your
biblical pills, or, 'be the tinker that mended _Fion-vic Couls' pot_,' I
will turn you out of doors, if I were to hang for it after. Let the
child alone this minute," said he, firmly.

"Who are you, sir?" said the indignant parson, turning to view his
antagonist. "How dare you interrupt me when I am not addressing you?"

"I am an Irishman and a Catholic," said he; "and furthermore, if you
wish to know my name, it is, sir, Murty O'Dwyer, Tipperary man and all."

The reader will recollect the rollicking young attendant who drove
Father O'Shane in the snowdrifts from Vermont, a specimen of whose
oratory we have given in a preceding chapter. The antagonist of Parson
Grinoble was no other than the same young man. He had rambled up to this
neighborhood in search of work, and hearing that Mr. Prying was in need
of a hay hand, he waited his return from the Vermont State fair.

The minister Grinoble returned to the parlor to report progress to
Amanda, and to represent the controversial rencontre which he had with
O'Dwyer, while Murty learned with wonder and indignation from Bridget,
that they were the children which cost Father O'Shane so much vain
search, and that they were kept in continual annoyance by all sorts of
male and female religious quacks and mountebanks, all bent on the work
of perversion. "Oh, thunder and age!" said he; "and ye are widow
O'Clery's children, God rest her soul! What a murthur Father O'Shane
could not find ye out before he died! The Lord have mercy on him."

"We have heard he died," said Bridget. "Is it long since, sir?"

"Almost two years. He published ye in the Boston _Pilot_, and all the
newspapers. He even offered a reward for yer discovery. Oh, _mille
murther_! what a pity I did not know ye were so near home!"

"I suppose uncle wrote to him, and sent us money to take us home again?"
added pensive Bridget.

"Money!" said the disinterested young man; "what money? I would give all
I earned since I came to this queer country myself to have ye found
out. We all thought ye were lost, drowned, or killed on the railroad
cars. I am glad I have found ye out; ye will have to leave right off. I
will take ye away myself to-morrow."

"Oh, no, sir!" said Bridget; "we can't leave this till our time is
served out or our board paid,--two dollars a week for nearly three
years. The priest, not long since, came here to see if he could get my
brother and me off, but they told him they would not let us g