'No, mein Herr; but as I commit him to your charge-'
'To my charge! to the charge of steel and gunpowder! and—well, if it must be, it must; but you have a tolerably good guess what's like to come of it.'
'O, my dear friend, I trust no degree of severity will be necessary,' replied Glossin.
'Severity!' said the fellow, with a kind of groan, 'I wish you had had my dreams when I first came to this dog-hole, and tried to sleep among the dry seaweed. First, there was that d-d fellow there, with his broken back, sprawling as he did when I hurled the rock over a-top on him, ha, ha! You would have sworn he was lying on the floor where you stand, wriggling like a crushed frog, and then—'
'Nay, my friend,' said Glossin, interrupting him, 'what signifies going over this nonsense? If you are turned chicken-hearted, why, the game's up, that's all; the game's up with us both.'
'Chicken-hearted? no. I have not lived so long upon the account to start at last, neither for devil nor Dutchman.'
'Well, then, take another schnaps; the cold's at your heart still. And now tell me, are any of your old crew with you?'
'Nein; all dead, shot, hanged, drowned, and damned. Brown was the last. All dead but Gipsy Gab, and he would go off the country for a spill of money; or he'll be quiet for his own sake; or old Meg, his aunt, will keep him quiet for hers.'
'Which Meg?'
'Meg Merrilies, the old devil's limb of a gipsy witch.'