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uch head, master, but I've head enough to remember those that use me ill. You shall see, and so shall he, and so shall hundreds more, how my spirit backs me when the time comes. My bark is nothing to my bite. Some that I know had better have a wild lion among 'em than me, when I am fairly loose--they had!'
The knight looked at him with a smile of far deeper meaning than ordinary; and pointing to the old cupboard, followed him with his eyes while he filled and drank a glass of liquor; and smiled when his back was turned, with deeper meaning yet.
'You are in a blustering mood, my friend,' he said, when Hugh confronted him again.
'Not I, master!' cried Hugh. 'I don't say half I mean. I can't. I haven't got the gift. There are talkers enough among us; I'll be one of the doers.'
'Oh! you have joined those fellows then?' said Sir John, with an air of most profound indifference.
'Yes. I went up to the house you told me of; and got put down upon the muster. There was another man there, named Dennis--'
'Dennis, eh!' cried Sir John, laughing. 'Ay, ay! a pleasant fellow, I believe?'
'A roaring dog, master--one after my own heart--hot upon the matter too--red hot.'
'So I have heard,' replied Sir John, carelessly. 'You don't happen to know his trade, do you?'
'He wouldn't say,' cried Hugh. 'He keeps it secret.'
'Ha ha!' laughed Sir John. 'A strange fancy--a weakness with some persons--you'll know it one day, I dare swear.'
'We're intimate already,' said Hugh.
'Quite natural! And have been drinking together, eh?' pursued Sir John. 'Did you say what place you went to in company, when you left Lord George's?'
Hugh had not said or thought of saying, but he told him; and this inquiry being followed by a long train of questions, he related all that had passed both in and out of doors, the kind of people he had seen, their numbers, state of feeling, mode of conversation, apparent expectations and intentions. His questioning was so artfully con