superstitious belief of the people tormented by the terrible enmity of the � a i or the red well the story nothing to any colouring or invention of mine it is unhappily a true one and to me possesses a peculiar and melancholy interest arising from my intimate knowledge of the man whose fate it holds up as a moral lesson to irish i knew him well and many a day and hour have i played about his knee and ran in my boyhood round his path when as he said himself the world was no trouble to him on the south side of a sloping tract of light ground lively warm and productive stood a white farm house which in consequence of its conspicuous situation was a prominent and we may add a graceful object in the landscape of which it formed a part the spot whereon it � was a swelling natural terrace the soil of which was heavier and richer than that of the adjoining lands on each side of the house stood a of old the only of that species then remaining in the country these extended behind the house in a kind of angle with opening enough at their termination to form a vista through which its white walls with beautiful effect in the calm splendour of a summer evening above the mound on which it stood two steep hills overgrown with and except on their tops which were clothed with heath they were also covered with patches of and studded with grey rocks which sometimes rose singly or in larger masses pointed or rounded into curious and fantastic shapes exactly between these hills the sun went down during the month of june and nothing could be in finer relief than the rocky and picturesque outlines of their sides as crowned with thorns and of wild ash they appeared to the valley whose green foliage was gilded by the un beams which lit up the scene into radiant beauty the bottom of this natural chasm which opened against the deep crimson of the evening sky was nearly upon a level with the house and completely so with the that surrounded it brightly did the sinking sun fall upon their tops whilst the neat white house below in their quiet shadow sent up its wreath of smoke among their branches itself an emblem of contentment industry and innocence it was in fact a lovely situation perhaps the brighter to me that its remembrance is associated with days of happiness and freedom from the cares of a world which like a distant mountain as we approach it and only us in struggling to climb its rugged and barren paths there was to the south west of this house another little that ended in a precipice formed by a single rock some thirty feet high over which tumbled a crystal into a basin worn in its hard bed below from this basin the stream murmured away through the wood until it joined a larger that passed with many a winding through a fine extent of meadows adjoining it across the foot of this and past the door of the house we have described ran a bridle road from time on which as the traveller ascended it towards the house he appeared to track his way in blood for a arose at its bead out of the earth and spread itself in a stream over the path in every spot whereon a foot mark could be made from this circumstance it s called or the red well in the meadow where the terminated was another spring of delicious crystal and clearly do i remember the ever beaten path way that led to it through the grass and up the green field which rose in a gentle slope to the happy looking house of for so was the man called who resided under its peaceful roof i will not your pardon gentle reader for dwelling at such length upon a scene so dear to my heart as this because i write not now so much for your gratification as my own many an eve of gentle may have i pulled the which grew about that well and over that smooth meadow often have i raised my voice to its pitch that i might hear its echoes in the bottom of the green and still where silence so to speak was deepened by the continuous murmur of the above and when the uttered her first note from among the on its side with what ling anxiety did i an of some eight or nine years look under my right foot for the white hair whose charm was such tiiat by keeping it about me the first female name i should hear was destined i believed in my soul to be that of my future wife sweet was the song of the and mellow the whistle of the as they rose in the stillness of evening over the and green of this secluded spot of rural beauty far too could the rich voice of be heard along the hills and meadows as with a little at his knee and another in his arms he sat on a bench beside his own door singing the in his native irish whilst his wife with her two maids each a low song sat before the door the cows whose sweet breath mingled its perfume with the warm breeze of evening was descended from a long line of honest ancestors whose names had never within the memory of man been by the commission of a mean or action they were always a kind hearted family but stern and proud in the com v mon intercourse of life they believed themselves to be and probably were a branch of the more stock and although only the of a small farm it was singular to observe the effect which this conviction produced upon their bearing and manners to 