But perhaps, while you lie, never lifting O perhaps the mere silences round you— You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes Or a bird's little song, faint and broken, And the tears shall flow faster and faster, And roll down bleared roads to each distance Of past desolation and years; Till they cover the place of each sorrow, And leave you no Past and no morrow: But the floods of the tears meet and gather; Is poured the whole sorrow of years? HON. LEWIS WINGFIELD. [The Hon. Lewis Wingfield was born on February 25, 1842. He was educated at Eton and Bonn, and was originally intended for the diplomatic service. He preferred, however, to adopt the stage as a profession; and having appeared in various provincial companies, made his debut at the Haymarket as Laertes in Hamlet, and Minerva in the burlesque of Ixion. But he soon abandoned the stage, and entered as an art-student in the academy at Antwerp, at the same time studying surgery in the hospital of St. Elizabeth in the same city. He finished his studies in painting in Paris, under Couture, in 1870, and obtained his diploma as a surgeon. When the Franco-German war broke out he went to the German side as a medical man, and was present at the battles of Woerth and Wissembourg. He returned to Paris in time for the first siege, and was employed during those trying days as head-assistant surgeon in the American hospital, and correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. Mr. Wingfield was also present during the commune and the second siege of the French metropolis, and during this period he was the special correspondent of the Times. Meanwhile he had not been idle with his brush; one of his pictures was bought by the French government, and hangs in the town-hall at Orleans. In 1876 Mr. Wingfield entered on a new career, publishing a novel under the title Slippery Ground. At the end of 1877 appeared Lady Grizel, a story dealing with the history of George III., which created a considerable amount of attention. Still more marked was the success of My Lords of Stroguea tale dealing with Irish affairs at the period of the Union. This work has received great and deserved praise, and is marked by eloquence and high powers of graphic description. Mr. Wingfield's latest work is a novel which deals with prison life. Inspired by the idea that the books published on this subject by ex-convicts contained gross exaggerations and misrepresentations, he entered on a series of original investigations, receiving special facilities from the Home Office.] STROGUE ABBEY. (FROM "MY LORDS OF STROGUE."1) The home of the Glandores on Dublin Bay is a unique place, perched on rising ground, shaded by fine old timber. Originally an ecclesiastical establishment, it was turned into a fortress by Sir Amorey Crosbie in 1177, and has been altered and gutted, and rebuilt, with here a wing and here a bay, and there a winding staircase, or mysterious recess, to suit the whim of each succeeding owner, till it has swelled into a stunted honey-comb of meandering suites of rooms, whose geography puzzles a stranger on his first visit there. 1 By permission of the author. The only portions of it which remain intact are (as may be seen by the great thickness of the walls) the hall, a long, low, narrow space, panelled in black oak and ceiled in squares; the huge kitchen, where meat might be roasted for an army; and the dungeons below ground. The remaining rooms (many of them like monkish cells) are of every shape and pattern, alike only in having heavy casement frames set with diamond panes, enormous obstinate doors, which creak and moan, declining to close or open unless violently coerced, and worm-eaten floors that slope in every freak of crooked line except the normal horizontal one. Indeed, the varied levels of the bedroom floor (there is but one story) are so wildly erratic, that a visitor, who wakes for the first time in one of the pigeon-holes that open one on the other, like the alleys of a rabbit warren, clings instinctively to his bed-clothes as people do at sea, and, on second thoughts, is seized with a new panic lest the house be about to fall-an idle fear, as my lady is fond of showing; for the cyclopean rafters, that were laid in their places by the crumbled monks, are hard and black as iron, so seasoned by sea-air that they will possibly stand good so long as Ireland remains above the water. A gloomier abode than this it is scarce possible to picture; for the window-sashes are of exceeding clumsiness, the ornamentation of a ponderous flamboyancy in which all styles are twisted, without regard for canons, into curls and scrolls; and yet there is a blunt cosiness about the ensemble which seems to say, "Here at least you are safe. If Dublin Bay were full of hostile ships, the adjacent land teeming with the enemy in arms, they might batter on for ever. They might beat at our portals till the last trump should summon them to more important business, but our panels would never budge." of separate chambers, in fact, which may be entered without passing through the hall; and above them is the armoury, a neglected museum of rusty swords and matchlocks, an eyrie of ghosts and goblins, which is never disturbed by household broom. The right side is bounded by a close-clipped ivied wall, pierced by an archway which gives access to the stables and the kennels, ended by a mouldering turret, converted long since into a water-tower. The grand hall, low and dark as it is with sable oak and stiff limnings of dead Crosbies, occupies the whole length and width of the central portion of the house, or rather of the narrow band which joins the two side blocks together. You may learn, by looking at the time-discoloured map which hangs over its sculptured mantelpiece, that the ground-plan of the Abbey is shaped like the letter H, whose left limb forms the young men's wing, the offices, and dining-room; whose right limb is made up of my lady's bedroom, the staircase vestibule, and the reception saloons; while the grand hall, or portrait gallery, reproduces the connecting bar. Five steps, with a curiouslycarved banister, lead out of the grand hall at either end; that to the left opening into the dining-room-a finely-proportioned chamber, panelled from floor to ceiling, with trophies of rusty armour breaking its sombre richness; that to the right communicating with my lady's bedroom, painted apple-green with arabesques of gold, which is chiefly remarkable for luxuriously-cushioned window-seats, from whence a fine view may be obtained of the operations in the stable-yard. The late lord used to sip his chocolate here in brocaded morning-gown and nightcap, haranguing his whipper-in and bullying the horse-boys, or tossing scraps to favourite hounds as they were trotted by for his inspection; and my lady has continued the practice through her widowhood, for it gratifies her vanity, as chatelaine, to watch the numberless grooms and lackeys, the feudal array of servants and retainers. An odd nest for a lady, no doubt; but the countess chooses to inhabit it, she says, till her son brings home a bride, for the late lord sent for Italian workmen to decorate it according to her taste, and in it she will remain On approaching the Abbey by the avenue you are not aware of it-so masked is it by trees and ivy-till a sharp turn brings you upon a gravelled quadrangle, three sides of which are closed in by walls, while the fourth is marked out by a row of statues (white nymphs with pitchers), whose background is the chameleon sea. Directly facing these figures -at the opposite end of the square, that is till the hour for abdication shall arrive. a short wide flight of steps, and a low terrace paved with coloured marbles, lead to the front entrance. The left side of the quadrangle is the "Young Men's Wing," sacred to whips and fishing-tackle, pierced by separate little doors for convenience on hunting mornings-two sets A second door, at right angles to my lady's, opens from the hall on to the staircase with its heraldic flight of beasts; beyond this is the chintz drawing-room, a cheery pale-tinted chamber which Doreen has taken to herself as a boudoir, although it is practically no better than a passage-room leading to the tapestried saloons. She likes it for its brightness, and because it looks out on the garden front, known as "Miss Wolfe's Plot," a little square fenced in at one end by the hall, on the further side by the dining-room, while at the other end there is a tall gilt grille of florid design, through which you may wander, if it pleases you, into the pleasaunce. This small quaint inclosure is Doreen's favourite haunt. She has laid it out with her own hands in strange devices of pebbles and clipped box, with a crazy sundial for a centre, and sits there for hours with needlework that advances not, dreaming sombrely, and sighing now and then, as her eyes travel along the cut beech hedges, sinooth leafy walls, which spread inland in vistas beyond the golden gate, like the arms of some giant star-fish. These hedges are the most remarkable things about a very remarkable abode. They are each of them half-a-mile long, thirty-six feet high, and twelve feet thick, perforated at intervals by arches; and they form together a series of triangular spaces sheltered from sea-blasts, in which flourish such a wealth of roses as is a marvel to all comers. Obese, old-fashioned roses, as big as your fist, hang in cataracts from tottering posts which once were orchard trees; large pink blossoms or bunches of small white ones, whose perfume weighs down the air; balls of glorious colour, which, when a rare breeze shakes them, shower their sweet petals in a lazy swirl upon the grass, whence Doreen gleans and harvests them for winter, with cunning condiments, in jars. From time to time the perfume varies, as the wind sets E. or w., from that of Araby the blest to one of the salt sea—a tarry, seaweedy, nautico-piratical odour, with a strong dash of brine in it, which seems wafted upward from below to remind the dwellers in the Abbey of their long line of corsair ancestors. The most sumptuous of all the apartments is undoubtedly the tapestried saloon, nicknamed by wags my lady's presence-chamber; for there, looking out upon the roses, she loves to sit erect surrounded by ghostly Crosbies whose mighty deeds are recorded on the walls, portrayed by the most skilful hands upon miracles of Gobelin manufacture. Mr. Curran often wondered, as he played cribbage with the chatelaine, whether those deeds were fabulous; for if not, he reflected, judging the present by the past-then were the mighty grievously come down. Here was Sir Amorey alone on a spotty horse, trouncing a whole army with his doughty sword. There was Sir Teague at the head of his Kernes, making short work of the French at Agincourt. Further on, the first earl-prince of salt-water thieves, with a vanquished Desmond grimacing underneath his heel. How different were these from the present and last Glandores, whose lives were filled up to overflowing with wine and with debauchery; whose sins lacked the picturesque wickedness of these defunct seafaring murderers. Then, perceiving the countess's eye fixed on him, her crony would feel guilty for his unflattering reflections, and rapidly pursue the game; for my lady as she aged grew just the least bit garrulous, and as he loved not the aristocracy as such, it was afflicting to listen to long-winded dissertations upon the family magnificence, which he declared she invented as she went along. He was never tired though, when he could snatch a rare holiday from his professional labours, of exploring the dungeons and chimney recesses and awful holes and crannies. He it was who ferretted out the long lost secret way beneath the sea from the water-tower to Ireland's Eye; and bitterly he repented later that he had not kept that discovery to himself; for by means of it he might have brought about the vanishing of many of the proscribed, instead of-but we travel on too fast. ENNISHOWEN. (FROM "MY LORDS OF STROGUE.") Shane and Doreen arrived by and by at the summit of a hill-crest, from which the northern half of the promontory lay spread like a map before them. Just below was a white speck— the village of Carndonagh-beyond, a row of lakes, tiny mirrors set in the hill-flank-on either side the jagged lines of Loughs Foyle and Swilly, varied with many a peaked headland and jutting point and shelving bay scooped out of the living rock. In front, a flat stretch on which cloud-shadows were playing hide-and-seek—a bopeep dance of subtlychequered tones; and away still farther, looming through the mist, the bluffs of Malin Head, the extreme limit, to the north, of Ireland. As they looked the mists melted in eddying swirls of gold, unveiling an expanse of immense and lonely sea, dotted with fairy islets strewn in a ravelled fringe-the long span of the blue-green Atlantic, marked with a line of white where it seethed and moaned and lashed without ceasing against the foot | yellow iris cast ruddy reflections into the of the beetling cliff. streams, while purple heather and patches of "What a lovely spot!" Doreen exclaimed, wild heartsease vie with each other in a as she sniffed the brisk breeze; "how wild-friendly struggle to mask the wealth of green. how desolate how weirdly fair! Not the vestige of a dwelling as far as eye can reachexcept that speck below us." Unpoetic Shane had been busy counting the wild-fowl, watching the hawks, marking the sublime slow wheeling of a pair of eagles far away in ether heavenward. At the call of his cousin he brought his thoughts down to earth, and cried out: "By the Hokey! a nice coast for the French to land upon. I wish them joy of it if they try. If they do we shall be in the thick of it, for look! You can just discern Glas-aitch-éthat dot in the sea, no bigger than a pin's point-between Dunaff and Malin. A fleet would have to pass close by us that was making either for Lough Swilly or Lough Foyle. But come-a canter down the hill, and we will see what we can get to eat. This sharp air gives one a plaguy appetite!" Doreen spoke truly, for Ennishowen is weirdly fair. The atmosphere of winter gave the desolation she had passed through a special charm. The ponderous banks of rolling steelgray clouds, which had only just been conquered by a battling sun, gave a ghastly beauty to its wildness. Dun and steel-gray, sagegreen and russet-brown, with here and there a bit of genuine colour-a vivid tuft of the Osmunda fern. Such chromatic attributes were well in harmony with the intense stillness, broken only by the rustle now and then of whirring wings, or the sharp boom of the frightened bittern. But beyond Carndonagh the face of nature changed-or would have if it had been summer-for bleak elevated moorland and iron gorge vary but little with the season, whilst lower-lying districts are more privileged. During the warm months the track between Carndonagh and Malin is like a garden-an oasis of rich, damp, dewy verdure from the ever-dripping vapours of the Atlantic-an expanse of emerald mead saturated with the moisture of the ocean. Every bush and bank breaks forth in myriad flowers. Each tarn is edged with blossom, each path is tricked with glory. It is as if Persephone had here passed through the granite-bound gates of hell, and had dropped her garland at its portals. White starry water-lilies clothe the lakelets. The bells of the fuschia-hedges glow red from beneath a burden of honeysuckle and dog-roses; orange-lilies and sheets of Strabagy Bay cuts deep into the peninsula. A rider must skirt its edge with patience, rewarded now and again by some vision of surprise, as he finds himself at a turn in the pathway on the summit of a precipice 1200 feet above the water, or in a sheltered cove where waves of celadon and malachite plash upon a tawny bed. At one point, if the tide happens to be in, he must sit and await its ebb; for the only passage is by a ford across the sand, which is dangerous to the stranger at high water. Not so to the dwellers in this latitude, for they speed like monkeys along the overhanging crags, or like the waddling penguins and sea-parrots that are padding yonder crannies with the softest down from off their breasts for the behoof of a yet unborn brood. ore. Towards Malin Head the ground rises gradually from a shingly beach till it breaks off abruptly to seaward in a sheer wall of quartz and granite-a vast frowning face, vexed by centuries of tempest, battered by perennial storms, comforted by the clinging embrace of vegetation, red and russet heath of every shade, delicate ferns drooping from cracks and fissures, hoary lichens, velvet mosses, warmtinted cranesbill; from out of which peeps here and there the glitter of a point of spar, a stain of metal or of clay, a sparkling vein of The white-crested swell which never sleeps laps round its foot in curdled foam; for the bosom of the Atlantic is ever breathing— heaving in arterial throws below, however calm it may seem upon the surface. Away down through the crystal water you can detect the blackened base resting on a bank of weeddense, slippery citrine hair, swinging in twilit masses slowly to and fro, as if humming to itself under the surface, of the march of time, whose hurry affects it not; for what have human cares, human soul-travail, human agony, to do with this enchanted spot, which is, as it were, just without the threshold of the world? The winter waves, which dash high above the bluffs in spray, have fretted, by a perseverance of many decades, a series of caverns half-submerged; viscous arcades, where strange winged creatures lurk that hate the light; beasts that, hanging like some villanous fruit in clusters, blink with purblind eyes at the fishes which dart in and out, fragments of the sunshine they abhor; at the |