"It is but a step to Queen Street," I said to the lank lad; "so if by chance the young lady herself be living there, you shall wait her pleasure and bring me my answer." And I gave him three bright shillings fresh struck from the mint that year.
"You will go with me, Jack?" I asked, as the messenger vanished.
Mount, sprawling by the window, turned his massive head towards me like a sombre-eyed mastiff.
"Daylight is no friend o' mine," he said, slowly. "In Boston here they peddle ballads about me and Cade; and some puling quill-mender has writ a book about me, the same bearing a gallows on the cover."
"Then you had best stay here," I said; "I can manage very well alone, Jack."
"Once," continued Mount, thoughtfully, polishing his hatchet on his buckskin breeches—"once I went strolling on the Neck, yonder, and no thought o' the highway either, when a large, fat man came a-waddling with two servants, and a pair o' saddle-bags as fat as the man, every bit."
He licked his lips and slowly turned his eyes away from mine.
"The moon was knee-high over the salt-grass," he continued; "the devil's in the moon when it's knee-high."
"So you robbed him," I added, disgusted. Mount glanced guiltily around the room—anywhere but at me.
"I only asked him what his saddle-bags might weigh," he muttered, "and the fat fool bawled, 'Thief! Help!' If he had not put it in my mind to scotch him!—but the great booby must out with his small-sword and call up his men. So, when he fell a-roaring that he was a King's magistrate—why—why, I rubbed a pistol under his nose. And would you believe it, lad, the next thing I knew, Cade and I could scarce walk for the weight o' the half-crowns in our breeches-pockets! It amazes me even yet—it does indeed!"