To this proposal the traveller demurred, and requesting the lawyer to follow him, rode up to the brow of the hill, where he dismounted, and suffered his horse to range at will through the bushes, he himself taking a seat on a stone, and inviting Affidavy to do the same. "A botheration strange fancy this, of yours, certainly," said the lawyer: "are we to sit here, like two stray ducks, and be soaked for nothing?" "Look over your head," said the stranger: "there is not a cloud left in the heaven. No, not one," he muttered as if to himself; "and come weal or wo, come death or come life, the sun will shine to-morrow as bright as ever." "Tush, you're right; the storm has given us the go-by," said the lawyer. "But concerning the case, and that twenty-guinea fee----What's your name?" "Guineas," said the other, rattling a purse apparently well filled with his namesakes, upon the stone. "Excellent!" said the lawyer; "but that won't do for a jury. Come, sir, your cognomination, compellation, and so forth? your _proprium vocamen_, style and title,--Tom, Dick, or Harry, as the case may be? and then for _the_ case! _Quisnam homo est? unde et quo?_ No man is drunk who can quote Latin, for it is cursed hard stuff to remember. In the king's lingo, who are you? and what's the case in question?" "Who I am, we will pass," said the traveller, "that having nothing to do with the case. As for the case itself, I am told, it is one of murder." "The devil it is!" cried Affidavy. "Why here's hanging work thickening in the county! But what are the circumstances? Who's killed? and who is the killer?" "The first was a young man, named Henry Falconer,--the second another young man, called Hyland Gilbert"---- "Hah! why, that's _my_ case, that I've been labouring after all night! and I assure you----But God bless our two souls!" he added suddenly, springing to his feet as if in alarm, "who are _you_ sir? An honest man, sir? I hope, an honest man, sir, and no bloody-minded Hawk, sir! for if you are, sir, I give you warning, sir, if you make an attack upon me, sir, that I carry pistols, sir, and, sir"---- "Peace, fool," said the other, with a stern voice. "Sit down, and fear nothing. If you had twenty pistols, what care I for them?--I," he added, with a laugh both jocose and bitter, "that am armed with twenty--guineas?" "Right, sir; but if you are a tory, sir--I don't mean to insult you, sir,--but as to aiding and abetting a gentleman of the tory party, sir: why, sir, I am a man of principle, sir, and I must have time to reflect."