Mac-Guffog, when they entered the courtyard, suffered Bertram to pause for a minute, and look upon his companions in affliction. When he had cast his eye around, on faces on which guilt, and despondence, and low excess, had fixed their stigma; upon the spendthrift, and the swindler, and the thief, the bankrupt debtor, the "moping idiot, and the madman gay," whom a paltry spirit of economy congregated to share this dismal habitation, he felt his heart recoil with inexpressible loathing from enduring the contamination of their society even for a moment.
"I hope, sir," he said to the keeper "you intend to assign me a place of confinement apart?
"And what should I be the better of that?"
"Why, sir I can but be detained here a day or two, and it would be very disagreeable to me to mix in the sort of company this place affords."
"And what do I care for that?"
"Why, then, sir, to speak to your feelings," said Bertram, "I shall be willing to make you a handsome compliment for this indulgence."
"Ay, but when, Captain? when and how? that's the question, or rather, the twa questions," said the jailor.
"When I am delivered, and get my remittances from England," answered the prisoner.
Mac-Guffog shook his head incredulously. "Why, friend, you do not pretend to believe that I am really a malefactor?" said Bertram.
"Why, I no ken," said the fellow; "but if you are on the account, ye're nae sharp ane, that's the daylight o't."