It was Sunday in the early part of March—­we will not name the year—­when our story commences.  The Red Ridge Chapel was as usual surrounded by the greater portion of the congregation that had assembled to hear Mass.  Within its walls there were only a few classes of youngsters, male and female, formed into circles, learning their catechism from the schoolmaster of the neighborhood, the clerk, or some devotee who possessed education enough to qualify himself for that kind office.  Here and there in different parts of the chapel were small groups of adult persons, more religiously disposed than the rest, engaged in saying the rosary, whilst several others were performing solitary devotions, some stationary in a corner of the chapel, and others going the circuit around its walls in the performance of the Fourteen Stations of the Cross.  Now, all these religious and devotional acts take place previous to the arrival of the priest, and are suspended the moment he commences Mass; into the more sublime majesty of which they appear, as it were, to lose themselves and be absorbed.

The great body of the congregation, however, until the clergyman makes his appearance, are to be found outside, on what is called the Chapel Green.  Here they stand in groups, engaged in discussing the topics of the day, or such local intelligence as may interest them; and it is to one of those groups that we now beg to call the attention of our readers.

Under the larger of the two trees we have described stood a circle of the country people, listening to, and evidently amused by, the conversation of an individual whose bearing and appearance we must describe at great length.

He was a person whom at first sight you would feel disposed to class with young men.  In other words, you might be led, from the lively flow of his spirits and his peculiarly buoyant manner, to infer that he had not gone beyond thirty or thirty-five.  Upon a closer inspection, however, you could easily perceive that his countenance, despite of its healthy hue, was a good deal wrecked and weatherbeaten, and gave indications of those traces, which not only a much longer period of time, but deep and violent passions, seldom fail to leave behind them.  His features were regular, and at first glance seemed handsome, but upon a nearer approach you were certain to find that their expression was heartless and disagreeable.  They betokened no symptom of humanity of feeling, but were lit up with a spirit of harsh and reckless levity, which, whilst it made him popular with the unthinking multitude, might have been easily understood as the accompaniment, if not the direct exponent, of a bad and remorseless heart.  The expression of his mouth was at the same time both hard and wanton, and his eyes, though full of a lively lustre, resembled in their brightness those of a serpent or hyena.  His forehead was constructive but low, and, we may say, rather unintellectual than otherwise.  He