struggling through the brushwood, and O'Grady was cursing most heartily some thorns and briars, against which his linen trousers afforded but indifferent protection, when the report of two muskets was heard, followed immediately by the screams of women; then the carriage stopped suddenly, and three more shots were fired; all this within the space of ten seconds, during which we stood still, and stared at each other. The shrieks continued

-the hoarse voices of men, loud in oath and menace, were audible. O'Grady was rushing forward, when the Spaniard Buenaventura detained him with a firm grasp.

"Cuidado!-hombre. Have a care; they are attacked by ban

ditti."

"Ah, then, let me go and help 'em!" said O'Grady, casting a look of some contempt at his friend Bony. The latter did not relinquish his grasp, but in spite of O'Grady's efforts to get away, held him fast with his right-hand, while with his left he fumbled in his jacketpocket.

"Hear reason, man," said he coolly. "I don't hinder your going, I'll go with you myself, but what will you do with your perdigones, your partridge-shot, against ounce balls? Here! take these."

And producing half-a-dozen bullets from his pocket, he offered them to O'Grady and myself. We slipped one into each barrel of our fowling-pieces, and scrambled hastily up to the top of the hill.

It was a strange scene that presented itself when we arrived there. The travelling-carriage was standing in the middle of the road, in danger each moment of being overturned by the plunging and kicking of three of the mules. The fourth mule, one of the leaders, had been shot, and was lying on the ground in the agonies of death, lashing out convulsively with his hind feet. It was his struggles that so alarmed the three other animals. Of the two Zeladores, one was lying in the road with his face in a pool of blood, the other was defending himself desperately against two assailants, who were striking furious blows at him with the butts of their muskets. The postilion had been dragged out of his saddle, and was stretched on his back on the ground, while a grim-visaged, fiercely-mustached ruffian stood over him, with his foot pressed heavily on his breast. Two ladies, one apparently about fifty years old, the other not more than half that age, both attired in handsome travelling-dresses, and the younger of the two of great beauty, although then deadly pale, were kneeling in the dust of the road; a third female, seemingly their attendant, was just being dragged out of the carriage, uttering piercing shrieks the while. All this we saw in the bright moonlight, as plainly as though it had been noonday.

O'Grady and myself were about to rush headlong down the hill to the assistance of the travellers, when Bony again restrained us. "Son siete; there are seven of them. If we pick off three, only four will remain."

And as he asserted this indisputable fact, he knelt down behind a bush which concealed him from the persons in the road, who were not above sixty yards from us in a straight line, but who had nevertheless not as yet perceived us. Raising his long gun to his shoulder, he squinted along the barrel, and took steady aim at one of the banditti. Instinctively O'Grady and myself followed his example. Bony gave a glance at us as we knelt amongst the brushwood right and left of him, and then nodded his head. That was the signal, and we all three fired. The brigand, who was almost crushing in the breast-bone of the unfortunate postilion with his heavy foot, gave a leap into the air, and fell down again upon his prisoner, bathing him in blood. One of the two men who were attacking the Zelador, also fell, mortally wounded. My shot took effect in the shoulder of another of the ruffians.

"Hurra for Ireland and the sky over it!" shouted O Grady, springing from his cover, firing his second barrel almost at random and without effect, and then clubbing his gun, shillelagh fashion, and rushing down the hill with a wild Irish whoop, followed by Buenaventura and myself.

Startled though they were by the fall of their companions and our sudden appearance, the bandits nevertheless showed fight, and stood up like men against their new adversaries. A scuffle ensued, but it was not of very long duration; for-including the Zelador, who was unhurt, except by a graze of a bullet across the forehead, and the postilion, who took heart of grace, and snatching up one of the dead men's muskets, joined our ranks-we were now equal in number to our opponents. Buenaventura fought like a lion; as to O'Grady, he was a host in himself. I was doing my best to second them, when a rap on the sconce from a musket-butt tumbled me into the dust, where I lay for some minutes stunned and senseless.

When I recovered, the fight was over. Four of the brigands lay dead or dying upon the ground; the other three had taken to flight. The postilion was unharnessing the dead mule, and soothing and encouraging the others, which were half wild with terror at the firing, and at the sight of their dead comrade; the Zelador was washing the blood from his face and eyes at a roadside fountain. O'Grady, in his bad Spanish, was reassuring the ladies, who of course were terribly frightened. Bony had popped me up against a bank, and seeing that I was not hurt, but only stupified, had not thought it necessary to take any further proceedings on my behalf, but was busy reloading his gun.

"Now then, boys," cried O'Grady, who had seemingly been making the best of his time, "where are you? Come, F.," said he to me, "let me introduce you to the ladies. Bony, you villain, haven't ye a word to say to your own counthry women? Faith, you fought for them like a trump. Devil take me if I thought any Spaniard of them all could be so cool and plucky when it came to a push. But come, the carriage is ready now, and we must see the ladies safe home."

And thereupon O'Grady handed the trembling señoras into their carriage, stepped in himself as if it had been a thing of course, and called out to me to do the same. I was hesitating whether I should follow his very free-and-easy example, when the younger of the two ladies addressed Buenaventura and myself, and entreated us not to refuse them our escort as far as the venta at Astigarraga, where they should remain, being too much terrified to proceed any farther that evening. I was just tying a handkerchief round my broken head, my face was covered with blood, dust, and perspiration, my clothes torn and stained with grass and earth; altogether, I was any thing but a fit subject for a stall at the opera; but it was not a time to be very punctilious, so waiving ceremony, I stepped into the carriage, and was followed by Buenaventura. The Zelador resumed his seat on the box, with the dead body of his comrade beside him; the Zagal jumped into the saddle, and with a crack of the whip and an "Anda, Coronela !" to the leading mule, we set off at a smart pace.

Alarm or gratitude rendered our new acquaintances very communicative, and during the twenty minutes employed in reaching the venta, we learnt that the ladies we had had the honour of rescuing were the

mother-in-law and widow of a Spanish general, who had been killed in the late war. Upon his death they retired to France, where they had resided three years, and whence they were now returning, allured by the apparently tranquil and improving state of their own country, a tranquillity of which they had as yet had but very equivocal proof. The old lady was greatly terrified by their adventure, and did nothing but groan and call upon the saints all the way to the village; but her daughter, a beautiful and spirited creature, with flashing black eyes, and hands and feet such as none but an Andalusian woman ever possessed, soon recovered from her alarm, and before we reached the venta, was chatting gaily with O'Grady, and laughing heartily at his blundering and original way of talking Spanish.

On arriving at the inn, the ladies retired to make some changes in their dress, but promised to return to the principal room to supper, which Buenaventura immediately set about ordering. For my part, although possessing a pretty hard skull, it now ached so intolerably from the blow I had received, that I was fain to let O'Grady make my excuses to the ladies, while I myself retired to bed.

Considering the small allowance of sleep, and the large share of fatigue I had had during the preceding twenty-four hours, I did not feel very surprised to see the sun high in the heavens when I awoke on the following morning. I was rather astonished, however, to behold O'Grady standing at the foot of my bed in full travelling costume, with his pistol-case in his hand, and a leathern belt round his waist, supporting a half-sabre, half-bunting-knife sort of weapon which I had seen hanging on the wall of his apartment at St. Sebastian. As I knew that he had nothing with him the night before but the clothes he stood in, I wondered where he had got his change of dress, and began to think that I had slept till afternoon.

"What's o'clock, O'Grady?"

"Past ten. I hope your early rising won't be hurtful to your health. Faith and you are a born sluggard. Come, up with you, man, if you want to see us off."

"See you off," I repeated; "who off?"

"Who? why, myself to be sure, and the ladies. Doña Inez Dolores de Valombroso y Cercal y . Oh! there's half-a-dozen more names, but I must write 'em to you from our first halting-place, if you want to know them, for I'm not able to remember the half."

"Why, where the deuce are you going to?"

"I tell you I'm going with the ladies, the ladies we saved last night from those murthering savages. You wouldn't have me let them go all alone, a hundred leagues or more, and they relations of my

Own ?"

"Relations of yours?"

"To be sure. Ah!-I forgot-you weren't with us at supper last night. I found out that they had a cousin who married an O'Donnel-one of the Spanish O'Donnels, I mean-and sure the O'Donnels are blood relations of my own; were, at least, before they emigrated to Spain, no further back than '98."

I leant back in my bed with open mouth and eyes, lost in wonder at the unparalleled coolness and rapidity with which O'Grady had established himself as cousin and travelling companion to one of the prettiest women I had seen in Spain. Very little questioning on my

part sufficed to elicit from my volatile friend the history of all his proceedings during my twelve hours nap. It appeared that while supper was preparing on the preceding evening, O'Grady had got hold of the postilion, and backing his questions by the eloquence of a dollar, had learnt from him that the younger of the two ladies was very rich, possessing, according to his account, vineyards in Andalusia, corn-fields in Navarre, mines in the Asturias, to say nothing of a village or two, a couple of churches, and half-a-dozen convents. This tempting list, added to the bright eyes and five-and-twenty summers of the lady, afforded matter of reflection to O'Grady, who, as he told me, had lately had misgivings about his course of life, and was beginning to think whether it wouldn't be better to settle down in a quiet sort of matrimonium, now that he had crossed the bridge of Thirty, and was getting greyish in the wig, and crowfooted about the eyes! He caught eagerly at an opportunity that occurred of establishing a cousinship, fifty times removed, between himself and his new friends; and upon the latter expressing some nervous apprehensions as to the dangers of the road they had to travel on the morrow, he volunteered his services as an escort. The ladies could not think, they said, of encroaching upon his goodness; they were already so grateful for the timely succour he had afforded them; but O'Grady vowed he had long wished to see the interior of Spain, that he had intended setting off in a day or two, and that they would be conferring a favour on him by giving him a seat in their carriage. In short, he brought forward such excellent reasons and arguments in favour of accompanying them, that he carried his point, aided a little, perhaps, by his handsome person, and frank and really agreeable manners.

I shall never forget O'Grady's indescribably humorous, impudent expression of face as he shook hands with me, and uttered his "last words" out of the carriage window, after ensconcing himself comfortably opposite to Doña Inez.

66

Sorry to leave you, old fellow, but when a lady's in the caseyou know the rest. Take care of yourself. Good-by, Bony. Drive

on.'

Crack went the whip-jingle jingle the bells-the mules neighed and snorted, the dust flew up and the wheels went round. The next moment the ponderous old carriage had disappeared beyond a turn of the road. Bony and I stood looking at each other for about a minute, and then burst simultaneously into a hearty fit of laughter, the first and last, by-the-by, that I ever knew Bony to perpetrate.

I returned to France the next day, and a month later I heard of O'Grady's marriage with the handsome and many-named widow. I had a letter from him last week, dated from some place on the banks of the Ebro, where the two churches and half-a-dozen convents are situated. He tells me he is as happy as the day is long, likes the country and the people, his wife and her estates, drinks Val de Peñas instead of whiskey, and likes it nearly as well; in short, has never for a moment regretted the result of our day's shooting in the valley of Loyola. He urges me to go and visit him, and at the same time to stand godfather to little O'Grady Number Three, who has just made his appearance in this vale of tears, and whom he assures me is the very moral of a Patlander!

I am even now considering whether I shall accept his invitation.