I am afraid it was rather a bold statement; but I cried out that I could sing ballads.
"Oh, Jim. So you sing ballads, do you?" said the officer. "Get on to that chair and sing us a ballad."
But I was cunning and wary. "Please, sir," I said, "I'm very hungry. I don't sing, except for my dinner and a sixpence."
"So you defy the law already, do you?" said the newcomer. "Well. Eat some bread and cheese, and I will give you sixpence for a song."
So I sat down very thankfully, and made a good dinner at the table. I pretended to pay no attention to the officers; but really I listened very eagerly to all that they said. I gathered that the newcomer was a coastguard naval captain, of the name of Byrne, and I felt that he half-suspected and half-liked me, without thinking very much about me one way or the other. When I had finished my dinner—and I ate enough to last me till the night—I got upon my chair, without being pressed, and sang the ballad of "The White Cockade," then very popular all over the West country. My voice was not bad in those days, and I was used to singing; indeed, people sang more then than they do now. Everybody sang.
Captain Byrne seemed puzzled by my voice, and by my cultivated accent. "Who taught you to sing?" he asked.
So I answered that I had been in the village choir at home; which was true enough.
"And where was that?" he asked.
For a moment I thought that I would trust him, and tell him everything. Then, very foolishly, I determined to say nothing, so I said that it was a long way away, and that I had come from thence after my father had died. He whispered something to Mr. Gray, the other officer; and they looked at me curiously. They both gave me a sixpenny piece for my ballad; and then they went out. Captain Byrne stopped at the door. "Look here," he said, "you take my advice and go home. You will come to no good, leading this wandering life."
When they had gone, I went out also, and watched their chaise disappear. The last that I saw of them was the two top-hats of the runners, sticking up at the back of the conveyance, like little black chimneys.