“What bribe!”

“Why, sir, he put his hand, under his apron—­sure he has a black silk apron on him now, jist for all the world like a big man cook, dressed out in murnin’—­he put his hand undher his apron, and wid a hitch got it into his breeches pocket—­’here’s a fifty pound note for you,’ says he, ‘if you’ll prosecute that wild priest—­there’s no end to his larnin,’ says he, ’and I want to punish him for it; so, Darby, here’s a fifty pound note, an’ it’ll be yours when the prosecution’s over; and I’ll bear all the expenses besides.’”

“And what did you say to that?” asked the priest.

“Troth,” replied Darby, “I jist bid him considher his fifty pound note as waste paper—­an’ that Was my answer.”

“And there’s mine, you lying, hypocritical scoundrel,” said the priest, laying his whip across the worthy bailiff’s shoulders; “you have been for thirty years in the parish, and no human being ever knew you to go to your duty—­you have been a scourge on the poor—–­you have maligned and betrayed those who placed confidence in you—­and the truth is, not a word ever comes out of your lips can be believed or trusted; when you have the marks of repentance and truth about you, I may listen to you, but not until then—­begone!”

“Is that your last detarmination?” said Darby.

“No doubt of it,” replied the priest; “my last, and I’ll stick to it till I see you a different scoundrel from what you are.”

“Ay,” replied Darby; “then, upon my sowl, you’re all of a kidney—­all jack fellow like—­an’ divil rasave the dacent creed among you, barrin’ the Quakers, and may heaven have a hand in me, but I think I was born to be a Quaker, or, any way, a Methodist.  I wish to God I understood praichin’—­at aitin’ the bacon and fowl I am as good a Methodist as any of them—­but, be me sowl, as I don’t understand praichin’, I’ll stick to the Quakers, for when a man praiches there, all he has to do is to say nothing.”  Having uttered these sentiments in a kind of soliloquy, Darby, after having given the priest a very significant look, took his departure.

“Well,” said he to himself, “if the Quakers, bad luck to them, won’t take me, I know what I’ll do—­upon my conscience, I’ll set up a new religion for myself, and sure I have as good a right to bring out a new religion myself, as many that done so.  Who knows but I may have a congregation of my own yet, and troth it may aisily be as respectable as some o’ them.  But sure I can’t be at a loss, for, plaise God, if all fails, I can go to Oxford, where I’m tould there’s a manifactory of new religions—­the Lord be praised for it!”

* Darby had better success in his speculations than perhaps he ever expected to have.  We need not inform the generality of our readers that the sect called Darbyites were founded by him, and have been called after him to the present day, sometimes Darbyites, and sometimes Drivers.

On returning home, Val was observed to be silent and