“Ay, and render yourself liable to an action. Gripp would get sweeping damages.”
“Curse your damages!” returned the quarter-master. “Every body wonders that you employ a ruffian who swears black or white as bidden, and swallows oaths as he would bolt poached eggs.”
“I keep him,” said the lawyer, coolly, “because he’s useful. What capital stuff that Hollands is? Does Bill run it?”
“Run it! What—smuggle?”
“Ay, to be sure,” returned my worthy uncle. “I hear he’s the boldest boatman on the coast; and they tell me that he saved the shipwrecked Dutchman, when all had given him up as lost.”
“It is one thing,” replied the soldier, proudly, “to rescue a drowning man;—to rob the revenue, another. My son is no smuggler, Josh; nor ever will be one.”
“More fool he, then; there’s money to be made that way, and nothing to be got by the other, but bruised bones and a drenched jacket.”
“Nothing gotten!” exclaimed the honest quarter-master. “Is the grateful outbreaking of the heart of her to whom my boy’s gallantry has restored a husband—or the prayer of lisping childhood for him who saved a father,—are these nothing? What is money acquired by dishonesty, to these?”
The lawyer grinned sarcastically. “Tears and gratitude!” he repeated. “Will tears and gratitude pay rent?—will tears and gratitude pay taxes? You’re a fool, Dick. I would rather have a five-pound note than the united prayers of the parish.”
“I believe you,” replied the soldier.