Bricham laughed till he cried again, and his crying saved yours.”
“Well, he made it up to me many a day after,” said Lambourne; “and how is the worthy pedagogue?”
“Dead,” said Giles Gosling, “this many a day since.”
“That he is,” said the clerk of the parish; “I sat by his bed the whilst—He passed away in a blessed frame, ‘Morior—mortuus sum vel fui—mori’—These were his latest words, and he just added, ‘my last verb is conjugated.’”
“Well, peace be with him,” said Mike, “he owes me nothing.”
“No, truly,” replied Goldthred; “and every lash which he laid on thee, he always was wont to say, he spared the hangman a labour.”
“One would have thought he left him little to do then,” said the clerk; “and yet Goodman Thong had no sinecure of it with our friend, after all.”
“Voto a dios!” exclaimed Lambourne, his patience appearing to fail him, as he snatched his broad slouched hat from the table and placed it on his head, so that the shadow gave the sinister expression of a Spanish bravo, to eyes and features which naturally boded nothing pleasant. “Harkee, my masters—all is fair among friends, and under the rose; and I have already permitted my worthy uncle here, and all of you, to use your pleasure with the frolics of my nonage. But I carry sword and dagger, my good friends, and can use them lightly too upon occasion—I have learned to be dangerous upon
