Page:Guy Mannering Vol 2.djvu/208

198 "Zounds, what brought you back to this coast like a madman?"

"Why, all the gelt was gone, and the house was shaking, and I thought the job was clayed over."

"Stay, what can be done?—I dare not discharge you—but might you not be rescued in the way—aye sure—a word to Lieutenant Brown,—and I would send the people with you by the coast-road."

"No, no! that won't do—Brown's dead–shot–laid in the locker, man—the devil has the picking of him."

"Dead?—shot?—at Woodbourne, I suppose?" "Yaw, Mynheer."

Glossin paused—the sweat broke upon his brow with the agony of his feelings, while the hard-featured miscreant who sat opposite, coolly rolled his tobacco in his cheek, and squirted the juice into the fire-grate. "It would be ruin," said Glossin to himself, "absolute ruin, if the heir should re-appear–and then what might