Fiction > Book editions > London, 1889 - Master of Ballantrae

PASSAGES AT NEW YORK. 257
" Away with your affectations ! ■" cries my lord.
"You know very well I have no such meaning" ; only
to protect myself from calumny, and my home from
j'our intrusion. I offer you a choice. Either I shall
pay your passage home on the first ship, when you may
perhaps be ahle to resume your occupations under
Government, although God knows 1 would rather see
you on the highway ! Or, if that likes you not, stay
here and welcome ! I have inquired the least sum on
which body and soul can be decently kept together in
New York; so much you shall have, paid weekly ; and
if you cannot labour with your hands to better it, high
time you should betake yourself to learn. The condition
is — that you speak with no member of my family except
myself,'''' he added.
I do not think I have ever seen any man so pale as
was the Master; but he was erect and his mouth firm.
''I have been met here with some very unmerited
insults,^^ said he, "from which I have certainly no idea
to take refuge by flight. Give me your j^ittance; I
take it without shame, for it is mine already — like the
shirt u2:>on your back ; and I choose to stay until these
gentlemen shall understand me better. Already they
must spy the cloven hoof, since with all your preteuded
eagerness for the family honour, you take a pleasure to
degrade it in my person.''^
"This is all very fine,"' says my lord; "but to us who
know you of old, you must be sure it signifies nothing.