“So’m I, my lad. Pretty sort o’ onreasonable beggar. Asts us to save him from the King’s men, and when we’ve got him off, kicking up such a fillaloo as this to show ’em where we are. I arn’t got patience with him, that I arn’t.”
The man struggled again so violently that he got his hand on one side, making the boat rock and Tom Bodger grunt in his efforts to keep his prisoner down.
“It’s no good, Master Aleck,” he whispered, hoarsely; “if I’d got my legs I could twist ’em round him and keep him still; but there’s no grip in a pair of wooden pegs. Come and sit on his knees and help keep him quiet. Lash the helm, sir. She’ll run easy enough then.”
But at this the smuggler suddenly ceased his desperate efforts to get free, and lay perfectly still.
“He’s turned over a noo leaf, Master Aleck, and p’raps I shall manage him now. I say, wish I hadn’t put them two pieces o’ board over the pitch; he’s got it just under his back, and it would have helped to hold him still.”
“Who’s that?” said the smuggler, hoarsely.
“It’s me, what there is left on me,” growled Tom. “Great ugly rough ’un. Best thing you can do will be smuggle me a noo blue shirt from Jarsey.”
“Tom Bodger?”
“Tom Bodger it is.”
“Why are you sitting on me? I thought—”