“Well, sure, me gay Tom, bad luck to his Scotch greediness for money, must turn sutler, so he must. And so that was the way I came to be among them; for ye didn’t think I was going to lave him to his own devices so far as to let him go alone, did ye?”
“I don’t know,” laughed Justin; “but how came you to be captured?”
“Sure the divil got into the horses, and we couldn’t make them go along, and keep up with the train; and we fell behind! That was how it was, let alone the fact that if there is any sort iv a misfortune at all at all, going round, meself is always sure to fall into it! Sure and wasn’t I shipwrecked, and left for dead on a baste iv an island? And didn’t I meet with thim haythen iv pirates, and get into a say fight? And don’t it follow in coorse that whin I took to the suttling line iv business I should fall among thaives? Sure it’s me luck!—Tom! bad manners to ye! why don’t ye come and spake to the gentleman?” inquired Judith, suddenly breaking off from her discourse, and addressing her husband.
McAlpine, nodding and growling something in reply, made a step forward to comply with this suggestion. But the guard who had permitted the woman to talk to the new prisoner, would on no account allow the man to do so, and Judith’s gay Tom had to keep his place.
CHAPTER XVIII.
MONCK.
The fellow was a sordid soul
Such as does murder for a meed;
Who, but of fear, knows no control,
Because his conscience, seared and foul,
Feels not the import of his deed;