"Nay, my friend," said Glossin, interrupting him, what signifies going over this nonsense?--If you are turned chicken-hearted, why, the game's up, that's all--the game's up with us both."
"Chicken-hearted?--No. I have not lived so long upon the account to start at last, neither for Devil nor Dutchman."
Well then, take another schnaps--the cold's at your heart still.--And now tell me, are any of your old crew with you?"
"Nein--all dead, shot, hanged, drowned, and damned. Brown was the last--all dead, but Gipsy Gab, and he would go off the country for a spill of money--or he'll be quiet for his own sake--or old Meg, his aunt, will keep him quiet for hers."
"Meg Merrilies, the old devil's limb of a gipsy witch."
"And in this country. She was at the Kaim of Derncleugh, at Vanbeest Brown's last wake, as they call it, the other night, with two of my people, and some of her own blasted gipsies."
"That's another breaker ahead, Captain! Will she not squeak, think ye?"
"Not she--she won't start--she swore by the salmon, [*The great and inviolable oath of the strolling tribes] if we did the kinchin no harm, she would never tell how the gauger got it. Why, man, though I gave her a wipe with my hanger in the heat of the matter, and cut her arm, and though she was so long after in trouble about it up at your borough-town there, der deyvil! old Meg was as true as steel."
