“It can’t be tould, Misther Magrath; some men the women’s naturally fond of, and some men they can’t bear—­throth it’s like a freemason’s saicret, if you wor a man that the women wor naturally fond of you’d know it yoarself, but not bein’ that, Mr. Magrath, you could not understand it.  It’s born wid one, an’ troth, a troublesome gift it is—­for it is a gift—­at least, I find it so.  There’s no keep in’ the crathurs oft o’ you.”

“Begad, you must be a happy man, Mogue.  I wish I was like you—­but whisper, man alive, why don’t you look higher.

“How is that?” asked the other, now apparently awakened to a new interest.

“Mogue,” said the pedlar, with something like solemnity of manner, “you and I are both embarked in the same ship, you know—­we know how things are to go.  I’m now provin’ to you that I’m your friend.  Listen, you passed through the back-yard to-day while I was in the parlor wid the family sellin’ my goods as well as I could.  Well, Miss Julia had a beautiful shawl about her purty shoulders, and as she seen you passin, she started, kept her eyes fixed upon you till you disappeared, and then, afther thinkin ’or some time, she sighed deeply.  Whisper, the thing flashed upon me—­that’s that, thought I, at any rate—­and devil a doubt of it, you’re safe there, or my name’s not Andy Magrath, better known as the Cannie Soogah-Hurra, Mogue, more power!”

A richer comic study than Mogue’s face ould not possibly be depicted.  His thin craggy jaws—­for cheeks he had none—­were winkled and puckered into such a multiplicity of villanous folds and crevices, as could scarcely be paralleled on a human countenance; and what added to the ludicrous impression made, was the fact that he endeavored to look—­and, in fact, did so successfully—­more like a man who felt that a secret long known to himself had been discovered, than a person to whom the intelligence had come for the first time.

“An’ Misther Magrath,” he replied, once more repeating the survey of his puckered laws; “is it by way of information that you tould me that?  That I mayn’t sin, but you should be ever and always employed in carryin’ coals to, Newcastle.  Troth, since you have broached\the thing, I’ve known it this good while, and no one could tell you more about it, if I liked.  Honor bright, however, as poor Letty said, troth, I pity that girl—­but what can I do? no—­no—­honor bright, for ever!”

“Well, anyhow, now that we’ve thrown light upon what I noticed a while ago, let us talk about other matters.  The house is still well armed and guarded, you say?”

“That I may die in grace, but it ’ud take me half an hour to reckon all the guns, pistols, and blunderbushes they have freshly loaded in the house every night.”

“Well, couldn’t you assist us, you in the house?”

“No—­for I’m not in the house; they wouldn’t allow any servant to sleep in the house for fear o’ traichery, and they say so.  If they’d let me sleep in the house, it ’ud be another thing; I might wet the powdher, and make their fire-arms useless; but sure they have lots of swords and bagnets, and daggers, and other instruments o’ that kind that ’ud skiver one like a rabbit.”