As we reached the foot of the staircase, the house door opened, and in came my friend Tickle, dragged along--not by our dear and faithless Pattie, as we fondly supposed, but by the raging Nora Magee. "Help, murder, help!" cried my friend Tickle. "Och, murder, and twenty murders more upon ye, ye chatin crathur! and won't ye marry me?" cried Nora Magee. My uncle Wilkins and myself rushed forward, lost in amazement, and separated the fury from her prey. "What is the matter?" cried both, "and where is Pattie?" "The devil is the matter," cried Jack, panting and blowing; "and where Pattie is I know no more than you. I thought I was running away with her until I reached the squire's; and then I found I had this wild Indian under her cloak, who insisted I should marry her, or else--" "Ay, ye murderin, faithless villain!" said Nora Magee, "I'll marry ye, or I'll have the breaches of promise and the damages out of ye! Och, but I have the law of ye; for didn't my Missus Pattie promise ye should marry me? I say, ye ugly-faced, hin-souled Tickle that they call ye, I have the law of ye, and I'll be married before the squire, or I'll have the breaches out of ye!" "My breeches," said Jack, "you may have, and my coat and waistcoat too; for may I be hanged and quartered if I am not cheated out of my very skin." "Where's my daughter Pattie?" said my uncle Wilkins. He looked at me, and I looked at him; it was plain my cousin Pattie had not run away with my friend Tickle. Where could she be? I began to recover my spirits, when they were suddenly put to flight by a knock at the door, which being opened, a letter was thrown in, the messenger instantly taking to his heels, so that no one beheld him. It was a letter to my uncle Wilkins. He opened it and read the following words:-- DEAR PAPA AND HONOURED FATHER: "This is to inform you that I don't like Mr. Tickle, and so can't marry him; and hope you will excuse me for following my own fancies, being now independent, as you have made me, for which I will remain your dutiful, loving daughter for life Give my love to cousin Dully, and tell him I consider him my best friend next to my dear papa and my dear husband--for, oh, papa, I'm really married, and going off travelling to-morrow. "Hope you'll forgive us, papa, and shall ever love and pray for you, and rest your loving, dutiful children, "_PATTIE_ and DANNY BAKER." "_Danny Baker!_" roared my uncle; "_Danny_ Baker!" groaned I. The clodhopper had got her, and I had been only toiling in his service! "Oh, you villain!" said my uncle Wilkins, "this is all your doings!" "Sir," said I, "no hard words." "You're a villain!" said my uncle; "you wanted to steal her yourself, and I a'n't sorry Danny Baker has choused you out of her; and for that reason I don't care if I forgive him. Yes, sir, I'll forgive Danny Baker; but for you, sir, I owe you a debt--"