the
sufferings of a sick-bed.

* Town of the Fight of Flails.

We were seated by an open window, looking out upon the landscape. It was
past sunset, and the tall shadows of the mountains were meeting across
the lake, like spirits who waited for the night-hour to interchange
their embraces. A thin pale crescent of a new moon marked the blue sky,
but did not dim the lustre of the thousand stars that glittered round
it. All was hushed and still, save the deep note of the rail, or the
measured plash of oars heard from a long distance. The rich meadows that
sloped down to the water sent up their delicious odours in the balmy
air, and there stole over the senses a kind of calm and peaceful
pleasure as such a scene at such an hour can alone impart.

'This is beautiful--this is very beautiful, father,' said I.

'So it is, sir,' said the priest. 'Let no Irishman wander for scenery;
he has as much right to go travel in search of wit and good fellowship.
We don't want for blessings; all we need is, to know how to enjoy them.
And, believe me, there is a plentiful feast on the table if gentlemen
would only pass down the dishes. And, now, that reminds me: what are
you drinking--negus? I wouldn't wish it to my greatest enemy. But, to be
sure, I am always forgetting you are not one of ourselves. There, reach
me over that square decanter. It wouldn't have been so full now if we
had had poor Bob here--poor fellow! But one thing is certain---wherever
he is, he is happy. I believe I never told you how he got into his
present scrape.'

'No, father; and that's precisely the very thing I wish to ask you.'

'You shall hear it, and it isn't a bad story in its way. But don't you
think the night-air is a little too much for you? Shall we close the
window?'

'If it depend on me, father, pray leave it open.'

'Ha, ha! I was forgetting again,' said the old fellow, laughing
roguishly--'_Stella sunt amantium oculi_, as Pharis says. There now,
don't be blushing, but listen to me.

'It was somewhere about last November that Bob got a quiet hint from
some one at Daly's that the sooner he got out of Dublin the more
conducive it would be to his personal freedom, as various writs were
flying about the capital after him. He took the hint, and set off the
same night, and reached his beautiful chateau of Newgate without let
or molestation--which having victualled for the winter, he could, if
necessary, sustain in it a reasonable siege against