“I tell you what, pedler, we are more likely to put you in hot water than try any more of your ware in that way.  But where’s your plunder?—­let us see this fine lot of notions you speak of”—­was the speech of the colonel already so much referred to, and whose coffee-pot bottom furnished so broad a foundation for the trial.  He was a wild and roving person, to whom the tavern, and the racecourse, and the cockpit, from his very boyhood up, had been as the breath of life, and with whom the chance of mischief was never willingly foregone.  But the pedler was wary, and knew his man.  The lurking smile and sneer of the speaker had enough in them for the purposes of warning, and he replied evasively:—­

“Well, colonel, you shall see them by next Tuesday or Wednesday.  I should be glad to have a trade with you—­the money’s no object—­and if you have furs, or skins, or anything that you like to get off your hands, there’s no difficulty, that I can see, to a long bargain.”

“But why not trade now, Bunce?—­what’s to hinder us now?  I sha’n’t be in the village after Monday.”

“Well, then, colonel, that’ll just suit me, for I did calkilate to call on you at the farm, on my way into the nation where I’m going looking out for furs.”

“Yes, and live on the best for a week, under some pretence that your nag is sick, or you sick, or something in the way of a start—­then go off, cheat, and laugh at me in the bargain.  I reckon, old boy, you don’t come over me in that way again; and I’m not half done with you yet about the kettles.  That story of yours about the hot and cold may do for the pigeons, but you don’t think the hawks will swallow it, do ye?  Come—­out with your notions!”

“Oh, to be sure, only give a body time, colonel,” as, pulled by the collar, with some confusion and in great trepidation, responded the beleagured dealer in clocks and calicoes—­“they shall all be here in a day or two at most.  Seeing that one of my creatures was foundered, I had to leave the goods, and drive the other here without them.”

The pedler had told the truth in part only.  One of his horses had indeed struck lame, but he had made out to bring him to the village with all his wares; and this fact, as in those regions of question and inquiry was most likely to be the case, had already taken wind.

“Now, look ye, Bunce, do you take me for a blear-eyed mole, that never seed the light of a man’s eyes?” inquired Blundell, closely approaching the beset tradesman, and taking him leisurely by the neck.  “Do you want to take a summerset through that window, old fellow, that you try to stuff us with such tough stories?  If you do, I rether reckon you can do it without much difficulty.”  Thus speaking, and turning to some of those around him, he gave directions which imparted to the limbs of the pedler a continuous and crazy motion, that made his teeth chatter.

“Hark ye, boys, jist step out, and bring in the cart of Jared Bunce, wheels and all, if so be that the body won’t come off easily.  We’ll see for ourselves.”