e met Hems worth, and, strange to say, found him both
pleasant and agreeable."

Such were the concluding lines of an epistle, in which few, who did not
possess Sir Arches acuteness, could successfully trace any thing of the
real character of the writer.

CHAPTER XXX. OLD CHARACTERS WITH NEW FACES.

At the time we speak of, Clontarf was the fashionable watering-place
of the inhabitants of Dublin; and although it boasted of little other
accommodation than a number of small thatched cabins could afford, and
from which the fishermen removed to give place to their more opulent
guests, yet, thither the great and the wealthy of the capital resorted
in summer, to taste the pleasures of a sea side, and that not inferior
one, the change of life and habit, entailed by altered circumstances and
more restricted spheres of enjoyment.

If, with all the aid of sunshine and blue water, waving foliage and
golden beach, this place had an aspect of modest poverty in its whitened
walls and net-covered gardens in summer, in winter its dreariness and
desolation were great indeed. The sea swept in long waves the narrow
road, even to the doors of the cabins, the muddy foam settling on
the window sills, and even drifting to the very roofs; the thatch was
fastened down with strong ropes, assisted by oars and spars, to resist
the wild gale that generally blew from the south-east. The trim cottages
of summer were now nothing but the miserable hovels of the poor, their
gardens waste, their gay aspect departed; even the stirring signs of
life seemed vanished; few, if any, of the inhabitants stirred abroad,
and save some muffled figure that moved past, screening his face from
the beating storm, all was silent and motionless. The little inn, which
in the summer time was thronged from morning till night, and from
whose open windows the merry laugh and the jocund sound of happy voices
poured, was now fast shuttered up, and all the precautions of a voyage
were taken against the dreaded winter; even to the sign of a gigantic
crab, rudely carved in wood and painted red, every thing was removed,
and a single melancholy dip candle burned in the bar, as if keeping
watch over the sleeping revelry of the place.

If such were the gloomy features without, within doors matters wore a
more thriving aspect. In a little parlour behind the bar a brisk fire
was burning, before which stood a table neatly prepared for supper; the
covers were laid for tw