"We're bound for Portsmouth," said the man in tatters. "What say you? shall we keep company and relieve you of the kid? If you'll pay the shot here and at the other end, and at the other pubs--can't say but what we'll ease you." "It's a bargain," exclaimed the sailor. "By George! I've had enough of it from Lun'non here. As to money, look here," he put his hand into his trousers pocket and pulled out a handful of coins, gold, silver and copper together. "There is brass for all. Just home, paid off--and find my wife dead--and me saddled with the yowling kid. I'm off to sea again. Don't see no sport wider-erring here all bebothered with a baby." "We are very willing to accompany you," said the tattered man, and turning to the fellow with sallow face and lantern jaws, he said, "What's your opinion, Lonegon?" "I'm willing, Marshall; what say you, Michael Casey?" "Begorra--I'm the man to be a wet nuss." The sailor called for spirits wherewith to treat the men who had offered their assistance. "This is a mighty relief to me," said he. "I don't think I could ha' got on by myself." "You've no expayrience, sir," said Casey. "It's I'm the boy for the babbies. Ye must rig up a bottle and fill it with milk, and just a whisk of a drop of the craytur to prevent it curdling, and then stuff the mouth with a rag--and the darlin'll suck, and suck, and be still as the evenin' star as I sees yonder glimmering at the window." "You'll have to start pretty sharp if you want to get on a stage before dark," said the man by the fire. "It's a lone road," threw in the boy shyly. "What's the odds when we are four of us?" asked the man whose name was Lonegon. "And all of us pertecting the little cherub from ketching cold," threw in Casey. "We ain't afraid--not we," said the ragged man. "Not of bogies, at any rate." "Oh, you need not fear bogies," observed the man at the fire, dryly. "What is it, then?" asked Michael Casey. "Sure It's not highwaymen?" The man by the fire warmed his palms, laughed, and said: "It would take two to rob you, I guess, one to put the money into your pocket and the second to take it out." "You're right there," answered the Irishman, laughing. "It's my pockets be that worn to holes wi' the guineas that have been in them, that now they let 'em fall through." The man by the fire rubbed his palms together and made a remark in a low tone--addressed to the boy. Lonegon turned sharply round on his seat and cried threateningly, "What's that you're hinting agin us? Say it again, and say it aloud, and I'll knock your silly, imperdent head off." "I say it again," said the young man, turning his cunning head round, like a jackdaw. "I say that if I were going over Hind Head and by the Punch Bowl at night with as much money in my pocket as has that seaman there--I'd choose my companions better. You haven't heard what I said? I'd choose my companions better." CHAPTER II. WANDERING SOULS.