"Tell him the truth, aunt," said Hanlon, "there's no use in lyin' under his suspicion wrongfully, or allowin' him to lave your little place for no raison."

"The truth is, then," she proceeded, throwing the corner of her ap.r.o.n over her left shoulder, and rocking herself to and fro, "that this young man had a dhrame some time ago--he dremt that a near an' dear friend of his an' of mine too, that was murdhered in this neighborhood, appeared to him, an' that he desired him to go of a sartain night, at the hour of midnight, to a stone near this, called the Grey Stone, an' that there he would get a clue to the murdherer."

'Well, an' did he?"

"He went--an'--but you had betther tell it yourself, avillish," she added, addressing Hanlon; "you know best."

The pedlar instantly fixed his anxious and lively eyes on the young man, intimating that he looked to him for the rest of the story.

"I went," proceeded Hanlon, "and you shall hear everything that happened."

It is unnecessary for us, however, to go over the same ground a second time. Hanlon minutely detailed to him all that had taken place at the Grey Stone, precisely as it occurred, if we allow for a slight exaggeration occasioned by his terrors, and the impressions of supernatural manifestations which they left upon his imagination.

The pedlar heard all the circ.u.mstances with an astonishment which changed his whole bearing into that of deep awe and the most breathless attention. The previous eccentricity of his manner by degrees abandoned him; and as Hanlon proceeded, he frequently looked at him in a state of abstraction, then raised his eyes towards heaven, uttering, from time to time, "Merciful Father!"--"Heaven preserve us!" and such like, thus accompanying him by a running comment of exclamations as he went along.

"Well," said he, when Hanlon had concluded, "surely the hand of G.o.d is in this business; you may take that for granted."

"I would fain hope as much," replied Hanlon; "but as the matthers stand now, we're nearly as far from it as ever. Instead of gettin' any knowledge of the murdherer we want to discover, it proves to be the murdher of Sullivan that has been found out."

"Of Sullivan!" he exclaimed; "well, to be sure--oh, ay--well, sure that same is something; but, in the mane time, will you let me look at this Box you spoke of? I feel a curiosity to see it."

Hanlon rose and taking the Box from a small deal chest which was strongly locked, placed it in the pedlar's hands. After examining it closely for about half a minute, they could observe that he got very pale, and his hands began to tremble, as he held and turned it about in a manner that was very remarkable.

"Do you say," he asked, in an agitated voice, "that you have no manes of tracin' the murdher?"

"None more than what we've tould you."

"Did this Box belong to the murdhered man?--I mane, do you think he had it about him at the time of his death?"

"Ay, an' for some time before it," replied the woman. "It's all belongin' to him that we can find now."

"And you got it in the keeping of this M'Gowan, the Black Prophet, you say?"

"We did," replied the woman, "from his daughter, at all events."

"Who is this Black Prophet?" he asked; "or what is he? for that comes nearer the mark. Where did he come from, where does he live, an' what way does he earn his bread?"

"The boy here," she replied, pointing to Hanlon, "can tell you that betther than I can; for although I've been at his place three or four times, I never laid eyes on him yet."

"Well," continued the pedlar, "you have both a right to be thankful that you tould me this. I now see the hand of G.o.d in the whole business. I know this box an' I can tell you something that will surprise you more than that. Listen--but wait--I hear somebody's foot. No matter--I'll surprise you both by an' by."

"G.o.dsave all here," said the voice of our friend, Jemmy Branigan, who immediately entered. "In troth, this change is for the betther, at any rate," said he, looking at the house; "I gave you a lift wid the masther yestherday," he added, turning to the woman. "I think I'll get him to throw the ten shillings off--he as good as promised me he would."

"Masther!" exclaimed the pedlar, bitterly--"oh, thin, it's he that's the divil's masther, by all accounts, an' the divil's landlord, too. Be me sowl, he'll get a warm corner down here;" and as he uttered the words, he very significantly stamped with his heel, to intimate the geographical position of the place alluded to.

"It would be only manners to wait till your opinion is axed of him,"

replied Jemmy; "so mind your pack, you poor sprissaun, or when you do spake, endeavor to know something of what you're discoorsin' about.

Masther, indeed! Divil take your impidence!"

"He's a scourge to the counthry," continued the pedlar; "a worse landlord never faced the sun."

"That's what we call in this part of the counthry--a lie," replied Jemmy. "Do you understand what that manes?"

"No one knows what an' outrageous ould blackguard he is betther than yourself," proceeded the pedlar; "an' how he harrishes the poor."

"That's ditto repated," responded Jemmy; "you're improvrn'--but tell me now do you know any one that he harrished?"

This was indeed a hazardous question on the part of Jemmy; who, by the way, put it solely upon the presumption of the peddlar's ignorance of d.i.c.k's proceedings as a landlord, in consequence of his (the pedlar) being a stranger.

"Who did you ever know that he harrished, i' you please?"

"Look at the Daltons," replied the other; "what do you call his conduct to them?"

Jemmy, who, whenever he felt himself deficient in truth, always made up for the want of it by warmth of temper, now turned shortly upon his antagonist, and replied, in a spirit very wide of the argument--

"What do I call his conduct to them? What do you call the nose on your face, my codger? Divil a sich an impident crature ever I met."

"It would be no wondher that the curse o' G.o.d would come on him for his tratement to that unfortunate and respectable family," responded the pedlar.

"The curse o' G.o.d knows where to fall best," replied Jemmy, "or it's not in the county jail ould Condy Dalton 'ud be for murdher this day."

"But," returned the other, "isn't it a disgraceful thing to be, as they say he and yourself is, a pair o' scourges in the hands o' G.o.d for your fellow-creatures; an' in troth you're both fit for it by all accounts."

"Troth," replied Jemmy, whose gall was fast rising, "it's a scourge wid nine tails to it ought to go to your back. The Daltons desarved all they got at his hands; an' the same pack was never anything else than a hot-brained crew, that 'ud knock you on the head to-day, and groan over you to-morrow. He sarved them right, an' he's a liar that says to the contrary; so if you have a pocket for that put it in it."

Jemmy, in fact, was now getting rapidly into a towering pa.s.sion, for it mattered little how high in violence his own pitched battles with d.i.c.k ran, he never suffered, nor could suffer a human being to abuse his master behind his back, but himself. So confirmed, however, by habit, was his spirit of contradiction, that had the pedlar begun to praise d.i.c.k, Jemmy would immediately have attacked him without remorse, and scarcely have left a rag of his character together.

"It's a shame for you," proceeded the pedlar, "to defend an' ould sinner like him; but then as there's a pair of you, that's not unnatural; every rogue will back his brother. I could name the place, any way, that'll hould you both yet."

"An' I could," replied Jemmy, "name the piece of machinery that'll be apt to hould you, if you give the masther any more abuse. Whether you'll grow in it or not, is more than I know, but be me sowl, we'll plant you there any how. Do you know what the stocks manes? Faith, many a spare hour you've sarved there, I go bail, that is, when, you had nothing else to do--an' by the way of raycreation jist."

"Ay," said the pedlar, "listen how he sticks to the ould villain--but sure, if you put any other two blisthers together, they'll do the same."

"My own opinion is," observed Hanlon's aunt, "that it's a pity of the Daltons, at any raite. Every one feels for them--but still the hand o'

G.o.d an' his curse, I'm afeard, is upon them."

"An' that's more, maybe, than you know," replied Jemmy. "Maybe G.o.d's only punishing them, bekaise he loves them. It's good to have our suffering in this world."

"Afther all," said the pedlar, "I'm afeard myself, too, that the wrath o' the Almighty has marked them out. Indeed, I'm sure of it."

"An' maybe that's not the only lie you're sure of," replied Jemmy. "It's a subject, any way, you don't undherstand. No," he proceeded, "by all accounts, Charley, it would wring any one's heart to see him taken away in his ould age from his miserable family and childre, and then he's so humble, too, and so resigned to the will an' way o' G.o.d. He's lyin'

ill in the gaol. I seen him yestherday--I went to see him an' to say whatever I could to comfort him. G.o.d pity his gray hairs! an'--hem--have compa.s.sion on him and his this day!"

The poor fellow's heart could stand the sudden contemplation of Dalton's sorrow no longer--and on uttering the last words he fairly wept.

"If I had known what it was about," he proceeded; "but that ould scoundrel of a Prophet--ay, an' that other ould scoundrel of a masther o' mine--hem ay--whish--but--what am I sayin'?--but if I had known it, 'ud go hard but I'd give him a lift--so that he might get out o' the way, at any rate."

"Ay," said the pedlar, "at any rate, indeed--faith, you may well say it; but I say, that at any rate he'll be hanged as sure as he murdhered Sullivan, and as sure as he did, that he may swing, I pray this day!"