No! only let me live and I'll do your bidding.
"Well," said Val, in a sharp, imperious;one, "you're punctual for a wonder." "God be praised for that," replied Darby, wiping the top of his nose with the finger and thumb of an old mitten, "heaven be praised that I'm not late." "Hold your damned canting, tongue, you knave, what place is this for it ?" "Knave! well I am then." "Yes, you know you are--you are all knaves--every bailiff is a knave--ahem--unless, indeed, one in a thousand." "It's truth, indeed, plaise your honor." "Not but there's worse than you after all, and be damned to you." "An' betther, sir, too, i' you please, for sure, God help me, I'm not what I ought to be." "Well, mend then, why don't you?
for you want it.

Come now, no jaw, I tell you, but answer me what I am about to ask you; not a word now." "Well, no then, plaise your honor, I won't in throth." "Did you warn the townland of Ballymackscud ?" "Yis, plaise your honor." "Are they ready--have they the rent ?" "Only some o' them, sir,--an other some is axin' for time, the thieves." "Who are asking for time ?" "Why the O'Shaughrans, sir--hopin', indeed, that your honor will let them wait till the markets rises, an not be forced to sell the grain whin the prices is so low now that it would ridin them--but it's wondherful the onraisonableness of some people.

Says I, 'his honor, Mr.
M'Clutchy, is only doin' his duty; but a betther hearted or a kinder man never bruk the world's bread than he is to them that desarves it at his hands;' so, sir, they began to--but--well, well, it's no matther--I tould them they were wrong--made it plain to them--but they wouldn't be convinced, say what I might." "Why, what did they say, were they abusing me--I suppose so ?" "Och! the poor sowls, sure it was only ignorance and foolishness on their part--onraisonable cratures all or most of them is." "Let me know at once what they said, you knave, or upon my honor and soul I'll turn you out of the room and bring in Hanlon." "Plaise your honor, he wasn't present--I left him outside, in regard that I didn't think he was fit to be trust--a safe with--no matther, 'twas for a raison I had." He gave a look at M'Clutchy as he spoke, compounded of such far and distant cunning, scarcely perceptible--and such obvious, yet retreating cowardice, scarcely perceptible also---that no language could convey any notion of it.
"Ah!" said Val, "you are a neat lad--but go on--what did they say, for I must have it out of you." "That I may die in happiness, your honor, but I'm afeard to tell you--but, sure, if you'd give your promise, sir--your bright word of honor, that you'd not pay me off for it, I'll tell you." "Ah! you d----d crawling reptile, out with it--I won't pay you off." [Illustration: PAGE 142-- there's as many curses before you in hell] "Well, then, here it is--oh! the curse o' Cromwell on them this day, for an ungrateful pack! they said, your honor, that--bad luck to them I pray--that there wasn't so black-hearted a scoundrel on the face of the airth as your four quarthers--that the gallows is gapin' for you--and that there's as many curses before you in hell as 'ud blisther a griddle." M'Clutchy's face assumed its usual expression of diabolical malignity, whilst, at the same time, he gave a look so piercing at Darby, as if suspecting that the curse, from its peculiar character, was at least partially his own invention,--that the latter, who stood like a criminal, looking towards the floor, felt precisely what was going forward in the other's mind, and knew that he had nothing else for it but to look him steadily in the face, as a mark of his perfect innocence.

Gradually, therefore, and slowly he raised his small gray eyes until they met those of M'Clutchy, and thus the gaze continued for nearly a minute between them, and that with such steadiness on both sides, that they resembled a mesmeric doctor and his patient, rather than anything else to which we could compare them.

On the part of M'Clutchy the gaze was that of an inquisitor looking into the heart of him whom he suspected; on that of Darby, the eye, unconscious of evil, betrayed nothing but the purest simplicity and candor.
And yet, when we consider that Darby most unquestionably did not only ornament, but give peculiar point to the opinions expressed by the tenantry against the Vulture, perhaps we ought to acknowledge that of the two he possessed a larger share of histrionic talent.
At length M'Clutchy, whose eye, for reasons with which the reader is already acquainted, was never either a firm or a steady one, removed it from Darby, who nevertheless followed it with a simple but pertinacious look, as much as to say, I have told you truth, and am now waiting your leisure to proceed.
"What do you stare at ?" said M'Clutchy, strongly disposed to vent his malignity on the next object to him; "and, you beggarly scoundrel, what did you say to that?
Tell me, or I'll heave you, head foremost, through the window ?" "Why," replied Darby, in a quiet, confident, and insinuating tone, "I raisoned wid them--raisoned wid them like a Christian.