'With her money I set up shop; and I did not much mind her being ten years older than myself, since she was ten times richer. I only copied my own father there; for he once happened to be divided between two girls, one of them with a single cow for her portion, and the other with two cows; so he consulted his landlord which of them he should marry, and his landlord bade him by all means marry the girl with the two cows; "for," says he, "there is not a cow difference between any two women." 'So now that is my history.' 'If I am to collect from it,' said I, 'the character of your countrymen in your own class of life, I must conclude that they are frank, generous, and noble; but neglected in their morals and education, and oppressed by their superiors.' 'Ay, there is the matter,' said Jerry. 'By way of keeping us quiet they keep us down. Now that is just the way to prevent our keeping quiet, for it is natural that men who are kept down should try to rise up.' 'And why do they keep you down?' asked I. 'Because,' answered he, 'we are of one religion, and they of another; and they say our religion is so bad, that it would make us keep them down, if they did not keep us down.' 'Then,' said I, 'you ought to be greatly obliged to them for keeping you down; because that is doing what they condemn, lest you should do it. Now it is the highest possible test of good-nature, to become criminal ourselves, in order to keep our friends virtuous.' 'A wise legislator,' said the minstrel, 'ought not to forget the eighteenth century, in his retrospection to the sixteenth, nor in his anticipation of the twentieth.' 'I know nothing of anticskippation,' said Jerry, 'but I will tell you a bit of a story. When I first went to London, and was poor, I used to dine in a cellar, with other Irishmen, where the knives and forks were chained to the table, for fear we should steal them; though in my mind, the surest way to make a rogue, is to let him know that you think him one. Well, when we began to grow rich, we got a spirit, and broke the chains, and paid for them; and broke them again, and paid for them again, and so on. At last the master began to see that the same spirit which made us break the chains would prevent us from stealing the knives and forks; so he took off the chains, and then his table was no disgrace, and we brought more company to it, and he made his fortune.' The minstrel and warden now retired to their allotted place of rest--the barouche. Each was to keep watch in turn at the castle gate, and to toll the hour on the bell.