stand uncovered on the outside, no matter
whether the weather was stormy or otherwise. We are not now about
to pronounce, any opinion upon the constitutional spirit of Dick's
decisions--inasmuch as nineteen out of every twenty of them were come
to by the only "Magistrates' Guide" he ever was acquainted with--to wit,
the redoubtable Jemmy Branigan. Jemmy was his clerk, and although he
could neither read nor write, yet in cases where his judgments did not
give satisfaction, he was both able and willing to set his mark upon
the discontented parties m a fashion that did not allow his blessed
signature to be easily forgotten. Jemmy, however, as the reader
knows, was absent on the morning we are writing about, having actually
fulfilled his threat of leaving his master's service--a threat, by the
way, which was held out and acted upon at least once every year since he
and the magistrate had stood to each other in the capacity of master and
servant. Not that we are precisely correct in the statement we had made
on this matter, for sometimes his removal was the result of dismissal
on the part of his master, and sometimes the following up of the notice
which he himself had given him to leave his service. Be this as it may,
his temporary absences always involved a trial of strength between the
parties, as to which of them should hold out, and put a constraint upon
his inclinations the longest; for since the truth must be told of Jemmy,
we are bound to say that he could as badly bear to live removed from the
society of his master, as the latter could live without him. For many
years of his life, he had been threatening to go to America, or to live
with a brother that he had in the Isle of White, as he called it, and on
several occasions he had taken formal leave of the whole family, (always
in the presence of his master, however,) on his departure for either
the one place or the other, while his real abode was a snug old
garret, where he was attended and kept in food by the family and his
fellow-servants, who were highly amused at the outrageous distress of
his master, occasioned sometimes by Jemmy's obstinate determination to
travel, and sometimes by his extreme brotherly affection.

Donnel, having left his son cracking a long whip which he held in his
hand, and looking occasionally at the tress of Mave Sullivan's beautiful
hair, approached the hall door, at which he knocked, and on the
appearance of a servant, requested to see Mr.