“Nor any earthly good,” replied the other.  “The farm is this minute the property of Darby Skinadre, an’ to my knowledge Master Dick has a good hundred pounds in his pocket for befriendin’ the meal-monger.”

“Still an’ all, Charley, I’ll go to the father, if it was only bekaise the agent wishes it; I promised I would, an’ who knows at any rate but he may do something for the poor Daltons himself, when he finds that the villain that robbed and ruined them won’t.”

“So far you may be right,” said Hanlon, “an’ as you say, if it does no good it can do no harm; but for my part, I can scarcely think of anything but my poor aunt.  What, in God’s name, except sickness or death, can keep her away, I don’t know.”

“Put your trust in God, man—­that’s my advice to you.”

“And a good one it is,” replied the other, “if we could only follow it up as we ought.  Every one here wondhers at the change that’s come over me—­I that was so light and airy, and so fond of every divarsion that was to be had, am now as grave as a parson; but indeed no wondher, for ever since 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.”