Standish O'Grady, "in which, by virtue of a marvellous strength and tenacity of the historical intellect, there have been preserved down into the early phases of mediæval civilisation, and then committed to the sure guardianship of manuscripts, the hymns, ballads, stories, and chronicles, the names, pedigrees, achievements and even characters of those ancient kings and warriors over whom these massive cromlechs were erected." The same historian goes on to say that, while in the rest of Europe there is not a single barrow, dolmen or cist of which the ancient traditional history is recorded, in Ireland there is not a conspicuous sepulchral monument of which the traditional history is not told in our ancient literature, and these histories are in many cases as rich and circumstantial as those of men of the greatest eminence who have lived in modern times. The Irish people, alone in Europe, have preserved the history of the moundraising period, not in dry chronicle alone, but, illuminated and adorned with all that fancy could suggest, in ballad and tale and rude epic. A knowledge of these old tales will heighten the enjoyment to be derived from a visit to the famed localities of the Fifth Province, and will attach a new interest to the landscape. When we view its fair hills and green fields with a mind coloured with the memories of our earliest legends the pleasure to be derived from the imagination is often greater than the pleasure that we receive from the outward eye. "With Thought and Love companions on our way, The Minds internal heaven shall shed her dews Those who travel through Midhe will therefore do well to familiarise themselves beforehand with some book that treats of the early history of the province. To those in search of a good summary of the oldest stories of our literature, in which mention of localities in the province is so frequently made, we would venture to recommend the study of Mr. Standish O'Grady's "History of Ireland in the Mythical Period," one of the most beautiful books, we think, that has ever been written about Ireland. J. M. FLOOD. T' TILL THE CRACK O' DOOM A SKETCH FROM LIFE By MARIE CONRAYVILLE "My salad days When I was green in judgment."—Shakespeare. HE little teacher's brain was full of a brilliant project as she locked her roll-book into the high desk and lowering the gas a little went over to the window and looked out. Now, brilliant projects are not always feasible or advantageous; but this one was both, and moreover gave ample scope to that goodly bit of altruistic sentiment in her composition which was forever trying to find expression in some way or another. She would give a send-off party to John Doherty, Jimmie Gallagher, Paddy Gallagher, Barney Coyle, Mickey Friel, and Terence McShane alias "Gip." There was no getting over the fact that these worthy young gentlemen were becoming much too old for the First Standard of St. Lurach's Infant Boys' Room. Already all six were earning a precarious livelihood shouting morning and evening dailies' on the streets. The little teacher would know their own particular cries anywhere--were she in the bustle of Broadway or the Australian Bush-from Johnnie Doherty's stentorian yell down to Gip McShane's husky squeak. On Saturdays they filled in the vacant spaces by selling matches and shining boots outside the different city termini, and on Sunday mornings when the silver-grey mist still curled caressingly around the blue spurs of the Innishowen hills and long ere the early Masses had commenced in the various churches, they were down at the wharf trying to gather a few coppers by carrying passengers' bags and other paraphernalia from the newly arrived American, English and Scotch boats. Occasionally indeed, the "Black Sarjints"-by which impressive sobriquet the Gallagher twins were familiarly known to their bosom friends and confederates-soared a flight higher and quite out of the even tenor of the general way by serving behind the counter of their grand-aunt's haberdashery and eating establishment in the noisy lane that led down to the quay. "An' dear me!" was Aunt Eliza's flattering encomium almost every time, "them twins are that wise and smartlike ye might trust thim with the Pope o' Rome." A still further proof of their advance in age, not to speak of wisdom and let us hope-grace, marked the illustrious six. Lately, Gip had donned an old coat of his grandfather's and it fitted him to perfection-padded with his mother's shawl and his brother Phil's khaki muffler that was knitted by the mayor's lady, and Barney Coyle who looked by far the youngest of the lot, was going about, wearing his sister Maggie's old tan boots, No. sixes, and with his legs encased in puttees, very much bedraggled and the worse of the wear, no doubt, but still puttees all the same, and a stirring sign of the times. However, these details are neither here nor there in the narrative. They merely tend to bear out the statement that having thus commenced prematurely to fulfil the law of labour they might fitly be considered as infants no longer, and therefore quite out of place in St. Lurach's Infant Boys' Department. Up to this, no amount of persuasion could get them to betake themselves to the big boys' school a little further away. Threats and bribes were equally ineffectual. The knowledge that their cognomens no longer graced the pages of the roll-book did not trouble them in the least. When the inspector-a hard man with a fierce red moustacheappealed to by the little teacher in desperation, ordered them to depart one day, they all departed" in fear and trembling-down to the coal-cellar, the door of which had been accidentally left open by Mrs. Daly the charwoman; and there having awaited the inspector's own departure for a couple of long weary hours, they sallied forth upstairs again as soon as the coast was clear and filing into the long dingy school-room seated themselves as usual on the gallery, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths! As a waggish pupil-teacher remarked on that occasion: "Men may come and men may go But they remain forever." Once, it is true, "Sir Cahir O'" (Johnnie Doherty) did "screw his courage to the sticking point" at the ungentle instigation of his mother's strap and manfully put in half a day at the big school in Tower Street but in the end, overcome by nostalgia, he suddenly bolted and turned up at St. Lurach's just as the little teacher was playing a march at 1.30, to the inexpressible delight of the assembled alumni who cheered him as though he were a V.C. hero home from the front. From all of which it may be gathered that the Six looked upon themselves as fixtures in the Infant Boys' Room-as much part and parcel of the school belongings as the clock or the bell or the dilapidated blackboard and quite as necessary and indispensable. Of course, the little teacher herself was partly to blame for this state of affairs. deed, Mrs. Daly thought she was wholly so. In "Och!" she would say with that contemptuous shrug of her shoulders peculiar to the north of Ireland people, "sure an' what else would they do but stick by ye! Haven't ye their necks broke entirely with soapin' thim up and putting the commidher on thim. Faith! an' it isn't Mr. Maloney of the Tower School will be bringin' thim in of a cold winter's night when they're out with their "Tiligrams" and givin' thim bowls of tay and hot, buttered toast, the spalpeens! He'll tay and toast thim, I'm thinkin'." * We all make good resolutions towards the close of the old year. The craze for making them seems to be in the very air and just as catching as influenza or measles. The gentle young mistress of St. Lurach's was no exception to the general rule for she made about twenty, after the manner of youth, and as she sat writing out the new quarter's roll she mentally registered yet another, which she meant to keep at all costs, let its predecessors fare as they might. The Six must go. On no account should they be allowed to disturb any longer the order and congruity of her Infant Room which was fast becoming an ideal spot under her careful régime. Therefore, they must go, should it even come to forcible ejection every time they presented themselves. But how soften the rigour of that stern edict about to be promulgated? This question had kept beating a ceaseless tattoo in her brain all the short Christmas vacation while her tender heart was busy prompting a hundred and one little plans for rendering the exodus less severe. For it was one thing, of course, to be shown the door with one decisive wave of a fiery-faced inspector's hand and quite a different thing to be pushed gently but resolutely, outside the door and have it locked behind you by two soft white hands that you loved. It was the music of a band going down to play at the farewell supper given to the Irish Brigade recruits at the Temperance Hall that settled the difficulty however. Why not give the Six a send-off party? The idea was capital. That sort of thing would be singularly apropos just now, it being war-time and the season of "send-offs" covered with glory and crowned by the good wishes of friends. It should be made a real event for the Six; an evening in their young lives to be forever marked by a red stone and of course they should be got to understand that they were bidding farewell to the old school school to which they clung so fondly. These and like thoughts filled the busy brain of the little teacher as she stood at the window the evening before school re-opened and made her inexpressibly happy. Out before her stretched the big city. Below the skyline, a velvet sapphire gloom pierced by myriad lights that twinkled fitfully like dull yellow stars. Above the sky line, a clearer, colder tint of sapphire still, where— "Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels." The wind, laden with northern ice, whistled drearily around corners and amongst chimney-pots and tore like a living |