“Well, there an't a great deal to say to it, Mr. Tony,” said he, slowly. “If the other chap has got the best kit, by course he has got the best end of the stick; and you may have an easy conscience about that. If there's any money or val'able in _his_ bundle, it is just likely there will be some trace of his name, and where he lives too; so that, turn out either way, you 're all right.” “So that you advise me to open his pack and see if I can find a clew to him.” “Well, indeed, I 'd do that much out of cur'osity. At all events, you 'll not get to know about him from the blue hand-kercher with the white spots.” Tony did not quite approve the counsel; he had his scruples, even in a good cause, about this investigation, and he walked the deck till far into the night, pondering over it. He tried to solve the case by speculating on what the countryman would have done with _his_ pack. “He 'll have doubtless tried to find out where I am to be met with or come at. He 'll have ransacked my traps, and if so, there will be the less need of _my_ investigating _his_. _He 's_ sure to trace _me_.” This reasoning satisfied him so perfectly that he lay down at last to sleep with an easy conscience and so weary a brain that he slept profoundly. As he awoke, however, he found that Waters had already decided the point of conscience which had so troubled him, and was now sitting contemplating the contents of the peasant's bundle. “There an't so much as a scrap o' writing, Mr. Tony; there an't even a prayer-book with his name in it,--but there 's a track to him for all that. I have him!” and he winked with that self-satisfied knowingness which had so often delighted him in the detection of a splint or a bone-spavin. “You have him,” repeated Tony. “Well, what of him?” “He's a jailer, sir,--yes, a jailer. I won't say he 's the chief,--he 's maybe second or third,--but he 's one of 'em.” “How do you know that?” “Here's how I found it out;” and he drew forth a blue cloth uniform, with yellow cuffs and collar, and a yellow seam down the trousers. There were no buttons on the coat, but both on the sleeve and the collar were embroidered two keys, crosswise. “Look at them, Master Tony; look at them, and say an't that as clear as day? It's some new regulation, I suppose, to put them in uniform; and there's the keys, the mark of the lock-up, to show who he is that wears them.” Though the last man in the world to read riddles or unravel difficulties, Tony did not accept this information very willingly. In truth, he felt a repugnance to assign to the worthy country fellow a station which bears, in the appreciation of every Irishman, a certain stain. For, do as we will, reason how we may, the old estimate of the law as an oppression surges up through our thoughts, just as springs well up in an undrained soil.