“What may that be to you, mein gut child? Donner! have I no power left to look after mein safety, and by returning the knabe, Hector Ashley, to the house of his vater, get a riddence of the outlawry against me and mein crew?”
“Hans Gerstendorf,” replied Mary, “is this the faith pledged to me langsyne, when I put into your hand twa hunder siller merks, as the apprentice fee o’ Hector Ashley, and the reward o’ eternal silence as to his birth and lineage? This may be German troth, but it belangs na to the honour o’ Galloway.”
“The faith, and the promise, and the covenant,” replied the German, “belong to the men who live under the laws—Teufel! are not the sharks and the hounds, by the sea and by the land, smelling for us and baying for us?—and doesna the hang-tief stand on the lang sands o’ Leith to mak langer, by twa inches, the craigs o’ the pirate and his gang? Ha! mein gut Maria, what is the troth to the life, the breath, and the soul that kensna repentance for ten thousand crimes?—One chance is left, and that is, to tell Peter Fleming the secret o’ his parentage, and his history, from that day when I kidnapped him at the Fisherman’s Cairn, and left his cla’es on the stones to beguile his father. Once in the Castle and we are safe.”
The resolution, intention, or wish, thus expressed by the German, deeply affected Mary. For some time she replied not—her hand was on her forehead, and she was apparently musing in deep thought; at last she started.
“Weel, weel,” she said, in a choked voice—“weel, since it is as ye say, that your lives are in danger, let your way be as ye wish. But whar are ye concealed?”
And, as she put the question, her eye watched the looks of the German.
“My men are amang the high bent that grows on the drifted sand, twa miles doun the coast. But wha is now the proprietor o’ ‘The Castle?’ for I maun tell Peter the name of the man wha is to be his enemy; and we may hae to fecht our way to head-quarters.”
“There is naebody in the House,” answered Mary.
“Blut! that is the good tidings,” ejaculated Hans, in joy. “Hurra, then, for the Castle!” And he dashed through the willows that overhung the burial-ground, where they stood.
On that night, three hours after, intelligence was said to have been given by Mary Lee to the procurator-fiscal of the stewartry, that the outlawed pirates lay in the sea bent at the banks of the Solway. A band of armed men repaired to the place, and Hans Gerstendorf and his men, among whom was Peter Fleming, no other than Hector Ashley, were seized and put in irons, and carried to the jail of Dumfries. The unhappy men were afterwards removed to the jail of Edinburgh, tried, and four of them, including Fleming, condemned to be executed on the sands of Leith, for the crime of piracy on the high seas. They were executed accordingly.