“Thrue enough,” said the Big Mower, philosophizing—­“God made the beef and the mutton, and the grass to feed it; but it was man made the ditches:  now we’re only bringin’ things back to the right way that Providence made them in, when ould times were in it, manin’ before ditches war invinted—­ha, ha, ha!”

“’Tis a good argument,” observed Kenny, “only that judge and jury would be a little delicate in actin’ up to it; an’ the more’s the pity.  Howsomever, as Providence made the mutton, sure it’s not harm for us to take what he sends.”

“Ay; but,” said Denis,

     “‘God made man, an’ man made money;
     God made bees, and bees made honey;
     God made Satan, an’ Satan made sin;
     An’ God made a hell to put Satan in.’

Let nobody say there’s not a hell; isn’t there it plain from Scripthur?”

“I wish you had the Scripthur tied about your neck!” replied Anthony.  “How fond of it one o’ the greatest thieves that ever missed the rope is!  Why the fellow could plan a roguery with any man that ever danced the hangman’s hornpipe, and yet he be’s repatin’ bits an’ scraps of ould prayers, an’ charms, an’ stuff.  Ay, indeed!  Sure he has a varse out o’ the Bible, that he thinks can prevent a man from bein’ hung up any day!”

While Denny, the Big Mower, and the two Meehans were thus engaged in giving expression to their peculiar opinions, the Pedlar held a conversation of a different kind with Anne.

With the secrets of the family in his keeping, he commenced a rather penitent review of his own life, and expressed his intention of abandoning so dangerous a mode of accumulating wealth.  He said that he thanked heaven he had already laid up sufficient for the wants of a reasonable man; that he understood farming and the management of sheep particularly well:  that it was his intention to remove to a different part of the kingdom, and take a farm; and that nothing prevented him from having done this before, but the want of a helpmate to take care of his establishment:  he added, that his present wife was of an intolerable temper, and a greater villain by fifty degrees than himself.  He concluded by saying, that his conscience twitched him night and day for living with her, and that by abandoning her immediately, becoming truly religious, and taking Anne in her place, he hoped, he said, to atone in some measure for his former errors.

Anthony, however, having noticed the earnestness which marked the Pedlar’s manner, suspected him of attempting to corrupt the principles of his daughter, having forgotten the influence which his own opinions were calculated to produce upon her heart.

“Martin,” said he, “’twould be as well you ped attention to what we’re sayin’ in regard o’ the thrial to-morrow, as to be palaverin’ talk into the girl’s ear that can’t be good comin’ from your lips.  Quit it, I say, quit it! Corp an duoiwol (* My body to Satan)!—­I won’t allow such proceedins!”