The first sight of my talisman was not enough. Mr Hart was wary. He hesitated, and struggled with himself for a considerable time—not so much, I thought, for the sake of the watch, as from fear that, after all, I would apprehend him.
“You will do me,” said he, “as you did the Highlander’s wife.”
“No,” replied I, “I will be on honour with you. Look,—you may make sure work,—I’ll not take the watch out of your hands till I have burned the warrant.”
The promise caught him. He drew on his stockings again,—for he had been preparing for bed,—put on his shoes and hat, and getting a candle, lighted it.
“Wait here,” said he, and went out.
I don’t like these leavings, I have sometimes found no returns; so I followed him to the door, and dogged him to the foot of a close not far from his house. He went up till he came to an old thatched byre, to the top of which he got by means of a heap of rubbish. When I saw the candle glimmering on the top of the house, a solitary light amidst the darkness, and all around as still as death, I could not help thinking of the romance that hangs round the secret ways of vice. The cowkeeper, as he fed his charge, never suspected that there was a treasure over crummie’s head; no more did the urchins, who rode on the rigging, dream of the presence of so wonderful a thing to them as a gold watch.
All safe, said I to myself, as I saw the light changing its place, and descending. Then it came down the close, and we stood face to face.
“Here it is,” said he; “but I tell you once for all, that I am as powerful a man as you, and that”——
“Stop,” said I, “no need, my good fellow; give me your candle. There,” continued I, as I applied the blank complaint to the flame, and saw it flare up and die away into a black film, “there’s your bargain,—now mine.”
And I got the watch, and supplied the want.