“Begone, now, you scoundrel,” said the father, “and not a word more out of your head.”

“Gintlemen!—­gintlemen!”—­exclaimed the pedlar, “have you no consciences?  Is there no justice in the world?  The misery, and sorrow, and sufferin’s of this misfortunate family, will be upon you, I doubt, if you don’t do them justice.”

“Touch the bell, Dick!  Here some one!  Jemmy Branigan!  Harry Lowry!  Jack Clinton!  Where are you all, you scoundrels?  Here, put this rascal in the stocks immediately! in with him!”

Jemmy, who, from an adjoining room, had been listening to every word that passed, now entered.

“Here, you, sir:  clap this vagabond in the stocks for his insolence.  He has come here purposely to insult myself and my son.  To the stocks with him at once.”

“No!” replied Jemmy; “the devil resave the stock will go on him this day.  Didn’t I hear every word that passed?  An’ what did he say but the thruth, an’ what every one knows to be the thruth?”

“Put him in the stocks, I desire you, this instant!”

“Throth if you wor to look at your mug in the glass, you’d feel that you’ll soon be in a worse stocks yourself than ever you put any poor craythur into,” replied the redoubtable Jemmy.  “Do you be off about your business, in the mane time, you good-natured vagabone, or this ould fire-brand will get some one wid less conscience than I have, that’ll clap you in them.”

“Never mind, father,” observed the son; “let the fellow go about his business—­he’s not worth your resentment.”

The pedlar took the hint and withdrew, accompanied by Jemmy, on whose face there was a grin of triumph that he could not conceal.

“I tould you,” he added, as they went down the steps, “that the same stocks was afore you; an’ in the mane time, God pardon me for the injustice I did in keepin’ you out o’ them.”

“Go on,” replied the other; “devila harsh word ever I’ll say to you again.”

“Throth will you,” said Jemmy; “an’ both of us will be as fresh as a daisy in the mornin’, plaise goodness.  I have scarcely any one to abuse me, or to abuse, either, now that the ould masther is so feeble.”

Jemmy extended his hand as he spoke, and gave the pedlar a squeeze, the cordiality of which was strongly at variance with the abuse he had given him.

“God bless you!” said the pedlar, returning the pressure; “your bark is worse than your bite.  I’m off now, to mention the reception they gave me and the answers I got, to a man that will, maybe, bring themselves to their marrow-bones afore long.”

“Ay, but don’t abuse them, for all that,” replied Jemmy, “for I won’t bear it.”

“Throth,” returned the other, “you’re a quare Jemmy—­an’ so God bless you!”

Having uttered these words, in an amicable and grateful spirit, our friend the pedlar bent his steps to the head inn of the next town—­being that of the assizes, where Mr. Travers, the agent, kept his office.