ah why so?" asked the woman.

"Why," he replied, "ever since I came here, you have done nothing but
collogue--collogue--an' whisper, an' lay your heads together, an' divil
a syllable can I hear that hasn't murdher at the front an' rear of
it--either spake out, or get me my bill. If you're of that stamp, it's
time for me to thravel; not that I'm so rich as to make it worth any
body's while to take the mouthful of wind out o' me that's in me. What
do you mean by this discoorse?"

"May God rest the sowls of the dead!" replied the woman, "but it's not
for nothing that we talk as we do, an' if you knew but all, you wouldn't
think so."

"Very likely," he replied, in a dry but dissatisfied voice; "maybe, sure
enough, that the more I'd know of it, the less I'd like of it--here now
is a man named Sullivan--Barney, Bill, or Bartley, or some sich name,
that has been murdhered, an' it seems the murdherer was sent to gaol
yestherday evenin'--the villain! Get me my bill, I say, it's an unsafe
neighborhood, an' I'll take myself out of it, while I'm able."

"It's not widout raisin we talk of murdher then," replied the woman.

"Faith may be so--get me my bill, then, I bid you, an' in the mane time,
let me have, my breakfast. As it is, I tell you both that I carry no
money to signify about me."

"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 apron
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, i