“I have told her,” said Gilbert, “that she shall always have a home and a shelter in my house. If it's any satisfaction to you, here's my hand on it!”
“I believe you, Potter. Deb.'s done ill by me; she shouldn't ha' bullied me when I was sore and tetchy, and fagged out with your curst huntin' of me up and down! But I'll do that much for her and for you. Here; bend your head down; I've got to whisper.”
Gilbert leaned his ear to the highwayman's mouth.
“You'll only tell her, you understand?”
Gilbert assented.
“Say to her these words,—don't forgit a single one of 'em!—Thirty steps from the place she knowed about, behind the two big chestnut-trees, goin' towards the first cedar, and a forked sassyfrack growin' right over it. What she finds, is your'n.”
“Sandy!” Gilbert exclaimed, starting from his listening posture.
“Hush, I say! You know what I mean her to do,—give you your money back. I took a curse with it, as you said. Maybe that's off o' me, now!”
“It is!” said Gilbert, in a low tone, “and forgiveness—mine and my mother's—in the place of it. Have you any”—he hesitated to say the words—“any last messages, to her or anybody else, or anything you would like to have done?”
“Thank ye, no!—unless Deb. can find my black hair and whiskers. Then you may give 'em to Barton, with my dutiful service.”