“About us!”
“You see the revenue cutter’s hanging about here a deal, and it looks bad.”
“Surely no one would betray you, Master Shackle?”
“Hope not, Sir Risdon; but it’s okkard. There’s a three-masted lugger coming over from Ushant, and she may be in to-night. There’s some nice thick fogs about now, and it’s a quiet sea. Your cellars are quite empty, I s’pose?”
The last remark came so quickly, that the hearer started, and made no reply.
“You see, Sir Risdon, we might run the cargo, and stow it all up at my place, for we’ve plenty o’ room; but if they got an idea of it aboard the cutter, she’d land some men somehow, and come and search me, but they wouldn’t dare to come and search you. I’ve got a bad character, but you haven’t.”
“No, no, Master Shackle; I cannot; I will not.”
“The lads could run it up the valley, and down into your cellar, Sir Risdon,” whispered the man, as if afraid that the old grey horse would hear; “nobody would be a bit the wiser, and you’d be doing a neighbour a good turn.”
“I—I cannot, Master Shackle; it is against the law.”
“Dutchman’s law, not the laws of Bonnie Prince Charlie. You will, Sir Risdon?”