Take care, your honour, they are double-shotted.' 'Aye, John Davies, I will take care of them, throwing the pistols into a tub of water beside him; 'and I wish I could render the whole generation of them useless at the same moment.' A deep shade of displeasure passed over John Davies's weatherbeaten countenance.

'Belike your honour is going to take the command yourself, then ?' he said, after a pause.

'Why, I can be of little use now; and since your worship, or your honour, or whatever you are, means to strike quietly, I believe you will do it better without me than with me, for I am like enough to make mischief, I admit; but I'll never leave my post without orders.' 'Then you have mine, John Davies, to go to Mount Sharon directly, and take the boy Phil with you.

Where is he ?' 'He is on the outlook for these scums of the earth,' answered Davies; 'but it is to no purpose to know when they come, if we are not to stand to our weapons.' 'We will use none but those of sense and reason, John.' 'And you may just as well cast chaff against the wind, as speak sense and reason to the like of them.' 'Well, well, be it so,' said Joshua; 'and now, John Davies, I know thou art what the world calls a brave fellow, and I have ever found thee an honest one.

And now I command you to go to Mount Sharon, and let Phil lie on the bank-side--see the poor boy hath a sea-cloak, though--and watch what happens there, and let him bring you the news; and if any violence shall be offered to the property there, I trust to your fidelity to carry my sister to Dumfries to the house of our friends the Corsacks, and inform the civil authorities of what mischief hath befallen.' The old seaman paused a moment.