The stranger was tall and well made, with a countenance, the leading characteristic of which was, now drollery, and now defiance; whilst its secondary, and more stationary expression, was equally contradictory, being made up of shrewdness and simplicity, most oddly blended. He carried a reaping-hook in one hand, and, with the other, held over his shoulder a large knotted stick, with a bundle slung on the end of it. This personage, on the melancholy day alluded to, arrived at the closed and silent entrance of Lodore House. Disdaining to use the still muffled, and therefore, in his opinion, noneffective knocker, he substituted the thick end of his own stick. This strange summons was answered by John. "And is it affeard of a bit of a noise you are?" was the first question asked by the stranger. Without, however, waiting for reply, he was about to pass in, saying, "Just show us which is the mistress, will yee?" The powdered lackey, astonished at such want of etiquette, placed an opposing hand against the breast of the intruder; upon which the stranger, after a momentary look of unfeigned surprise, very quietly laid down his reaping-hook, bundle, and stick, behind him, (for the latter he would not deign to use against an unarmed foe,) then planting his heels as firmly together as though he had grown out of the spot whereon he stood, he cocked his hat (none of the newest) on three hairs, put his arms a-kimbo, and his head on one side; and, his preparations thus completed, with a knowing wink, said, "Now I'll tell you what, my friend, I'd as soon crack the scull of yee, as look at yee!" John, even by his own account, stepped back a little, while saying, "You had better not raise a hand to me: for if you do, there are half a dozen more of us within, to carry you to Carlisle gaol." "Half a dozen!" cried our unknown hero, in a voice of contempt, and snapping his fingers as he spoke, "the divil a much I'd mind half a dozen of you, Englishers, with your gingerbread coats, and your floured pates, for all the world as if you had been out in the snow of a Christmas day, with never a hat on; that is, if I had you onest in my own dacent country, where one can knock a man down in pace and quietness if he desarve it, without bothering wid yeer law for every bit of a hand's turn."