“He can do that, lawyer, I guess, without difficulty.  I’ll move as you say, and be off pretty slick.  Five hundred dollars damage, lawyer—­eh!”

“No matter, till I see you.  Put your nag in gears quickly—­you have little time to spare!”

The pedler proceeded to the work, and was in a little while ready for a start.  But he lingered at the porch.

“I say, lawyer, it’s a hard bout they’ve given me this time.  I did fear they would be rash and obstropulous, but didn’t think they’d gone so far.  Indeed, it’s clear, if it hadn’t been that the cretur failed me, I should not have trusted myself in the place, after what I was told.”

“Bunce, you have been rather sly in your dealings, and they have a good deal to complain of.  Now, though I said nothing about it, that coat you sold me for a black grew red with a week’s wear, and threadbare in a month.”

“Now, don’t talk, lawyer, seeing you ha’n’t paid me for it yet; but that’s neither here nor there.  If I did, as you say, sell my goods for something more than their vally, I hadn’t ought to had such a punishment as this.”

The wild song of the rioters rang in his ears, followed by a proposition, seemingly made with the utmost gravity, to change the plan of operations, and instead of giving him the ride upon the rail, cap the blazing goods of his cart with the proper person of the proprietor.  The pedler lingered to hear no further; and the quick ear of the lawyer, as he returned into the hall, distinguished the rumbling motion of his cart hurrying down the road.  But he had scarcely reseated himself and resumed his glass, before Bunce also reappeared.

“Why, man, I thought you were off.  You burn daylight; though they do say, those whom water won’t drown, rope must hang.”

“There is some risk, lawyer, to be sure; but when I recollected this box, which you see is a fine one, though they have disfigured it, I thought I should have time enough to take it with me, and anything that might be lying about;” looking around the apartment as he spoke, and gathering up a few fragments which had escaped the general notice.

“Begone, fool!” exclaimed the lawyer, impatiently.  “They are upon you—­they come—­fly for your life, you dog—­I hear their voices.”

“I’m off, lawyer”—­and looking once behind him as he hurried off, the pedler passed from the rear of the building as those who sought him re-entered in front.

“The blood’s in him—­the Yankee will be Yankee still,” was the muttered speech of the lawyer, as he prepared to encounter the returning rioters.

CHAPTER VII.

THE YANKEE OUTWITS THE LAWYER.