"Vy, your 'onor," said the man, bashfully, twirling a thing that stood proxy for a hat, "I thinks as 'ow I shall be hable to satisfy your vorship's 'onor.'! Then, approaching the judge and assuming an important air, he whispered, "'T is as 'ow I thought!"
"My God!" cried Brandon, with vehemence. "And he is alive,—and where?"
"I believes," answered the seemly confidant of Sir William Brandon, "that he be's alive; and if he be's alive, may I flash my ivories in a glass case, if I does not ferret him out; but as to saying vhere he be at this nick o' the moment, smash me if I can!"
"Is he in this country," said Brandon; "or do you believe that he has gone abroad?"
"Vy, much of one and not a little of the other!" said the euphonious confidant.
"How! speak plain, man; what do you mean?"
"Vy, I means, your 'oner, that I can't say vhere he is."
"And this," said Brandon, with a muttered oath,—"this is your boasted news, is it? Dog! damned, damned dog! if you trifle with me or play me false, I will hang you,—by the living God, I will!"
The man shrank back involuntarily from Brandon's vindictive forehead and kindled eyes; but with the cunning peculiar to low vice, answered, though in a humbler tone,—
"And vet good vill that do your 'oner? If so be as how you scrags I, will that put your vorship in the vay of finding he?"