t himself
from experiencing a strong sense of anxiety, or perhaps we should say, a
feeling of involuntary pain, which lay like a dead weight upon his heart
and spirits. In truth, do what he might and reason as he would, he could
not expel from his mind the new and painful principle which disturbed
it. And thus he went on, sometimes triumphantly defending Mary from all
ungenerous suspicion, and again writhing under the vague and shapeless
surmises which the singular events of the evening sent crowding to
his imagination. His dreams on retiring to seek repose were
frightful--several times in the night he saw graceful Phil squinting
at him with a nondescript leer of vengeance and derision in his yellow
goggle eyes, and bearing Mary off, like some misshapen ogre of old,
mounted upon Handsome Harry, who appeared to be gifted with the speed
of Hark-away or flying Childers, whilst he himself could do nothing but
stand helplessly by, and contemplate the triumph of his hated rival.

In the mean time the respected father and grandfather of that worthy
young gentleman were laboring as assiduously for his advancement in
life as if he had been gifted with a catalogue of all human virtues.
Old Deaker, true to his word, addressed the very next day the following
characteristic epistle--

"To the Right Hon. Lord Cumber.

"My Lord--It is unnecessary to tell you that I was, during my life,
a plain blunt fellow in all my transactions. When I was honest, I was
honest like a man; and when I did the roguery, I did it like a open,
fearless knave, that defied the world and scorned hypocrisy. I am,
therefore, the same consistent old scoundrel as ever; or the same bluff,
good-humored rascal which your old father--who sold his country--and
yourself--who would sell it too, if you had one to sell--ever found me.
To make short work, then, I want you to dismiss that poor, scurvy devil,
Hickman, from your agency, and put that misbegotten spawn of mine in
his place. I mean Val M'Clutchy, or Val the Vulture, as they have very
properly christened him. Hickman's not the thing, in any sense. He can't
manage the people, and they impose upon him--then you suffer, of course.
Bedsides, he's an anti-ascendancy man, of late, and will go against you
at the forthcoming Election. The fellow pretends to have a conscience,
and be cursed to him--prates about the Union--preaches against
corruption--and talks about the people, as if they were fit to be
anything else t