'Why, fluch and blitzen! he was no charge of mine. Lieutenant
Brown gave him to his cousin that's in the Middleburgh house of
Vanbeest and Vanbruggen, and told him some goose's gazette about
his being taken in a skirmish with the land-sharks; he gave him
for a footboy. Me let him escape! the bastard kinchin should have
walked the plank ere I troubled myself about him.'

'Well, and was he bred a foot-boy then?'

'Nein, nein; the kinchin got about the old man's heart, and he
gave him his own name, and bred him up in the office, and then
sent him to India; I believe he would have packed him back here,
but his nephew told him it would do up the free trade for many a
day if the youngster got back to Scotland.'

'Do you think the younker knows much of his own origin now?'

'Deyvil!' replied Hatteraick, 'how should I tell what he knows
now? But he remembered something of it long. When he was but ten
years old he persuaded another Satan's limb of an English bastard
like himself to steal my lugger's khan--boat--what do you call it?
to return to his country, as he called it; fire him! Before we
could overtake them they had the skiff out of channel as far as
the Deurloo; the boat might have been lost.'

'I wish to Heaven she had, with him in her!' ejaculated Glossin.

'Why, I was so angry myself that, sapperment! I did give him a tip
over the side; but split him! the comical little devil swam like a
duck; so I made him swim astern for a mile to teach him manners,