THE FLYNNS OF FLYNNVILLE BY C. J. HAMILTON AUTHOR OF HEDGED WITH THORNS,' 'MARRIAGE BONDS,' ETC. 'Love seeketh not itself to please But for another gives its ease And builds a heaven in hell's despair." WILLIAM BLAKE: Songs of Experience. WARD, LOCK, & CO., WARWICK HOUSE, DORSET BUILDINGS SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C. 251. h. 189. PREFACE. Ir is probable that some readers will be reminded, as this story proceeds, of a certain cause célèbre which made a considerable sensation in the north of Ireland some years ago. During the development of the plot, however, it was found necessary to alter and modify so many of the incidents that the likeness is now an extremely shadowy one, and is certainly not intended to give an accurate. rendering of the facts as they actually occurred. The principal actor, in reality, paid the penalty of his crime with his life, and many of those connected with him are now far out of reach. The writer, therefore, felt herself justified in adopting a few of the more notorious circumstances of the case; she felt herself justified, not only by her own judgment, but by the example of many eminent novelists who have gone before her. One of the greatest of these, Nathaniel Hawthorne, truly says, "There is no harm, but rather good, in arranging some of the ordinary facts of life in a slightly idealised and artistic form." It is thus in painting, and what is a novel but a painting in words, which is often all the better from being suggested by events which have all the heat and glow of reality in them? "The Flynns" originally came out in |