“Go and beg at my brother’s,” snarled Uncle Luke.
“How can I, sir, with them in such trouble? Give me a drop, sir; ’bout a pint in the bottom of a bottle.”
“Hear her, Leslie? That’s modest. What would her ideas be of a fair quantity? There, you can go, Poll Perrow. You’ll get no spirits or wine from me.”
“Not much, sir, only a little.”
“A little? Ask some of your smuggling friends that you go to meet out beyond the East Town.”
The woman’s jaw dropped, and Leslie saw that a peculiar blank look of wonder came over her countenance.
“Go to meet—East Town?”
“Yes, you’re always stealing out there now before daybreak. I’ve watched you.”
“Now think of that, Master Leslie,” said the woman with a forced laugh. “I go with my basket to get a few of the big mussels yonder for bait, and he talks to me like that. There see,” she continued, swinging round her basket and taking out a handful of the shell-fish, “that’s the sort, sir. Let me leave you a few, Master Luke Vine.”
“I don’t believe you, Poll. It would not be the first time you were in a smuggling game. Remember that month in prison?”