“Why,” says I, “you will be shot to death for deserters if you are taken, and they will send out scouts for you in the morning all over the country, so that you will certainly fall into their hands.” “As for that,” says he, “my comrade is thoroughly acquainted with the way, and he has undertaken to bring us to the banks of the Tweed before they can come up with us; and when we are on the other side of the Tweed, they can’t take us up.”
“And when would you go away?” says I.
“This minute,” says he; “no time to be lost; ’tis a fine moonshining night.”
“I have none of my baggage,” says I; “let me go back and fetch my linen and other things.”
“Your linen is not much, I suppose,” says he, “and we shall easily get more in England the old way.”
“No,” says I, “no more of your old ways. It has been owing to those old ways that we are now in such a strait.”
“Well, well,” says he, “the old ways are better than this starving life of a gentleman, as we call it.”
“But,” says I, “we have no money in our pockets. How shall we travel?”
“I have a little,” says the captain, “enough to help us on to Newcastle; and if we can get none by the way, we will get some collier-ship to take us in and carry us to London by sea.”
“I like that the best of all the measures you have laid yet,” said I; and so I consented to go, and went off with him immediately. The cunning rogue, having lodged his comrade a mile off under the hills, had dragged me by talking with him, by little and little, that way, till just when I consented he was in sight, and he said, “Look, there’s my comrade!” who I knew presently, having seen him among the men.