“You wish to go to America, Tom?” continued he, after a pause.
“Ay; I never feel safe here. I 'm too near home.”
“Well, if everything prospers with us, you shall have the money by Tuesday—Wednesday at farthest. Rica has at last found a clew to old Corrigan, and, although he seems in great poverty, his name upon a bill will still raise some hundreds.”
“I don't care who pays it, but I must get it,” said the other, whose savage mood seemed to have returned. “I 'll not stay here. 'T is little profit or pleasure I have standin' every night to see the crowds that are passing in, to be cheated out of their money,—to hear the clink of the goold I 'm never to handle,—and to watch all the fine livin' and coortin' that I 've no share in.”
“Be satisfied. You shall have the money; I pledge my word upon it.”
“I don't care for your word. I have a better security than ever it was.”
“And what may that be?” said the other, cautiously.
“Your neck in a halter, Mr. Linton,” said he, laughing ironically. “Ay, ye don't understand me,—poor innocent that ye are! but I know what I 'm saying, and I have good advice about it besides.”
“How do you mean good advice, Tom?” said Linton, with seeming kindliness of manner. “Whom have you consulted?”
“One that knows the law well,” said Tom, with all the evasive shrewdness of his class.