illain, giving him another significant grin that
once more projected the fang; "well, maybe you wouldn't. If you want
my sarvices then, come to the cottage that's built agin the church-yard
wall, on the north side; and if you don't wish to be seen, why you can
come about midnight, when every one's asleep."

"What's this you say your name is?"

"Sol Donnel."

"What do you mean by Sol?"

He turned up his red eyes in astonishment, and exclaimed:

"Well, now, to think that, a larned man as you must be shouldn't know
what Sol means! Well, the ignorance of you great people is unknown.
Don't you know--but you don't--oughn't you know, then, that Sol means
Solomon, who was the wisest many and the biggest blaggard that ever
lived! Faith, if I had lived in his day he'd be a poor customer to me,
bekaise he had no shame in him; but indeed, the doin's that goes on now
in holes and corners among ourselves was no shame in his time. That's a
fine bay horse you ride; would you like to have him dappled? A dappled
bay, you know, is always a great beauty."

"And could you dapple him?

"Ay, as sure as you ride him."

"Well, I'll think about it and let you know; there's some silver for
you, and good-by, honest Solomon."

Woodward then rode on, reflecting on the novel and extraordinary
character of this hypocritical old villain, in whose withered and
repulsive visage he could not discover a single trace of anything that
intimated the existence of sympathy with his kind. As to that, it was a
_tabula rasa_, blank of all feelings except those which characterize the
hyena and the fox. After he had left him, the old fellow gave a bitter
and derisive look after him.

"There you go," said he, "and well I knew you, although you didn't think
so. Weren't you pointed out to me the night o' the divil's bonfire,
that your mother, they say, got up for you; and didn't I see you since
spakin' to that skamin' blaggard, Caterine Collins, my niece, that takes
many a penny out o' my hands; and didn't I know that you couldn't be
talkin' to her about anything that was good. Troth, you're not your
mother's son or you'll be comin' to me as well as her. Bad luck to her!
she was near gettin' me into the stocks when I sowld her the dose of
oak bark for the sarvants, to draw in their stomachs and shorten
their feedin'. My faith, ould Lindsay 'ud have put me in them only for
bringin' shame upon his wife."*

* Some of our readers may imagine that in the