His two companions were stout, short-built men of a coarse type. But Walterson after a single glance, paid no heed to them. His eyes, his thoughts, his attention were all on the bundle. Yet, it was not possible, it could not be what he dreaded. It was too small, too small! And yet he shuddered.
“What is it?” he asked in uncertain accents.
“The worth of a man’s neck, may be,” one of the two men grunted.
“Oh, curse your may-be’s!” the other who carried the child struck in. “It’s a smart bit of justice, master, with no may-be about it! And came in our way just when we were ready for it. Let’s look at the kid.”
“The kid?”
Walterson repeated the words, and opened his mouth dumb-founded. He looked at Thistlewood.
The tall man, who was warming his back at the fire, shrugged his square shoulders.
“I’ve naught to do with it!” he said. “Ask them!”
“Don’t you know what a kid is?” Giles, one of the two others, retorted, with a glance of contempt. “A kinchin! a yelper! It’s Squire Clyne’s, if you must know. He’ll learn now what it is to see your children trodden under foot and your women-kind slashed and cut with sabres! He’s ground the faces of the poor long enough! D——n him, he’s as bad as Castlereagh, the devil! But, hallo!” breaking off. “If I don’t think, mate, you’ve squeezed his throat a bit too tight!”
He had unwound the wrappings and disclosed the still and inanimate form of a boy about six years old, but small for his age. The thin bloodless hands were clenched, the head hung back, the eyes were half-closed; and the tiny face showed so deathly white—among those tanned faces and in that grimy place—that it was not wonderful that the man fancied for a moment that the child was dead.