“It was.”

“And who was it that made away with my dog Jowler, that used to guard the tan-yard?”

“It was the person that you suspect.”

“And was it the person whom I suspect that made the hole under the foundation of our cathedral?”

“The same, and no other.”

“And for what purpose did he make that hole?”

“For a purpose that must not be named,” replied the king of the gipsies, nodding his head in a mysterious manner.

“But it may be named to me,” cried the verger, “for I have found it out, and I am one of the vergers; and is it not fit that a plot to blow up the Hereford Cathedral should be known to me, and through me?”

   “Now, take my word,
   Wise men of Hereford,
   None in safety may be,
   Till the bad man doth flee.”

These oracular verses, pronounced by Bampfylde with all the enthusiasm of one who was inspired, had the desired effect upon our wise man; and he left the presence of the king of the gipsies with a prodigiously high opinion of his majesty’s judgment and of his own, fully resolved to impart, the next morning, to the mayor of Hereford his important discoveries.

Now it happened that, during the time Mr. Hill was putting the foregoing queries to Bampfylde the Second, there came to the door or entrance of the audience chamber an Irish haymaker who wanted to consult the cunning man about a little leathern purse which he had lost whilst he was making hay in a field near Hereford.  This haymaker was the same person who, as we have related, spoke so advantageously of our hero O’Neill to the widow Smith.  As this man, whose name was Paddy M’Cormack, stood at the entrance of the gipsies’ hut, his attention was caught by the name of O’Neill; and he lost not a word of all that pasted.  He had reason to be somewhat surprised at hearing Bampfylde assert it was O’Neill who had pulled down the rick of bark.  “By the holy poker!” said he to himself, “the old fellow now is out there.  I know more o’ that matter than he does—­no offence to his majesty; he knows no more of my purse, I’ll engage now, than he does of this man’s rick of bark and his dog:  so I’ll keep my tester in my pocket, and not be giving it to this king o’ the gipsies, as they call him:  who, as near as I can guess, is no better than a cheat.  But there is one secret which I can be telling this conjuror himself:  he shall not find it such an easy matter to do all what he thinks; he shall not be after ruining an innocent countryman of my own whilst Paddy M’Cormack has a tongue and brains.”

Now, Paddy M’Cormack had the best reason possible for knowing that Mr. O’Neill did not pull down Mr. Hill’s rick of bark; it was M’Cormack himself who, in the heat of his resentment for the insulting arrest of his countryman in the streets of Hereford, had instigated his fellow haymakers to this mischief; he headed them, and thought he was doing a clever, spirited action.