"God save your Reverence!" said Bill, very submissively.
"Be off; there's no admittance here for so poor a youth as you are," said St Moroky.
He was now so cold and fatigued that he cared little where he went, provided only, as he said himself, "he could rest his bones, and get an air of the fire." Accordingly, after arriving at a large black gate, he knocked, as before, and was told he would get instant admittance the moment he gave his name.
"Billy Dawson," he replied.
"Off, instantly," said the porter to his companions, "and let his Majesty know that the rascal he dreads so much is here at the gate."
Such a racket and tumult were never heard as the very mention of Billy Dawson created.
In the meantime, his old acquaintance came running towards the gate with such haste and consternation, that his tail was several times nearly tripping up his heels.
"Don't admit that rascal," he shouted; "bar the gate—make every chain, and lock and bolt, fast—I won't be safe—and I won't stay here, nor none of us need stay here, if he gets in—my bones are sore yet after him. No, no—begone you villain—you'll get no entrance here—I know you too well."
Bill could not help giving a broad, malicious grin at Satan, and, putting his nose through the bars, he exclaimed—"Ha! you ould dog, I have you afraid of me at last, have I?"
He had scarcely uttered the words, when his foe, who stood inside, instantly tweaked him by the nose, and Bill felt as if he had been gripped by the same red-hot tongs with which he himself had formerly tweaked the nose of Nicholas.