"And your mother?" I questioned at last. "Your mother praying for
you--was that also untrue?"
"My mother," said he, lifting his face to the radiant moon, "my mother
died three years ago--on her knees--prayin' for me--an' it's like
enough she's on 'er knees afore th' Throne a-prayin' for me this werry
minute."
"And yet you are a--highwayman?"
"Why, friend, 'tis in the family, y' see. My father was one afore me
an' uncommon successful--much looked up to in 'is perfession, though a
little too quick o' th' trigger finger--but 'e was took at last, 'ung
at Tyburn an' gibbeted on Blackheath. They took me to see 'im in 'is
chains, an' bein' only a little lad, I cried all the way back 'ome to
my mother an' found 'er a-cryin' too. But because 'e'd been so famous
in 'is perfession they gibbeted 'im very 'igh, an' so, as folk 'ad
looked up to 'im in life they did the same in death."
"Yours is a very evil, dangerous life," said I, after a while.
"Evil?" he repeated. "Well, life mostly is evil if ye come to think on
it. An' as for danger--'t's so-so--three times shot, six times in jail
an' many a rousin' gallop wi' the hue an' cry behind. But arter all
'tis my perfession an' there's worse, so what I am I'll be."
"And will you let your mother pray in vain?"
"In vain," he repeated, "in vain? Why, blast the Pope, hasn't she
saved me from bein' scragged many a time--didn't she save me t'night?"
"Doesn't she pray rather that you may turn honest?"
"Honest!" quoth he, spitting.
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