e farther on is a hamlet of Low-landers, or a village of
thrifty English folk.

"But in those days these distinctions were yet more marked, and the
feuds of Orange and Ribbon-man, Scotch and Irish, Englishman and French
Acadian, had not then given way before the softening and concealing hand
of 'Time, the great leveler;' and so some twenty years ago, during a
close contest between the then rising liberal party and the
conservatives, a riot took place near the polling-booth in the Highland
Scotch settlement of Belfast. All the combined strength of both parties
was present; the canvassing had been of the most thorough nature, and
all the antipathies of race and religion appealed to for electioneering
purposes.

"It is said that the Catholics went there expecting a fight, each armed
with a well-balanced, tough _shillelagh_, and that they made a general
attack on the Scotch. At all events, it is certain that the larger
number of the latter had to betake themselves to the nearest available
weapon, and that many were cut and bruised by the skilfully-handled
weapons of the active Irish cudgel-players. One Scotchman, however (a
fellow of unusual stature), seized a fence-rail, and, by his single arm,
stayed the tide of flight in his part of the fray. Almost frantic with
apprehension, rage, and the desire for revenge, he wielded his ponderous
weapon as if it were an ordinary club, striking such tremendous blows
that tradition has it that not one of a half-score of the best and
bravest of the Irish leaders survived the effects of those terrible and
crushing blows. Profiting by his prowess, the Scotch procured the heavy
stakes of their sleds, tough poles, pieces of firewood, and similar
ponderous weapons, and, headed by the hero of the day, made a charge,
returning with terrible severity the comparatively slight damage
inflicted by the light cudgels of the Irish.

"The details of that day of blood--how the fray began, and between whom;
the varying records of its progress as victory inclined first to one
side, and then to the other; the number of the killed and wounded, and
the names of the fallen--have never been generally known, and probably
never will be; for many of the principal actors in that savage drama
have passed away 'into the dread unknown.'

"But it is still commonly believed, and so reported, that over a score
of the Irish were killed on the field, or died of their wounds; that no
Scotchman perished; that the field