"Egad, you haven't turned blue, have you? Why, bless my soul, you spoke just like old Power, or some such snivelling Puritan. Come, get rid of all this nonsense, and listen to me. I have come to get you clear of these quarters. Egad they don't agree with one; faugh! how close this cell is; you must get out, and breathe the fresh air."
"I am resolved to abide the worst, Captain; thanks for all your trouble; I will be tried, condemned, and hung; the world will wag on just the same when I am gone."
"Trash—who the devil has put this nonsense into your brains? Has the parson been here? You are right, by G—! a week in prison has changed you a bit, I am d—d if I'd know you to be the same fellow! You sit moping like a girl under sentence of death for murdering her child! Come, cheer up; I tell you this air is bad for any one. Egad, it is making me feel quite devout. Oh! d— that accursed thunderstorm"—as a brilliant flash blazed through the cell—"hark at the rain, you and I will have a wet night of it."
"Is it not like the voice of God calling us to account for our wickedness?"
"The voice of the devil! why I swear you must set up gaol chaplain. What in the name of Heaven has put such ideas into your brainpan? a common bout of thunder the voice of God,—anything else?"
"Blaspheme not! leave me to my fate—hanging is too good for me; you brought me to this—"
"And I'll bring you out of it again, one good turn deserves another! Do you think I am as great a fool as yourself? What hangs you hangs me also, and I am not so jolly tired of life as you are just now. Wait till you are out of this cursed hole, and you will get like yourself again; life is too sweet to be thrown away like a coat!"
"To you it may be sweet—all that would render it so to me is gone! My love is blighted—my hopes dead—the world would only be 'a wider prison;' let me end my misery with my life, and bury my shame with my body."
"Preaching again! Look you, Ned, it is always the same accursed story, a lot of stuff talked—then you accept, and then retract, and after all go. Now I have no time for this! you shall not be tried—nor condemned—nor hung! I have planned your escape, and by Heaven it was no easy matter, and deuced expensive with bribes! A score of fellows are all ready to play their part, and I am d—d if you shall fail."
"How am I to escape?" said L'Estrange, beginning to feel freedom, after all, was not to be despised; "the walls are high, the watchers vigilant."