meant more by the words than showed upon the face of them.

"Well, sir," says the other, "and so has many a pretty man, for the

matter of that."

"No doubt, sir" says the captain, "and fine coats."

"Oho!" says the stranger, "is that how the wind sets?" And he laid his

hand quickly on his pistols.

"Don't be hasty," said the captain. "Don't do a mischief before ye

see the need of it. Ye've a French soldier's coat upon your back and a

Scotch tongue in your head, to be sure; but so has many an honest fellow

in these days, and I dare say none the worse of it."

"So?" said the gentleman in the fine coat: "are ye of the honest party?"

(meaning, Was he a Jacobite? for each side, in these sort of civil

broils, takes the name of honesty for its own).

"Why, sir," replied the captain, "I am a true-blue Protestant, and I

thank God for it." (It was the first word of any religion I had ever

heard from him, but I learnt afterwards he was a great church-goer while

on shore.) "But, for all that," says he, "I can be sorry to see another

man with his back to the wall."

"Can ye so, indeed?" asked the Jacobite. "Well, sir, to be quite plain

with ye, I am one of those honest gentlemen that were in trouble about

the years forty-five and six; and (to be still quite plain with ye) if

I got into the hands of any of the red-coated gentry, it's like it would

go hard with me. Now, sir, I was for France; and there was a French ship

cruising here to pick me up; but she gave us the go-by in the fog--as I

wish from the heart that ye had done yoursel'! And the best that I can

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