Page:Guy Mannering Vol 2.djvu/239

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GUY MANNERING.
229

"I doubt that, Captain Hatteraick, because you would probably find a dozen red-coats at the custom-house. Come, come, I will be as liberal as I can, but you should have a conscience."

"Now strafe mich der deyfel!—this provokes me more than all the rest!—You rob and you murder, and you want me to rob and murder, and play the silver-cooper, or kidnapper, as you call it, a dozen times over, and then, hagel and windsturm! you speak to me of conscience!—Can you think of no fairer way of getting rid of this unlucky lad?"

"No, mein heer; but as I commit him to your charge"——

"To my charge—to the charge of steel and gunpowder! and—well, if it must be, it must—but you have a good guess what's like to come of it."

"O, my dear friend, I trust no degree of severity will be necessary."

"Severity!" said the fellow, with a kind of groan, "I wish you had had my dreams when I first came to this dog-hole, and