stopper, and poked it away in the cupboard, all the while chattering to herself and mouthing like some gibbering ape. Taking her own glass then, with so palsied a hand that she surely spilt half the contents, she hobbled to the hearth and crouched down by it, alternately p. 70licking her fingers and sipping her grog,—her green eyes glinting at Roger and me.

p. 70

I tasted the liquor in the glass, and finding it a spirit that burnt my very lips, I did not drink it, but handed the glass back to Roger, who, muttering “Your health, young master,” drained it for me. Martin sat drinking slowly; Roger, as warming from the stuff, began to stamp impatiently to and fro over the stone floor. Pausing at last by Martin, he demanded, thickly, “What hour’s he like to be here? How long am I to wait in this stinkin’ den?”—at which Mother Mag cackled sardonically, choked and spat, lying back against the chimney-piece red-eyed and gasping.

“He did not say what hour,” Martin answered, indifferently. “How should he know what hour the coach would come, or we be here? Sit down by the fire, man. Get your pipe; there’s tobacco in the jar on the shelf.”

“Am I to be kept here all night, when by break o’ day I should be about my business?”

Martin lifted his glass as though to admire its colour in the lamp-light. “Go then, my friend,” he said smoothly. “Oh, go by all means! Only blame yourself, not me, for aught that may happen in the course of a day or so. You’d make p. 71a pretty figure in the cart, Roger, and ’twould need a double rope to hold your body.”

p. 71

“Damn you!” roared Roger, swinging up his hand, but Martin’s eyes, watching him intently, and the smile flickering still upon his lips, the big man swung round once more and pointed to me. “You’re makin’ a sweet song o’ hangin’, Martin,” he muttered. “You’re sayin’ what your precious gentleman may do or mayn’t, as the case may be. Peach on me, you mean—if so be I don’t wait for him, and if so be I don’t do as I’m told. Only, don’t you be forgettin’, that ’twas him as told us to hold up old Skinflint’s coach, and nab the lad there. And that’s robbery by the King’s highway,—and get that into your head, and keep it there. And, by God, Martin, if he’s got his claws on me, I’ve got my claws on to him from this night forth; and if he talks of hangin’, there’s others—ay, there’s others. You, Martin, and old Mag here, and him.”

“Pish, man,” said Martin, 

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