“And listen to me,” Roger blustered, “if you’d peach on me, I know enough to pull you down.”

“My good Roger Galt,” said my uncle, laughing easily. “I’m not questioning that you’ve served me as well this night as you’ve served me on any other occasion. And I’ll pay you well, as I’ve paid you always. Where’s the boy, Martin?”

“Fast up above,” Martin replied.

“And Bradbury?”

“Lying in the road like a dead man when we left him.”

“I trust,” said Mr. Craike, piously, “that you’ve done him no hurt beyond repair.”

“No more than he did himself,” said Martin, laughing. “He’d a pair of barkers with him, when the coach pulled up. He fell out into the road; his pistols fired; and he lay there in the mire.”

“And you took the boy and have him safely here. Ay, ay.”

“Would you see him?” Martin asked.

“Oh, not I! What’s he like, though?”

p. 85“As like his father,” Roger broke in heavily, “as one barker’s like its pair.”

p. 85

“His father! Ay! His father was passionate—lacked discretion; the boy’s the offspring of his father’s folly,” with a laugh at which I raged silently, understanding the slur he put upon me.

“And what now of the lad?” Roger persisted. “What would you do with him, now he’s here?”

“Friend Roger Galt, you’re asking too much of me and my affairs!”

“Ay, ay, but what’s the answer? You’ve kidnapped him; would ye ship him overseas? That I’ll not quarrel with; he’d have a chance for his life, and he’d fare none so ill, for a rope’s end’s well for a lad.”

“Maybe that is my purpose,” my uncle said, coldly.

“But no more than that!” cried Roger Galt. “By God, Mr. Craike, I’ll not have him done to death by Mart and Mother Mag or any other of your rogues. I’ll not!”

“He’s so commended himself to you,” my uncle sneered.

“He’s like his father. Your brother 

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