ince that awful night at the Grey Stone--since both nights
indeed--I'm not the same man, an' feel as if there was a weight come
over me that nothing will remove, unless we trace the murdher, an' I
hardly know what to say about it, now that my aunt isn't forthcommin'"

"Trust in God, I tell you, for as you live, truth will come to light
yet."

The conversation took various changes as they proceeded, until they
reached the Grange, where the first person they met was Jemmy Branigan,
who addressed his old enemy, the pedlar, in that peculiarly dry and
ironical tone which he was often in the habit of using when he wished
to disguise a friendly act in an ungracious garb--a method of granting
favors, by the way, to which he was proverbially addicted. In fact, a
surly answer from Jemmy was as frequently indicative of his intention
to serve you with his master as it was otherwise; but so adroitly did he
disguise his sentiments, that no earthly penetration could develop them
until proved by the result. Jemmy, besides, liked the pedlar at heart
for his open, honest scurrility--a quality which he latterly found
extremely beneficial to himself, inasmuch as now that, increasing
infirmity had incapacitated his master from delivering much of the
alternate abuse that took place between them, he experienced great
relief every moment from a fresh breathing with his rather eccentric
opponent.

"Jemmy," said Hanlon, "is the master in the office?"

"Is he in the office?--Who wants him?" and as he put the query he
accompanied it by a look of ineffable contempt at the pedlar.

"Your friend, the pedlar, wants him; and so now," added Hanlon, "I leave
you both to fight it out between you."

"You're comin' wid your petition, an' a purty object you are, goin' to
look afther a farm for a man that'll be hanged, (may God forbid--this
day, amin!" he exclaimed in an under-tone which the other could not
hear): "an' what can you expect but to get kicked out or put in' the
stocks for attemptin' to take a farm over another man's head."

"What other man's head?--nobody has it yet."

"Ay, has there--a very daicent respectable man has it, by name one
Darby Skinadre. (May he never warm his hungry nose in the same farm,
the miserable keowt that he is this day," he added in another soliloquy,
which escaped the pedlar): "a very honest man is Darby Skinadre, so you
may save yourself the trouble, I say."

"At any rate there's no harm in tryin'--worse than f