‘Is that a’ I am good for now?’ said the indignant matron.  ’I was good for mair than that in the great fight between our folk and Patrico Salmon’s; if I had not helped you with these very fambles (holding up her hands), Jean Baillie would have frummagem’d you, ye feckless do-little!’

There was here another laugh at the expense of the hero who had received this amazon’s assistance.

‘Here, mother,’ said one of the sailors, ’here’s a cup of the right for you, and never mind that bully-huff.’

Meg drank the spirits, and, withdrawing herself from farther conversation, sat down before the spot where Brown lay hid, in such a posture that it would have been difficult for any one to have approached it without her rising.  The men, however, showed no disposition to disturb her.

They closed around the fire and held deep consultation together; but the low tone in which they spoke, and the cant language which they used, prevented Brown from understanding much of their conversation.  He gathered in general that they expressed great indignation against some individual.  ‘He shall have his gruel,’ said one, and then whispered something very low into the ear of his comrade.

‘I’ll have nothing to do with that,’ said the other.

‘Are you turned hen-hearted, Jack?’

’No, by G-d, no more than yourself, but I won’t.  It was something like that stopped all the trade fifteen or twenty years ago.  You have heard of the Loup?’

’I have heard him (indicating the corpse by a jerk of his head) tell about that job.  G-d, how he used to laugh when he showed us how he fetched him off the perch!’

‘Well, but it did up the trade for one while,’ said Jack.

‘How should that be?’ asked the surly villain.

‘Why,’ replied Jack, ’the people got rusty about it, and would not deal, and they had bought so many brooms that—­’

‘Well, for all that,’ said the other, ’I think we should be down upon the fellow one of these darkmans and let him get it well.’

‘But old Meg’s asleep now,’ said another; ’she grows a driveller, and is afraid of her shadow.  She’ll sing out, some of these odd-come-shortlies, if you don’t look sharp.’

‘Never fear,’ said the old gipsy man; ’Meg’s true-bred; she’s the last in the gang that will start; but she has some queer ways, and often cuts queer words.’

With more of this gibberish they continued the conversation, rendering it thus, even to each other, a dark obscure dialect, eked out by significant nods and signs, but never expressing distinctly, or in plain language, the subject on which it turned.  At length one of them, observing Meg was still fast asleep, or appeared to be so, desired one of the lads ’to hand in the black Peter, that they might flick it open.’  The boy stepped to the door and brought in a portmanteau, which Brown instantly recognised for his own.  His thoughts immediately turned to the unfortunate