‘I will teach you a better trick,’ said Nixon. ‘There is a bloody pack of rebels yonder.’
‘Aye, we all know that,’ said the smuggler; ‘but the snowball’s melting, I think.’
‘There is some one yonder, whose head is worth—thirty thousand—pounds—of sterling money,’ said Nixon, pausing between each word, as if to enforce the magnificence of the sum.
‘And what of that?’ said Ewart, quickly.
‘Only that, instead of lying by the pier with your men on their oars, if you will just carry your boat on board just now, and take no notice of any signal from the shore, by G—d, Nanty Ewart. I will make a man of you for life!’
‘Oh ho! then the Jacobite gentry are not so safe as they think themselves?’ said Nanty.
‘In an hour or two,’ replied Nixon, ‘they will be made safer in Carlisle Castle.’
‘The devil they will!’ said Ewart; ‘and you have been the informer, I suppose?’
‘Yes; I have been ill paid for my service among the Redgauntlets—have scarce got dog’s wages—and been treated worse than ever dog was used. I have the old fox and his cubs in the same trap now, Nanty; and we’ll see how a certain young lady will look then. You see I am frank with you, Nanty.’
‘And I will be as frank with you,’ said the smuggler. ‘You are a d—d old scoundrel—traitor to the man whose bread you eat! Me help to betray poor devils, that have been so often betrayed myself! Not if they were a hundred Popes, Devils, and Pretenders. I will back and tell them their danger—they are part of cargo—regularly invoiced—put under my charge by the owners—I’ll back’—