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every day confirmed, that Anna, whom he looked upon as his,though she still refused to confess her love,-that his Anna had ever since the arrival of the handsome stranger grown colder and colder towards himself. Nay, he even imagined that in unguarded moments he had seen her speaking eyes rest, as if weighed down with heavy thoughts, on the soft and beautiful features of Gomez, and a faint blush then pass over her pale cheek; but if his eye met hers, this soft bloom suddenly became the burning glow of fever. Yes, he could not doubt it; her whole deportment was altered: capricious, humorsome, restless, sometimes sunk in deep melancholy, then suddenly breaking into fits of violent mirth, she seemed to retain only the outward form of the sensible, clear-minded, serene and equal-tempered girl she had always appeared. Everything betrayed to the quick eye of jealousy that she was the prey of some deepseated passion, and for whom ?-for whom could it be but for Gomez! for him, at whose every action it was evident the inmost cords of her heart gave out their altered tone. It has been wisely said, that love is more nearly akin to hate than to liking. What passed in Edward's bosom was a proof of this. Henceforth it seemed his sole enjoyment to give pain to the woman he passionately loved; and now in the bitterness of his heart, held guilty of all his sufferings. Wherever occasion presented itself, he sought to humble and to embarrass her, to sting her by disdainful pride, or to overwhelm her with cutting reproaches; till, conscious of her secret crime, shame and anguish overpowered the wretched girl, and she burst into torrents of tears, which alone had power to allay the scorching fever of his heart. But no kindly reconciliation followed these scenes, and, as with lovers, resolved the dissonance into blessed harmony. The exasperation of each was only heightened to desperation; and when he at length saw enkindled in Gomez,-so little capable of concealment, the same fire which burnt in the eyes of Anna; when he thought he saw his sister neglected and himself betrayed by a serpent whom he had cherished in his bosom,-he stood at that point of human infirmity, of which the All-seeing alone can decide whether it be madness, or the condition of a still accountable creature.

On the same night in which suspicion had driven Edward from his couch, a restless wanderer, it appears that the guilty lovers had for the first time met in secret. According to the subsequent confession of Edward, he had concealed himself behind a pillar, and had seen Gomez, wrapped in his mantle, glide with hurried steps out of a well-known side-door in the house of Anna's father, which led immediately to her apartments. At the horrible certainty which now glared upon him, the fury of hell took possession of his soul: his eyes started from their sockets, the blood rushed and throbbed as if it would burst his veins, and as a man dying of thirst pants for a draught of cooling water, so did his whole being pant for the blood of his rival. Like an infuriate tiger he darted upon the unhappy youth, who recognized him, and vainly fled. Edward instantly overtook him, seized him, and burrying his dagger a hundred times,

with strokes like lightning-flashes, in the quivering body, gashed with Satanic rage the beautiful features which had robbed him of his beloved, and of peace. It was not till the moon broke forth from behind a dark cloud, and suddenly lighted the ghastly spectacle before him, the disfigured mass, which retained scarcely a feature of his once beloved friend, the streams of blood which bathed the body and all the earth around it,-that he waked with horror as from some infernal dream. But the deed was done, and judgment was at hand.

Led by the instinct of self-preservation, he fled, like Cain, into 'the nearest wool. How long he wandered there he could not recollect. Fear, love, repentance, despair, and at last madness, pursued him like frightful companions, and at length robbed him of consciousnes, for a time annihilating the terrors of the past in forgetfulness; for kind nature puts an end to intolerable sufferings of mind, as of body, by insensibility or death.

Meantime the murder was soon known in the city; and the fearful end of the gentle youth, who had confided himself, a foreigner, to their hospitality, was learned by all with sorrow and indignation. A dagger, steeped in blood, had been found lying by the velvet cap of the Spaniard, and not far from it a hat, ornamented with plumes and a clasp of gems, showed the recent traces of a man who seemed to have sought safety in the direction of the wood. The hat was immediately recognized as Edward's; and as he was nowhere to be found, fears were soon entertained that he had been murdered with his friend. The terrified father mounted his horse, and accompanied by a crowd of people calling for vengeance, swore solemnly that nothing should save the murderer, were he even compelled to execute

him with his own hands.

We may imagine the shouts of joy, and the feelings of the father, when at break of day Edward Lynch was found sunk under a tree, living, and although covered with blood, yet apparently without any dangerous wound. We may imagine the shudder which ran through the crowd, but the feelings of the father we cannot imagine,when, restored to sense, he embraced his father's knees, declared himself the murderer of Gonsalvo, and earnestly implored instant punishment.

He was brought home bound, tried before a full assembly of the magistrates, and condemned to death by his own father. But the people would not lose their darling. Like the waves of the tempest-troubled sea, they filled the market-place and the streets, and forgetting the crime of the son in the relentless justice of the father, demanded with threatening cries the opening of the prison and the pardon of the criminal. During the night, though the guards were doubled, it was with great difficulty that the incensed mob were withheld from breaking in. Towards morning, it was announced to the mayor that all resistance would soon be vain, for that a part of the soldiers had gone over to the people;-only the foreign guard held out, and all demanded with furious cries the instant liberation of the criminal.

At this, the inflexible magistrate took a resolution, which many will call inhuman, but whose awful self-conquest certainly belongs to the rarest examples of stoical firmness. Accompanied by a priest, he proceeded through a secret passage to the dungeon of his son; and when, with newly-awakened desire of life, excited by the sympathy of his fellow-citizens, Edward sunk at his feet, and asked eagerly if he brought him mercy and pardon? The old man replied with unfaltering voice, "No, my son, in this world there is no mercy for you: your life is irrevocably forfeited to the law, and at sunrise you must die. One-and-twenty years I have prayed for your earthly happiness,—but that is past,-turn your thoughts now to eternity; and if there be yet hope there, let us now kneel down together and implore the Almighty to grant you mercy hereafter;but then I hope my son, though he could not live worthy of his father, will at least know how to die worthy of him." With these words he rekindled the noble pride of the once dauntless youth, and after a short prayer, he surrendered himself with heroic resignation to his father's pitiless will.

As the people, and the greater part of the armed men mingled in their ranks, now prepared, amidst more wild and furious menaces, to storm the prison, James Lynch appeared at a lofty window; his son stood at his side with the halter round his neck. "I have sworn," exclaimed the inflexible magistrate, "that Gonsalvo's murderer should die, even though I must perform the office of the executioner myself. Providence has taken me at my word; and you, madmen, learn from the most wretched of fathers that nothing must stop the course of justice, and that even the ties of nature must break before it."

While he spoke these words he had made fast the rope to an iron beam projecting from the wall, and now suddenly pushing his son out of the window, he completed his dreadful work. Nor did he leave the spot till the last convulsive struggles gave certainty of the death of his unhappy victim.

As if struck by a thunder-clap, the tumultuous mob had beheld the horrible spectacle in death-like silence, and every man glided as if stunned to his own house. From that moment the mayor of Galway resigned all his occupations and dignities, and was never beheld by any eye but those of his own family. He never left his house till he was carried from it to his grave. Anna Blake died in a convent. Both families in course of time disappeared from the earth; but the skull and cross-bones still mark the scene of this fearful tragedy.

We are sorry to learn that Damascus Encampment, No. 9, at Smithfield has surrendered her charter to the Grand Encampment of Virginia.-Independent Odd-Fellow,

EDITOR'S TABLE.

JANUS-DAY.

TAKE up thy cloak about thee, mortal, and gather in thy garments snug upon thy flesh; for January is here, with his cold frosty fingers, that shall pinch thee hard, and make thee shudder many an hour in his winds and snows, if indeed he pinch thee not with woe and want. He hangs his black storms up in the blue heavens over thy headlocks up the earth under thy feet-and cries out after thee in the night wind, or sits in the brave tops of the oaks to sing the dirge of the year, and whistles his tune to the dance of the storms. Thou has seen how remorseless December puffed his blasts and frosts in the wrinkled face of the decreped old year-no respecter of age are these winter months; and January is the heart of them, to which thou wilt appeal in vain for warm beams and breezes, though thou hast not bread and clothes. He says to thee, look to Spring and Summer and Autumn, if they provide not, nor shall I: I have but one garment, my mantle of snow, which I throw over the dead, naked year; and as for food-work in summer or die. Small sympathy a poor shivering mortal finds with this January; as well may he knock for charity on the ice bound river, or smite turbid ocean.

January is a name given by the Romans, from their god Junus, which had two faces-so they said the first day of this month had two faces, one that looks towards the new year, and the other upon the old. And though every body dislikes two faces on one body, and though ministers preach against this two-facedness, and philosophers write against it, and poets sing against it, yet almost every body will sing, and dance, and run round among their friends on this Janusday. In France the bon bons and cornets make the urchins merrily hop and skip from the first peep of dawn almost until dawn peeps again, on this first day of January, Young men and maidens, with their blue eyes and their black eyes full of sweet smiles, go out to the shops and stands of the Grisettes to buy little gold ornamented boxes and baskets for their lovers; and old men and women creep into the parlors to tell for the ten thousandth time their courtships, and youthful pranks on Janus-day. Almost all over the world this is a merry making day-a carnival of smiles and kisses and warm delight in the middle of the gloom of winter. Mr. Hutchinson in his History of Northumberland" has given us an amusing description of the festivals of Janus-day among his countrymen in his time. On a day of festivity, mirth is excited by a rustic masquerading and playing tricks in disguise; the hide of the ox slain for the winter cheer,

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is often put on, and the person thus attired attempts to show the character of the devil, by every horrible device in his power. This was a truly amiable sport for the two-faced day of the year: but the historian does not inform us whether they wished each other a happy new year while the devil was after them in the ox hide. We confess that we prefer the French kind of festival; where the heart and face too no doubt appear in masquerade also, but then it is friendship and love that are represented. But all these poor matters asidemasquerades, bon bons, frolics and all-the Editor sends out to his good readers a hearty Odd Fellows greeting in Friendship, Love and Truth a HAPPY NEW YEAR to the Brethren.

THE HOLIDAYS.

Ar this season of the year when plenty has crowned the industrious toiler with a full harvest; when all is gathered for the winter, and each cranny has been chinked to keep out its chill, who does not feel that the stripping of the green clothing from the trees and the herbage, and the sweeping away of the fragrant flowers; the withdrawal of the balmy zephyrs that distil warmth through the veins, and delightful aroma from a thousand blossoms to the senses; who does not feel when instead of these, the wintry blast is spreading his refracting carpet, and man is driven to a closer companionship with his kind, that then is a fitting season to call together his household, and rendering thanks for the many blessings he is enjoying, make glad the hearts of his people in the indulgence of a relaxation from their toil, and a feast upon the sweets they have garnered? It seeins but a pleasant introduction of a company at the commencement of a winter's journey, the which will more likely be enjoyed from its happy beginning, engendering in each bosom a desire to continue to its end the pleasures thus awakened.

Who can conceive of a rarer felicity than must be enjoyed when there is gathered together, in good old Yankee style, the scattered family on " Thanksgiving day." The frosty haired Sire, the Brothers, Sisters, Cousins, the Grand-mother and Grand-child, all gathered to greet each other, to renew their love, to give God thanks, and share their joys in a happy feast. And where the heart but joys at such an exhibition and has a feeling of honest pride that such is an American institution? It does not beat in an Odd Fellow's breast surely.

The benevolent and humane, ever thoughtful for the poor, whom "ye have always with you," now cast their alms abroad, and devise the means to ward off menacing want. Societies are formed, and delicate fingers are industriously plying the busy needle in behalf of the poorly clad, and anon dispensing a thousand blessings upon those who can but receive the lesser happiness involved in the act: for she that bears the proud consciousness of having relieved a sister's want,

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