“No, no; I will tell you who I asked for you. You will not be surprised.”
“Who?—Who dared you ask for me?”
“There was a man hung last Monday—”
“Well, w—what is that to me? If there were fifty men hung? What is it to me, I say?”
“Nothing—oh, nothing, Andrew Britton; but I asked if he knew your hiding-place.”
“Why ask him?”
“Because the good and just cannot know you; you belong not to them; I asked the man who stood beneath the gibbet if he had been tempted to crime by Andrew Britton, the savage smith of Learmont; I asked the hangman if he knew you, and when he said he did not, I described you to him, that he might recognise you, when his cold clammy hands, are about your neck!”
“Prating idiot!” said Britton, “if you tempt me to the deed, I’ll cast you over the bridge!”
“You dare not, Andrew Britton! You dare not,” cried Maud. “Savage as you are, you dare not do that! Strange, too, as you boast yourself, you could not!”
“Indeed!“ answered Britton. “Now, by Heaven—”