The girl obeyed.
“Now then,” said Sooterkins, “As I’ve vormed the ten pounds out o’ Sal, all you’ve got to do is this. Be off now, d’rectly, and take all the by cuts till you’re out o’ town, snug in the fields. I’ve a friend as goes down on the mail in the morning, and mind, give him this jark. He’ll be down on the sly with you, for my sake. Then pull for Common Hard, and off over the Channel, till this ’ere job blows by. Lose no time, the night’s dark, and make forward like the wind.”
“And Bess?” said I, for the girl’s affection had interested me, and the emotions of my burglar friend began to quicken in my breast.
“Pshaw!” said Sooterkins, “why canst not mind thine own affairs, and let the girl alone?”
“I must speak to her before I go, Gabe,” I replied. “What she is, I have made her, and it would break my heart to leave her thus.”
“Speak, then, fool, and be spry about it.”
“Bess,” said I, stealing my arm around the waist of the unfortunate girl, “I must be off for Portsmouth.”
“Are you going, Bill?” she said, in a low and tremulous voice, as she lifted her eyes anxiously to mine; and that expression cut me to the soul, keen as a knife, “I never shall see you again.”
“Hush, dearest, you must not speak so. We shall see each other soon, and live as happy days as ever.”
The eyes of the young girl became suffused with tears.