‘The devil you will!’ answered Crackenthorp. ‘You were better not, for they have the bloody-backed dragoons from Carlisle with them.’
‘Nay, then,’ said Nanty, ‘we must make sail. Come, Master Fairlord, you must mount and ride. He does not hear me—he has fainted, I believe—What the devil shall I do? Father Crackenthorp, I must leave this young fellow with you till the gale blows out—hark ye—goes between the laird and the t’other old one; he can neither ride nor walk—I must send him up to you.’
‘Send him up to the gallows!’ said Crackenthorp; ‘there is Quartermaster Thwacker, with twenty men, up yonder; an he had not some kindness for Doll, I had never got hither for a start—but you must get off, or they will be here to seek us, for his orders are woundy particular; and these kegs contain worse than whisky—a hanging matter, I take it.’
‘I wish they were at the bottom of Wampool river, with them they belong to,’ said Nanty Ewart. ‘But they are part of cargo; and what to do with the poor young fellow—’
‘Why, many a better fellow has roughed it on the grass with a cloak o’er him,’ said Crackenthorp. ‘If he hath a fever, nothing is so cooling as the night air.’
‘Yes, he would be cold enough in the morning, no doubt; but it’s a kind heart and shall not cool so soon if I can help it,’ answered the captain of the JUMPING JENNY.
‘Well, captain, an ye will risk your own neck for another man’s, why not take him to the old girls at Fairladies?’
‘What, the Miss Arthurets! The Papist jades! But never mind; it will do—I have known them take in a whole sloop’s crew that were stranded on the sands.’
‘You may run some risk, though, by turning up to Fairladies; for I tell you they are all up through the country.’
‘Never mind—I may chance to put some of them down again,’ said Nanty, cheerfully. ‘Come, lads, bustle to your tackle. Are you all loaded?’