“And Stephen Barbour, you say, is his name?” cried the tramp, with every feature of his face gradually overspreading with horror and loathing.
“Yes, that is his name.”
“My God!” moaned the white-haired tramp, snatching the bite from his own mouth and dashing it down on the road, and then trampling on it with insensate fury; “my God! and I broke bread with him, and took the drink from his hands, and thought him so kind and noble-looking! And I said ‘God bless him,’ not knowing any better. Why did the words not blister on my tongue?”
“You know him, then? You have met the young laird before?” said the astonished toll-keeper.
“Never, never! But I know him, the scoundrel! I know him too well.”
“He’s no scoundrel,” cried the toll-keeper, warmly. “He’s as good and true a man as any that breathes. Everybody likes him far or near, and never yet did I hear any but yourself say a word against him.”
The tramp did not seem to hear the words. He sent the last of the biscuits skimming as far as he could throw them, and, wringing his hands, he dropped on his knees on the dusty road.
“Forgive me, Meg, forgive me!” he muttered in a frantic fashion, with his thoughts evidently far away. “How could I know any better?”
Tears were flowing down his cheeks, and these stopped the harsh words which were rising to the lips of the toll-keeper. The tramp tugged out a ragged handkerchief to wipe away the tears, and in doing so dragged out something hard and shiny, which dropped with a metallic clank on the road. The toll-keeper looked round just in time to see that the dropped article was a pistol, which the tramp was hurriedly putting out of sight again. All his sympathy vanished at the sight of the weapon.
“You had better be going,” he said coldly, “for if the police saw you carrying that, they’d soon give you a place to sleep in.”