He sent a look at me, and then recoiled with something of a shiver. He sent another and fell into a kind of trembling, and I could see that fear of me was springing in his eyes. My will was matched against his own; and it was now a case of mastery. But ’twas his that did prevail. A third time he came with his fiery look; I quailed before it, and next instant his lips had known my cheek.
“My lad,” says I, and I was shaking like a leaf, “I think you are formed for greatness. Do you know that there is not another man in England who could have dared that deed?”
“And strike me pale!” says he, “don’t ask me to dare it any more. I much prefer the whipping-post.”
And whiter than before he sat upon the bed in a condition pretty much the equal of my own.
“What, you’ve known the whipping-post?” I cried. “What adventures you have had! And brought up in a priory. Now tell me all about ’em.”
“Three times to the whipping-post,” says he, “twice to the pillory, twice to Edinburgh Tolbooth, and once a broken leg, and various embroilments, and strange accidents by sea and land.”
“Oh! my lad,” says I, “if we had but time, what would I not give to hear your life recited? But the whipping-post? What’s it like? Do you know, I’ve been nearly tempted there myself, for it must be a very unique sensation.”
“It is something like kissing you, madam, only nothing like so painful.”
This incorrigible rogue said this with the sobriety of a cardinal.
“And now,” says he, “I won’t tell you one other solitary thing till you have appeased my hunger. I am famishing.”