[Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson]@TWC D-Link book
Kidnapped

CHAPTER IX
8/15

Here's my hand upon it." "And here's mine," said the other.
And thereupon the captain went out (rather hurriedly, I thought), and left me alone in the round-house with the stranger.
At that period (so soon after the forty-five) there were many exiled gentlemen coming back at the peril of their lives, either to see their friends or to collect a little money; and as for the Highland chiefs that had been forfeited, it was a common matter of talk how their 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 France.

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 ?"* * Whig or Whigamore was the cant name for those who were loyal to King George.
"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.


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