"Eyeh, eyeh, lad, we're owre near the border," said the old pitman, shaking his head; "if ever there was a deevil incarnate on this earth it's the whiskey, and makes nought but wickedness and misery, as I can see; but to them as knows how to guide themselves," he added, slowly, "it's a comfort now and again, specially of a morning, when a man has the asthmatics, and finds the cowld on his stomach. If you're sure you're able to afford it, sir, I've no objection, but I would not advise a brisk lad like you, d'ye hear, to partake yoursel'. Ye haven't the discretion to stop at the right time at your years, nor no needcessity, as I see. Robbie, I'm a-gooin' on a bit with the gentleman--see you play none on the road, nor put off your time, and say I'm coming. Eugh, eugh! as if it wasn't a shame and a disgrace to them as has the blame, to see the likes of me upon the road!" "At your time of life they ought to take better care of you," said Horace; "see, here's a seat for you, and you shall have your dram. Why don't your sons look to it, eh, and keep you at home? It doesn't take very much, I daresay, to keep the pot boiling; why don't you tell them their duty, or speak to the parson? You are surely old enough to rest at your age!" "Eugh, eugh! I haven't got no sons," said the old man, with a cough which ran into a chorus of half-sobs, half-chokes. "The last on 'em was lost i' the pit, two year come Michaelmas, and left little to his ould father but that bit of a cripple lad, poor child, that will never make his own salt. It's the masters, dash them! as I complain on. There they bees, making their money out on it, as grand as lords; and the like of huz as does it a' left to break our ould bones, and waste our ould breath for a bit of bread, after serving of them for a matter of twenty year. Eyeh, eyeh, lad, it's them, dash them! If it had been the ould Squire, or ony o' the country gentlemen, an ould servant mought hev a chance. No that I'm saying muckle for them, more nor the rest o' the world--awl men is for their own interest in them days; but as for mercy or bowels, ay, or justice nouther, it's ill looking for the like of them things in a couple o' 'torneys, that are born and bred for cheating and spoliation. I never had no houps of them mysel'--they'll sooner tak' the bit o' bread out atween an ould body's teeth, than support the agit and the orphant--ay, though it was their own wark and profit, dash them! that took the bread from Robbie and me." "Ah!" said Horace, "that's hard; so the pits here don't belong to the Armitage property, nor any of the great landlords? But what have a couple of attorneys to do with them--they manage the property for somebody, I suppose?"