“I would die a thousand times sooner,” said Cleveland.
“I will be sworn for it,” said Bunce; “and the others were forecastle fellows—petty larceny rogues, scarce worth the hemp it would have cost to hang them. But your name has stood too high amongst the gentlemen of fortune for you to get off so easily. You are the prime buck of the herd, and will be marked accordingly.”
“And why so, I pray you?” said Cleveland; “you know well enough my aim, Jack.”
“Frederick, if you please,” said Bunce.
“The devil take your folly!—Prithee keep thy wit, and let us be grave for a moment.”
“For a moment—be it so,” said Bunce; “but I feel the spirit of Altamont coming fast upon me,—I have been a grave man for ten minutes already.”
“Be so then for a little longer,” said Cleveland; “I know, Jack, that you really love me; and, since we have come thus far in this talk, I will trust you entirely. Now tell me, why should I be refused the benefit of this gracious proclamation? I have borne a rough outside, as thou knowest; but, in time of need, I can show the numbers of lives which I have been the means of saving, the property which I have restored to those who owned it, when, without my intercession, it would have been wantonly destroyed. In short, Bunce, I can show”——
“That you were as gentle a thief as Robin Hood himself,” said Bunce; “and, for that reason, I, Fletcher, and the better sort among us, love you, as one who saves the character of us Gentlemen Rovers from utter reprobation.—Well, suppose your pardon made out, what are you to do next?—what class in society will receive you?—with whom will you associate? Old Drake, in Queen Bess’s time, could plunder Peru and Mexico without a line of commission to show for it, and, blessed be her memory! he was knighted for it on his return. And there was Hal Morgan, the Welshman, nearer our time, in the days of merry King Charles, brought all his gettings home, had his estate and his country-house, and who but he? But that is all ended now—once a pirate, and an outcast for ever. The poor devil may go and live, shunned and despised by every one, in some obscure seaport, with such part of his guilty earnings as courtiers and clerks leave him—for pardons do not pass the seals for nothing;—and, when he takes his walk along the pier, if a stranger asks, who is the down-looking, swarthy, melancholy man, for whom all make way, as if he brought the plague in his person, the answer shall be, that is such a one, the pardoned pirate!—No honest man will speak to him, no woman of repute will give him her hand.”
“Your picture is too highly coloured, Jack,” said Cleveland, suddenly interrupting his friend; “there are women—there is one at least, that would be true to her lover, even if he were what you have described.”
Bunce was silent for a space, and looked fixedly at his friend. “By my soul!” he said, at length, “I begin to think myself a conjurer. Unlikely as it all was, I could not help suspecting from the beginning that there was a girl in the case. Why, this is worse than Prince Volscius in love, ha! ha! ha!”