“Lanty,” said he in an undertone, when she had gone, “Lanty, you clip, go and tell her to forgive me; I said too much, and I’m sorry for it, say—­go you scoundrel.”

“Faix I’ll do no such thing, sir,” replied Lanty, alarmed at the nature of the message; “I know better than to come across her now; she’d whale the life out o’ me.  Sure she’s afther flailing the cook out o’ the kitchen—­and Tom Corbet the butler has one of his ears, he says, hangin’ off him as long as a blood-hound’s.”

“Speak easy,” said Doaker, in a voice of terror, “speak lower, or she may hear you—­Isn’t it strange,” he said to himself, “that I who never feared God or man, should quail before this Jezabel!”

“Begad, an’ here’s one, your honor, that’ll make her quail, if he meets her.”

“Who is it,” asked the other eagerly, “who is it you imp?”

“Why, Mr. M’Clutchy, sir; he’s ridin’ up the avenue.”

“Ay, Val the Vulture—­Val the Vulture—­I like that fellow—­like him for his confoundedly clever roguery; only he’s a hypocrite, and doesn’t set the world at defiance as I do;—­no, he’s a cowardly, skulking hypocrite, nearly as great a one as M’Slime, but doesn’t talk so much about religion as that oily gentleman.”

In a few moments M’Clutchy entered.  “Good morrow, Val.  Well, Val—­well, my Vulture, what’s in the wind now?  Who’s to suffer?  Are you ready for a pounce?  Eh?”

“I was sorry to hear that your health’s not so good, sir, as it was.”

“You lie, my dear Vulture, you lie in your throat, I tell you.  You’re watching for my carcase, snuffing the air at a distance under the hope of a gorge.  No—­you didn’t care the devil had me, provided you could make a haul by it.”

“I hope sir, there’s no——­”

“Hope!  You rascally hypocrite, what’s hope good for?  Hope to rot in the grave is it?  To melt into corruption and feed the worms?  What a precious putrid carcase I’ll make, when I’m a month in the dirt.  Maybe you wouldn’t much relish the scent of me then, my worthy Vulture.  Curse your beak, at all events! what do you want? what did you come for?”

Val, who knew his worthy sire well, knew also the most successful method of working out any purpose with him.  He accordingly replied, conscious that hypocrisy was out of the question—­

“The fact is, sir, I want you to aid me in a piece of knavery.”

“I’ll do it—­I’ll do it.  Hang me if I don’t.  Come—­I like that—­it shows that there’s no mock modesty between us—­that we know one another.  What’s the knavery?”

“Why, sir, I’m anxious, in the first place, to have Hickman, the head agent, out, and in the next, to get into his place, if possible.  Now, I know that you can assist me in both, if you wish.”

“How?” asked Deaker, who was quite as able a tactician as his son; and who, in fact, had contrived to put himself so completely! in possession of the political influence of the county as to be able to return any one he wished.  “How is it to be done?  Tell me that?”