Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/151



’ the narrowness of my fortunes, as much as my own giddy head, that leagued me in the business of the King’s Treasure. I have always borne a brain; there was never an adventure to my fist but I measured out its chances; and sometimes ’twas taken, though against all odds, and other times ’twas left for a piece of foolhardiness. It was along of my mood. For the matter of that, we gentlemen of the road live no feather-bed lives, and it is our trade to forestall the assaults of Death. But this affair went against not only my judgment but my will; and I make no doubt that I would not ha’ taken up with it, had it not been that my pockets were bare, and my head was singing with wine. Altogether, at the moment, I conceive that the world and I were on pretty