Page:Guy Mannering Vol 1.djvu/83

Rh, half Manks, half Dutchman, half devil! run out the boltsprit, up mainsail, top and top gallant sails, royals, and skyscrapers, and away—follow who can! That fellow, Mr Mannering, is the terror of all the excise and custom-house cruisers; they can make nothing of him; he drubs them, or he distances them;—and, speaking of excise, I come to bring you to breakfast; and you shall have some tea, that"

Mannering, by this time, was aware that one thought linked strangely on to another in the concatenation of worthy Mr Bertram's ideas,

and, therefore, before the current of his associations had drifted farther from the point he had left, he brought him back by some enquiry about Dirk Hatteraick.

"O he's a—a—good sort of blackguard fellow enough—no one cares to trouble him—smuggler, when his guns are in