"Every word of it, friend. An' what then? A man's apt to say anything to save 'is neck—now ain't 'e? Wouldn't you?"
Now at this I was silent and we walked for a while with never a word.
"And your mother?" I questioned at last. "Your mother praying for you—was that also untrue?"
"My mother," said he, lifting his face to the radiant moon, "my mother died three years ago—on her knees—prayin' for me—an' it's like enough she's on 'er knees afore th' Throne a-prayin' for me this werry minute."
"And yet you are a—highwayman?"
"Why, friend, 'tis in the family, y' see. My father was one afore me an' uncommon successful—much looked up to in 'is perfession, though a little too quick o' th' trigger finger—but 'e was took at last, 'ung at Tyburn an' gibbeted on Blackheath. They took me to see 'im in 'is chains, an' bein' only a little lad, I cried all the way back 'ome to my mother an' found 'er a-cryin' too. But because 'e'd been so famous in 'is perfession they gibbeted 'im very 'igh, an' so, as folk 'ad looked up to 'im in life they did the same in death."
"Yours is a very evil, dangerous life," said I, after a while.
"Evil?" he repeated. "Well, life mostly is evil if ye come to think on it. An' as for danger—'t's so-so—three times shot, six times in jail an' many a rousin' gallop wi' the hue an' cry behind. But arter all 'tis my perfession an' there's worse, so what I am I'll be."
"And will you let your mother pray in vain?"
"In vain," he repeated, "in vain? Why, blast the Pope, hasn't she saved me from bein' scragged many a time—didn't she save me t'night?"