The man started, but Beauchamp went on. "Smuggling had nothing to do with it; but as I know that your ideas of honour are very different from mine, I shall not of course press you to inform against men, whose crime you do not fully know, and whose guilt I myself could not clearly prove. Nevertheless, I must do my duty, and, well or ill, I must make my way to Dorchester to-morrow, in executing which purpose, I am sure you will aid me."
"That I will, sir! That I will!" answered the old man. "I will leave Bill to mend the boat, and I will set out for ---- by daylight, and you shall have a shay down at the red stile by two o'clock at farthest. No! No! I will never peach against a poor lad who trusted me; but somehow, what your honour has said, has made me feel a little queerish--I should like to know the truth of the business vastly--I don't like these jobs, that I don't--anything in the way of business I don't mind--but I don't--no I don't like these jobs at all!"
It was very evident, from the changed and anxious countenance which the old smuggler now presented, that what he said was very true; and though he could talk with the utmost coolness of killing a king's officer in a smuggling brawl, yet the vague and doubtful nature of the transactions into which he had been unwittingly entrapped, filled him with anxious apprehensions.
"Well, well, my good friend!" replied Beauchamp, whose object was not to alarm him too much on his own account, "At all events you have nothing to do with it, and I can bear witness to the conversation which took place between you and the young sailor last night, and which would at any time establish your ignorance of the whole facts."
"Thank your honour! Thank your honour!" cried the old man with evident heartfelt satisfaction. "Your honour's a gentleman---that you are; and I am sure that I would do anything your honour tells me--that's to say, I wouldn't like to peach, d'ye see--but anything else."
"All that can be required of you," replied Beauchamp, "is not to obstruct the course of justice; and, therefore, I shall trust to you to set out as early as possible to-morrow, to get me some conveyance; and farther, should you be called upon hereafter to give evidence in this business, take my advice, and tell the whole truth boldly and straightforwardly; for depend upon it, to tell a falsehood or to prevaricate, is the most dishonourable thing a man can do, whether his station be high or low."
"That it is sir, surely--that it is!" replied the smuggler; "and I will tell the truth when I am asked. But that is different, your honour knows, from going and telling without any one asking me."
"Certainly it is," said Beauchamp; "and I do not ask you to do more than tell it when it is asked--But now, my good sir, can I get dinner, or breakfast as it is to me; for I begin to feel that I have not eaten any thing for several hours?"
"Now, that's what I call being d--d stupid!" cried Willy Small, much to Beauchamp's surprise, who at first concluded that the smuggler's censure was addressed to him. "If my old woman did not send me up on purpose to tell your honour that she had done you three mackerel, and that, with a rasher of pickled pork, and some fried"--
"Good God!" cried Beauchamp, "I trust that she does not intend me to eat three mackerel, pickled pork, and fried anything!--But never mind--let me see them, by all means. I will eat what I can; and she must excuse me the rest."