“Good morrow, kindly, Poll, and—­eh—­who’s this you’ve got wid you?” he continued, eyeing Susanna, “a stranger to me, any how.  Well, Poll, and how are you?”

“There’s no use in complainin’, Darby; I’m middlin’—­and how is yourself?”

“Throth, Poll, I’ve a lump in my stomach that I fear will settle me yet, if I don’t get it removed somehow.  But, sure, the hathens, I forgive them.”  In the meantime he slyly rubbed his nose and winked both eyes, as he looked towards Susanna, as much as to say, “I know all.”

Poll, however, declined to notice the recognition, but renewed the discourse—­

“Why, Darby, how did the lump come into your stomach?  Faith, in these hard times, there’s many a poor divel would be glad to have such a complaint—­eh?”

“And, is it possible you didn’t hear it?” he asked with surprise, “howandever, you shall.  I was carrying a letther from Mr. M’Slime, that good, pious crature”—­another shrewd look at Susanna, “Mr. M’Slime to Mr. M’Clutchy, another good gintleman, too, and who should attack me on the way but that turncoat hathen Bob Beatty, wid a whole posse of idolathers at his heels.  They first abused me because I left them in their darkness, and then went to search me for writs, swearin’ that they’d make me ait every writ I happened to have about me.  Now, I didn’t like to let Mr. M’Slime’s letther fall into their hands, and, accordingly, I tore it up and swallowed it, jist in ordher to disappoint the hathens.  Howandever, I’m sufferin’ for it, but sure you know, Poll, it’s our duty—­I don’t mane yours, for you’re a hathen and idolather still—­but mine; it’s my duty to suffer for the thruth, anyhow.”

Poll’s laughter was loud and vehement on hearing these sentiments from a man she knew so well; but, to tell the truth, Darby, who felt that, in consequence of his last interview with Lucre, he was in for it, came to the resolution of doing it heavy, as they say, or, in other words, of going the whole hog.

“This appears to be a strange country, observed the traveller.

“Wait,” said Poll, “till you come to know it, and you’ll say that.”

“No, but wait,” observed Darby, “till the spread comes, and then you may say it.”

“What do you mean by the spread?” asked! the stranger.

“Why, the spread o’ the gospel—­of religion, to be shure,” replied Darby; “and in this counthry,” he added, “a glorious spread it is, the Lord be praised!  Are you travellin far in this direction, sir, wid summission?”

“I am going as far as Springfield, the residence of a Mr. Hickman, to whom I have a letter of introduction.  Do you know him?”