“Here’s one of ’em licking my face. Oh, I zay, it don’t mean tasting me first to zee whether I’m good, do it?”
“No; the poor brutes believe we are friends, I suppose, from being shut up with us. But, Pete, they’ve all gone off after the others. Couldn’t we try to escape again?”
“Nay; t’others have got the boat.”
“But the high ground yonder, or the woods?”
“Nay; they’d hunt us down with the dogs. The beggars would go at us if they hounded ’em on.”
Nic was silenced for a few moments, and he sat with a dog on either side and his arms on their necks.
“But we could get out again; the shingles must be off the roof.”
“Yes; that’s how Humpy and the others got out, zir. They must ha’ known all our plans.”
“Let’s creep out, then; the dogs couldn’t follow.”
“S’pose not, zir; but they’d make howl enough to bring the gaffers back to lay ’em on our scent. I don’t think it’s any use to try. I’d face it and the dogs too with my knife; they never took it away from me. Did they take yourn?”