Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

THE MAN WITH THE BELT OP GOLD.        77
tenants would stint themselves to send them money, and
their clansmen outface the soldiery to get it in, and run
the gauntlet of our great navy to carry it across. All
this I had, of course, heard tell of; and now I had a
man under my eyes whose life was forfeit on all these
counts and upon one more; for he was not only a rebel
and a smuggler of rents, but had taken service with
King Louis of Prance. And as if all this were not
enough, he had a belt full of golden guineas round his
loins. Whatever my opinions, I could not look on such
a man without a lively interest.
"And so you're a Jacobite?" said I, as I set meat
before him.
"Ay," said he, beginning to eat. "And you, by
your long face, should be a Whig?"*
"Betwixt and between," said I, not to annoy him;
for indeed I was as good a Whig as Mr. Campbell could
make me.
"And that's naething," said he. "But I'm saying,
Mr. Betwixt-and-Between," he added, "this bottle of
yours is dry; and it's hard if I'm to pay sixty guineas
and be grudged a dram upon the back of it."
"I'll go and ask for the key," said I, and stepped on
deck.
The fog was as close as ever, but the swell almost
down. They had laid the brig to, not knowing precisely
where they were, and the wind (what little there was of
* Whig or Whigamore was the cant name for those who were loyal
to King George.