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 though certainly without any resort to such practices as might be looked for in her suggestion. "Ay, indeed, such an art would be something to me now, could it avail for any purpose&mdash;could it soften the stern, and warm the cold, and make the hard to please easy&mdash;but I look not for your aid, mother, to do all this."

"I can do it&mdash;fear me not," said the old woman, assuringly.

"It may be, but I choose not that thou shouldst. I must toil for myself in this matter, and the only art I may use must be that which I shall not be ashamed of. But we have another quest, dame; and upon this we would have you speak honestly. You have a son?"

The old woman looked earnestly at the speaker; and, as at that moment the sabre swung off from his knee, clattering with its end upon the floor, she started apprehensively, and it could be seen that she trembled. She spoke after the pause of an instant:

"Sure, captain&mdash;Ned, Ned Blonay is my son. What would you tell me? He has met with no harm?"

"None, mother&mdash;none that I can speak of," said Humphries quickly; "not that he may not happen upon it if he does not mind his tracks. But tell us&mdash;when was he here last, mother? Was he not here to-night? and when do you look for him again?"

The apprehensions of the woman had passed off; she resumed her seesaw motion, and answered indifferently: "The boy is his own master, Bill Humphries; it is not for an old woman like me to answer for Ned Blonay."

"What! are you not witch enough to manage your own son? Tell that to them that don't know you both better. I say to you, Mother Blonay, that story wont pass muster. You have seen Goggle to-night."

"And I say, Bill Humphries, that the tongue lies that says it, though it never lied before. Go&mdash;you're a foul-spoken fellow, and your bones shall ache yet for that same speech. Goggle&mdash;Goggle&mdash;Goggle! as if it wasn't curse enough to be blear-eyed without having every dirty field-tackey whickering about it."

"Our object is not to offend, my good woman," said Singleton, interposing gently; "but to ask a civil question. My companion