“I am.”

“Well, drop these couple of letters in the post office, and tell Rankin he must have the Garts finished by Monday next, at the farthest, or it will be worse for him.  By the way, I have that fellow in my eye too—­he had the assurance to tell me the other day, that he could not possibly undertake the carts until he had M’Loughlin’s job at the manufactory finished.  Off with you now, I see O’Drive and Hanlon coming up.”

Graceful Phil in a few minutes was mounted in his usual lofty state on “Handsome Harry,” and dashed off to Castle Cumber.

It may not be improper here, before we proceed farther, to give the reader some additional knowledge of the parentage and personal history of Mr. Valentine M’Clutchy, as well as a brief statement concerning the Castle Cumber property, and the gentleman who acted in the capacity of head agent.

The mother, then, of Valentine M’Clutchy, or as he was more generally called Val the Vulture, was daughter to the county goaler, Christie Clank by name, who had risen regularly through all the gradations of office, until the power of promotion could no farther go.  His daughter, Kate Clank, was a celebrated beauty, and enjoyed a considerable extent of local reputation, independently of being a great favorite with the junior portion of the grand jury.  Among the latter, however, there was one, a young squire of very libertine principles, named Deaker, whose suit to the fair Miss Clank proved more successful than those of his competitors, and the consequence was the appearance of young Val.  The reader, therefore, already perceives that M’Clutchy’s real name was Deaker; but perhaps he is not aware that, in the times of which we write, it was usual for young unmarried men of wealth not to suffer their illegitimate children to be named after them.  There were, indeed, many reasons for this.  In the first place, the mere fact of assuming the true name, was a standing argument of the father’s profligacy.  Secondly, the morals of the class and the period were so licentious, that the legitimate portion of a family did not like to be either outnumbered or insulted by their namesakes and illegitimate relatives, almost at every turn of the public roads.  In the third place, a young man of this description could not, when seeking for a wife, feel the slightest inclination to have a living catalogue of his immoralities enumerated to her, under the names of Tom, or Dick, or Val so and so, all his children.  This, of course, was an involuntary respect paid to modesty, and perhaps the strongest argument for suppressing the true name.  The practice, however, was by no means universal; but in frequent instances it existed, and Val the Vulture’s was one of them.  He was named after neither father or mother, but after his grandmother, by the gaoler’s side.  Deaker would not suffer his name to be assumed; and so far as his mother was concerned, the general tenor of her life rendered the reminiscence of her’s anything but creditable