That, however, which filled the people with the most especial curiosity, awe, and interest, was the general report that nothing less than a live conjurer, who had come to town on that very evening, was then among them.

The town, in fact, was crowded as if it had been for an illumination; but as illuminations, unless they could be conducted with rushlights, were pageants altogether unknown in such small remote towns as Rathfillan, the notion of one had never entered their heads.

All around the country, however, even for many miles, the bonfires were blazing, and shone at immense distances from every hill-top.

We have said before that Lindsay was both a popular landlord and a popular magistrate; and, on this account alone the disposition to do honor to any member of his family was recognized by the people as an act of gratitude and duty.
The town of Rathfillan presented a scene of which we who live in the present day can form but a faint conception.

Yet, sooth to say, we ourselves have, about forty years ago, witnessed in remote glens and mountain fastnesses little clumps of cabins, whose inhabitants stood still in the midst even of the snail's progress which civilization had made in the rustic parts of Ireland; and who, upon examination, presented almost the same rude personal habits, antiquated social usages, agricultural ignorance, and ineradicable superstition as their ancestors did in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.