The Coiners' Den [pp. 488-504]

494 TKE CoiKE~Rs' DEN~ [Jan.,
asy goes far in the day," replied the driver. "What would your
honor be willing to give for an accident-a good sound accident
that would impose on a peeler without the least taste in life of
design in it? What would you be after giving for an accident?"
"I'll willingly give you five shillings over and ~bove your fare,
if you supply me with a plausible excuse for entering that pigsty."
"Five shillings!" shouted the driver, with an indescribable
air 6f mingled astonishment and disgust. "Did any one ever hear
the like? Five shillings for an accident! Things are come to a
purty pass! By gor! accidents must be very cheap when they're
going for that price. Five shillings for an accident! Oh! wir
rasthrue, wirrasthrue, what's the world coming to at all? Five
shillings for an accident! Was the like ever heard of?" "Well,
come," said I, "you shall,have ten shillings when the accident is
completed."
"You're nothing but a gentleman!" exclaimed the driver,
quite satisfied. "I'll give you an accident that would take a
pearl off a piper's eye and make a blind man see again." So
saying, he descended from the car and took out the linch.pin.
"Now, your honor, the wheel will come off and rowl into the
ditch, and the car will stop of itself, and we'll be thrun off of it;
and sure Gubbawn Saer himself, if he was to the fore, could not
invent a purtier accident-considering the price." "I think you
have earned your money very easily," said I, giving him his fee;
"but if it serve the purpose all is right."
"There's not in the seven parishes a jarvey that's handier in
getting up an accident nor my own four bones, though I say it,
that oughtn't to say it; and now your honor can go into the cabin
and see what's to be seen." "No; you had better go in first,
tell your story, and ask assistance; I'll go in afterwards and seek
shelter." "And who'll mind the mare?" asked the dnver.
"Oh! the mare will mind herself. A jarvey's mare is as knowing
as a jarvey. Besides, when I go in you can come out." "All
right, your honor."
The interior of the cabin, as I found on entering, was pervaded by darkness broken by the light of a large fire blazing on
the hearth, over which a large pot was suspended on an iron
hook descending from the black and smoky interior of the cav
ernous chimney. The naked rafters which supparted the roof
were, like the roof itself, black with smoke and polished with age,
while the walls were destitute of windows and the floor formed
of clay. Behind the chimney a second room was situated, to