T was Dennis Coulahan had the beautiful way with him. A tall, proud boy was Dennis, with an eye of hard blue, a dazzling smile, and an easy way with the colleens. Sure, were not half the girls from Ballyduff to Lismore and that is a good stretchcracked after him!

You would hear him of an evening with the boys, coming down maybe from Lanty Sullivan's, the potheen man, when perhaps he had two or three glasses taken, with a high note in the laugh of him, and a rich, throaty tone underneath that was a delight to the ear. It is easy to see him now as he came down the boreen with the dark curl on his forehead and a white turn of the eye, putting the comether on the boys, as the people used to be saying. And maybe on a fine, moonlight night you might run across him taking a slant under the ould rath with one of the colleens. There was something very queer about Dennis, indeed, for although the most beautiful girl in Ireland, Kathleen O'Shea, was dying for the glance of him, he was never happy but when he was gallivanting with this one and that one, and it was a curious thing entirely how the good girls and the nice girls used to forget their duty to God, not to mention their duty to themselves, when they caught the careless look of his eye.

That was a queer story altogether of Kathleen and Dennis. It was the time when Patrick O'Donovan was courting the girl, just before the boys were "up when the great rebellion of '98 broke out, and Kathleen, who was always a strange, wayward colleen, would go walking, walking with him, because she had the wish to love him. But by this and by that there was something contrairy inside

her that would not let her heart have the tender fancy, and the more she tried to care for him as a woman should care for her sweetheart, the less she looked like doing it. But at the long last she overpersuaded herself, if you understand me, and she said she would marry him. Sure, it is the way that the women have.

Patrick was a beautiful boy, with a clear, steady eye and brown hair, in which was a wave of the water where it curves over the Modeligo fall. It was he that had the great frame, and sure there was no man in the South could hurl the stone against him, and as for "lepping"well, they used to be sayin' that after Jim Burke's horse, the "Phooka," saw him jump on the Carrickmacross race-course, he could never face the five-barred gate the same way again, for the conceit was destroyed in the heart of him.

Well, it was Kathleen had the great respect and fondness after him-but love him? No. Love is a queer thing-it is like a woman, the more you bid it the less biddable it is-but this is not the place to be discoursing on things of that sort.

The matter was soon settled, however, for Patrick and Kathleen. One fine morning the redcoats came marching up to O'Donovan's farm, knocked at the door, took him out under the dawn of the summer's sun, planting him with his back against the gray stone wall of his own farm, and put five pieces of lead into him, without "by your leave" or anything else. But it was given out by the general commanding the district that he was agin' the government.

That was the black night in the valley; the people were screaming mad with the rage and terror of it, but they could never find the man who tould on him, for there was not a man, woman, or child in the place that would stoop to the dirtiest work in the world.

Kathleen was the changed woman after that. Something crept into her heart and turned it to ice, and with all the soft gentle ways of her there was a hardness lurking underneath which would come out now and again in the glint of the eye or a turn of the head. They said she would always be looking for the man that sent Patrick O'Donovan to his end, but if she was, she never found him nor any one else either. And as though fate would leave her nothing in the world, they took her father, gentle Michael O'Shea, the scholar, and swung him into eternity in the great square of Fermoy. "For fomenting rebellion," they said..

It was not until Dennis crossed her path that the roses stole back into her cheeks. But sure it was no wonder she would be liking the most beautiful young man in the valley, though when Patrick was alive she had neither the kind word nor the kind look for him. If you can understand that, you will be wiser than I, for I have given up trying to understand the pattern of a woman's mind.

But whether she liked him or not was all the same so far as her father was concerned, for he could never bear the sight of Dennis, do what he would, and it was he always had the black look for him.

But I would not be recounting the half of Dennis Coulahan if I was not tellin' ye about the power of the tongue he had. It was he that was forever dropping the spell on the people, and faith there was nothing strange that the name they put on him was "The Spellbinder." Sure he had the tongue so easy that the horses and dogs would come to him when he spoke to them. He was a horse "Whisperer," and there wasn't a wild baste in Ireland and they are very wild there sometimes that he could not tame. Since the days of the blessed Saint Patrick, the likes of him with the wild creatures was never seen.

Moscha! there was one night they used to tell of when under the shadow of the ould rath, by the light of a May moon, he put his magic on the young men, so that they were mad to have a crack at the English redcoats that were swarming in the country, for, as I said before, it was the time of the Black Rebellion, a hundred years ago and all. And

it was the mothers and the sisters and the sweethearts that used to be askin' him not to be settin' the boys wrong with his talk. Sure wasn't the gallows-tree ripe with the poor boys who had dared all and lost all for the cause. There was Michael Moriarty, and Tim Doolan, and Shawn O'Connor-all fine young men and all gone to their deaths by the running noose.

And, indeed, it was Dennis himself that had the narrow escapes. Once the soldiers took him and put him safe in Fermoy jail, but the evidence failed against him and he was released, and after he came out he was bolder than ever in the things that he said and the things that he did.

And it was Kathleen O'Shea that was the sufferer. Every time a patrol of redcoats marched down the Ballyduff village her heart was in her throat for Dennis, because it was for him at this time she had the great love entirely. But Dennis took the danger and her love easily enough. He would look down into her eyes, though she was a tall young woman itself, and would grip those soft, round shoulders of hers, and throw a laugh back for her sighs and tears.

One fine night in July, Kathleen was taking a breath of fresh air outside her cottage. From where she stood she could see the ribbon of the Blackwater as it wound velvety between its banks under the shadows of the falling night. Away to the west hung the star of night to show like a Jack-o'-Lantern through the rising river-mists. Peeping out along the valley were the lights of the little cabins that spotted the hillside.

The moist, earthy smell of the river came sweet to her nostrils. It was the earliest thing in her life she could remember. God be with the times when, as a little child, she used to be looking under the stones of the river for the "divileens," as the children called the baby eels. And the brown trout that used to swim down there under the old stone bridge, where the water ran so smoothly to-night. And the sullen leap of the salmon in the cool of the evening-the cry of the wild duck the haunting call of the plover. It all came back to her again.

Nestling under the hollow of a high. bank was the little chapel. She could

together under the storms of a thousand winters. What queer sights the old place had seen. Sure usen't her father, who was a scholar, to be telling her maybe on a fine night like this, before he went to his death at the hands of the soldiers . . Glory be to God! what was that! There was the beating of men's footsteps not the regular tramping of soldiers, but a scattering of feet as they came

the house. They had something in the middle of them with a white bandage around the head of it.

Kathleen looked curiously at the men as they came laughing and talking toward the house, which stood away back by itself.

In front strutted little Larry O'Halloran, the cunningest charmer of the pipes in the South, who carried his pipes

under his arm. A weazened little fellow, with a moist gray eye.

Sure it was Larry who could play the pipes or break your head with a loaded blackthorn with all the will in life. Faith it was he that took the light of day from one of Black Michael's eyes-and sure Michael was a giant. But he was no match for Larry with the stick. It was he that was so quick that you would only be after beating the empty air when you were looking for him with the shillelagh. But indeed, that is neither here nor there

now.

In front, I say, strutted the little man. And it was he that was busy giving directions about something. Every now and then, as they walked toward the house, you could hear the hoarse crackle of laughter come out of them. A queer kind of laughter-half choked as it came from the throat.

"Be careful of him, boys-sure we must take great care of him for his friends," urged the little man plaintively, with a queer cock of the head.

"What is it you have got?" said the girl, laughing, "and what devilment are you up to now?"

"Oh!" said Larry, "we have something that you'll be glad to see for which the heart of you has been longing"-and he passed the sign to the men, who stood clear from the thing they were carrying.

The girl looked slowly round. No she had the senses in her. It was all right. She could hear the rush of the water as it crept under the bridge. She could see the faces of the men she had known all her life.

What was it had come to them? What was it that lay on the ground, with ropes swathing it?

"God in Heaven!"

The scream of the girl rose on the air as she ran forward and threw herself on the ground by the side of the figure that lay so stiffly. She tore at the white bandage which lay strapped tightly across the face.

"Dennis-Dennis! what is it they are doin' to ye?"

"Arrah! don't be makin' yourself unaisy can't ye see the poor boy is unconscious?" said the little piper-"“he will be

all right in a moment. Sure the poor creature is tired in himself and a drop of the right sort will make him all right again. Hand that bottle over."

A tall man came forward and handed him a greenish bottle. He forced it between the clinched teeth of the man on the ground, and poured a few drops gradually down his throat. After a moment, he moved his head slightly and opened his eyes, turning his face to look at the faces about him. He stared dully at Kathleen, but did not speak.

"Listen, girl," and the voice of the piper was low and soft, but with a hissing underneath like the snakes that Ireland hasn't. "Listen," says he "that man you see there-that beautiful young man -that man with the heart of gold and the tongue of silver like the chiming of the bell at the holy Elevation"—and he crossed himself-"that is the man that sent Moriarty and Doolan and the rest to the gallows-tree.

"That man, the 'Whisperer,' the man with the voice that neither child, woman, nor dumb baste could resist—it is he that whispered away the lives of the boys at Aherlow-of the men who were shot with their backs to the stone wall at Ballineety. It was he that put the soldiers on to McCarthy's farm when they took the life of John McCarthy, and placed the black shadow on the virtue of his daughter Norah. And it was he that gave the word which sent your father to the noose.

"He, the poor man, without a penny in the world-the honest man, who could not be bought, he was so light with his talk under the shadow of the rath on the May night-that sent five boys to the scaffold. Look at his hands-they are bloody, like those of Judas in the old time. Look at his face-white with the great fear.

"There is the brave man, the honest man, the good man-may God blast his soul forever and ever!"

And the little man smiled softly to himself.

Kathleen looked at him intently. The words came and went on her ears as unmeaning as the wind-shadows that sweep across the face of the Slieve Bloom Mountains.

Then she began to laugh quietly to her