for the purpose of
getting a new road run past his Glebe House, in the first place, and,
in the next, to secure a good job for himself, as a magistrate. At all
events he was proceeding towards Castle Cumber, apparently engaged in
the contemplation of some important subject, but whether it was the new
road to his glebe, or the old one to heaven, is beyond our penetration
to determine. Be this as it may, such was his abstraction, that he
noticed not the Rev. Father M'Cabe, who had ridden for some time along
with him, until that gentleman thought proper to break the ice of
ceremony, and address him.

"Sir, your most obedient," said the priest; "excuse my freedom--I am the
Rev. Mr. M'Cabe, Catholic Curate of Castle Cumber; but as I reside in
the parish it is very possible you don't know me."

Mr. Lucre felt much hurt at the insinuation thrown out against his long
absence from the parish and replied:--

"I do not, sir, in the least regret our want of intimacy. The character
of your ministry in the parish is such, that he who can congratulate
himself on not being acquainted with you has something to boast of.
Excuse me, sir, but I beg to assure you, that I am not at all solicitous
of the honor of your company."

"Touching my ministry," said the priest, "which it pleases you to
condemn, I'd have you to know, that I will teach my people how to resist
oppression so long as I am able to teach them anything. I will not allow
them to remain tame drudges under burthens that make you and such as you
as fat and proud as Lucifer."

"I request you will be good enough, sir, to take some other way," said
Mr. Lucre; "you are a rude and vulgar person whom I neither know nor
wish to know. The pike and torch, sir, are congenial weapons to such a
mind as yours; I do beg you will take some other way, and not continue
to annoy me any longer."

"This way, man alive--"

"Man alive! To whom do you address such, a term?" said Mr. Lucre; "I
really have never met so very vulgar a person; I am quite sickened, upon
my honor. Man alive!! I trust I shall soon get rid of you."

"This way, man alive," responded the priest, "is as free to me, in spite
of corrupt jobs and grand juries, as it is to you or any other tyrant,
whether spiritual or temporal. If there are turbulence and disturbances
in this parish, it is because bad laws, unjustly administered, drive the
people, first, into poverty, and then into resistance. And, sir, you are
not to tell