il, and see that nobody
has scented; that's a' you're good for now.'

'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 oth