each moment to be stronger. But Marmaduke was too much in the habit of examining both sides of a subject, not to perceive the objections, and reasoned with himself aloud:—
"It cannot be so, or the youth would not be driven so near the verge of poverty."
"What so likely to make a man dig for money, as being poor?" cried the sheriff.
"Besides, there is an elevation of character about Oliver, that proceeds from education, which would forbid so clandestine a proceeding."
"Could an ignorant fellow smelt?" continued Richard.
"Then Bess hints that he was reduced to his last shilling, when we took him into our dwelling."
"He had been buying tools. And would he spend his last sixpence for a shot at a turkey, had he not known where to get more."
"Can I have possibly been so long a dupe! His manner has been rude to me, at times: but I attributed it to his conceiving himself injured, and to his mistaking the forms of the world."
"Haven't you been a dupe all your life, 'duke? and an't what you call ignorance of forms deep cunning, to conceal his real character?"
"If he were bent on deception, he would have concealed his knowledge, and passed with us for an inferior man."
"He cannot. I could no more pass for a fool, myself, than i could fly. Knowledge is not to be concealed, like a candle under a bushel."
"Richard," said the Judge, turning to his cousin, "there are many reasons against the truth of thy conjectures; but thou hast awakened suspicions which must be satisfied. But why are we traveling here?"
"Jotham, who has been much in the mountain
