on the matter three Sabbaths past, and illustrated the same by the conduct of an honourable person present, meaning me.”
“I prithee peace, Foster,” said Lambourne; “for I know not how it is, I have a sort of creeping comes over my skin when I hear the devil quote Scripture; and besides, man, how couldst thou have the heart to quit that convenient old religion, which you could slip off or on as easily as your glove? Do I not remember how you were wont to carry your conscience to confession, as duly as the month came round? and when thou hadst it scoured, and burnished, and whitewashed by the priest, thou wert ever ready for the worst villainy which could be devised, like a child who is always readiest to rush into the mire when he has got his Sunday’s clean on.”
“Trouble not thyself about my conscience,” said Foster, “it is a thing thou canst not understand, having never had one of thine own. But let us rather to the point, and say to me, in one word, what is thy business with me, and what hopes have drawn thee hither?”
“The hope of bettering myself, to be sure,” answered Lambourne, “as the old woman said, when she leapt over the bridge at Kingston. Look you, this purse has all that is left of as round a sum as a man would wish to carry in his slop-pough. You are here well established, it would seem, and, as I think, well befriended, for men talk of thy being under some special protection—nay, stare not like a pig that is stuck, mon, thou canst not dance in a
