by an amiable, benevolent, but somewhat credulous
nobleman, on whose property the movement first commenced, ascribed this
extraordinary conversion altogether to themselves.

The season to be sure in which it occurred was one of unprecedented
destitution and famine. Fuel was both scarce and bad--the preceding
crops had failed, and food was not only of a deleterious quality, but
scarcely to be procured at all. The winter, too, was wet and stormy, and
the deluges of rain daily and incessant. In fact, cold, and nakedness,
and hunger met together in almost every house and every cabin, with the
exception of those of the farmers alone, who, by the way, mostly held
land upon a very small scale. In this district, then, and in such a
period of calamity, and misery, and utter famine, did the movement
called the New Reformation originate.

"Sure, blood alive," thought Darby, "now that every one's turnin',
there's no harm to have a thrial at it myself; I can become as good a
Prodestan as most o' them in four and twenty hours, and stand a chance
of the Jaolership for my pains. I'll go to Mr. Lucre, who is a gentleman
at any rate, and allow him to think he has the convartin' o' me. Well,"
he proceeded, with a chuckle, "it's one comfort, divil a much religion
I have to lose; and another, that the divil a much I have to gain in
exchange; and now," he went on, "there's little Solomon thinks I did'nt
see him burnin' the wrong letther; but faith, Solomon, my lad, there
must be something in it that would do neither you nor M'Clutchy much
good, if it was known, or you wouldn't thry that trick--but, in the mean
time, I've secured them both."

Now, the reader must know, that Darby's return in such a truly
charitable spirit to ask Solomon for the virtue of his prayers in behalf
of M'Clutchy, was as knavish a ruse as ever was put in practice. Solomon
had placed M'Clutchy's letter secretly under a brief, as we have said,
and Darby, who knew the identical spot and position in which M'Slime was
in the habit of praying, knew also that he would kneel with his back to
the desk on which the brief lay. It all happened precisely as he wished,
and, accordingly, while Solomon was doing the hypocrite, Darby did the
thief, and having let in those who were approaching, he came away, as we
said.

He lost not a moment after he had got to a lonely part of the road,
in putting them between two flat stones--we mean M'Clutchy's letter to
Solomon, with that gent