“I canna tell,” said I. “I think not. If I was only sure!”
“And you have but to break the seal!” said she.
“I know it,” said I, “but the thing goes against me.”
“Give it here,” said she, “and I will open it myself.”
“Nor you neither,” said I. “You least of all. It concerns your father, and his honour, dear, which we are both misdoubting. No question but the place is dangerous-like, and the English ship being here, and your father having word from it, and yon officer that stayed ashore! He would not be alone either; there must be more along with him; I daresay we are spied upon this minute. Ay, no doubt, the letter should be opened; but somehow, not by you nor me.”
I was about thus far with it, and my spirit very much overcome with a sense of danger and hidden enemies, when I spied Alan, come back again from following James, and walking by himself among the sandhills. He was in his soldier’s coat, of course, and mighty fine; but I could not avoid to shudder when I thought how little that jacket would avail him, if he were once caught and flung in a skiff, and carried on board of the Seahorse, a deserter, a rebel, and now a condemned murderer.
“There,” said I, “there is the man that has the best right to open it: or not, as he thinks fit.”
With which I called upon his name, and we both stood up to be a mark for him.
“If it is so—if it be more disgrace—will you can bear it?” she asked, looking upon me with a burning eye.
“I was asked something of the same question when I had seen you but the once,” said I. “What do you think I answered? That if I liked you as I thought I did—and O, but I like you better!—I would marry you at his gallows’ foot.”