"That too I have heard before. Once, I mind, you expected to be a duke by exploiting ill-gotten gains with Jacobite intrigue. Aye, you would have ruined your country, sold her to the French like enough, all for a peerage. Now, I suppose, you would do it again."
"What would you?"
Murray flicked a pinch of snuff into his nostrils.
"The luck was against me, although you, yourself, and silent Peter there, know how close to success I came."
"Ja," squeaked Peter, still busy crushing nuts and slowly crunching their meats.
"I have had the Devil's own luck," Murray went on, heedless of the Dutchman. "In the '45 I was half the world away, for there were too many cruisers abroad in the Caribbees for my comfort. Before I could get back the Prince had played and lost. A shame! With me——"
"With you he would have been sold to Government for the thirty thousand pounds reward that Cumberland offered." said my father.
Murray looked hurt.
"I have been accused of much," he replied; "but never of disloyalty to King James or his sons."
"True," assented my father; "you could never earn anything by it. Your opportunities all came from the other direction."