“I? Faith, not I!” said Thurot. “I press none but filthy Swedes. M. Greig has my word for it that twelve hours before we weigh anchor he may take his leave of us. _Je le veux bien_.” “Bah! 'Tis an impolite corsair this. As for me I should be inconsolable to lose M. Greig to such a dull country as this England. Here's an Occasion, M. le Capitaine, for pledging his health in a bottle, and wishing him well out of his troubles.” “You do not stand sufficiently on your dignity, Clancarty,” laughed Thurot. “Here's the enemy--” “Dignity! pooh!” said his lordship. “To stand on that I should need a year's practice first on the tight-rope. There's that about an Irish gentleman that makes the posturings and proprieties and pretences of the fashionable world unnecessary. Sure, race will show in his face and action if he stood alone in his shirt-sleeves on a village common juggling balls. I am of the oldest blood that springs in Irish kings. 'Tis that knowledge keeps my heart up when circumstances make the world look rotten like a cheese. But the curst thing is one cannot for ever be drinking and dining off a pedigree, and here I am deserted by M. Tête-de-mouche----” Thurot put up his hand to check one of these disloyalties to the Pretender that I had long since learned were common with Lord Clancarty. “Bah!” cried his lordship. “I love you, Tony, and all the other boys, but your Prince is a madman--a sotted madman tied to the petticoat tails of a trollope. This Walkinshaw--saving your presence, Paul Greig, for she's your countrywoman and by way of being your friend, I hear--has ruined Charles and the Cause. We have done what we could to make him send madame back to the place she came from, but he'll do nothing of the kind. 'She has stuck by me through thick and thin, and lost all for me, and now I shall stick by her,' says foolish Master Sentiment.” “Bravo!” cried Thurot. “'Tis these things make us love the Prince and have faith in his ultimate success.” “You were ever the hopeful ass, Tony,” said his lordship coolly. “_Il riest pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre_, and you must shut your ears against a tale that all the world is shouting at the pitch of its voice. Who knows better than Tony Thurot how his Royal Highness has declined? Why! 'tis manifest in the fellow's nose; I declare he drinks like a fish--another vice he brought back from your mountain land, M. Greig, along with Miss Walkinshaw----” “There is far too much of Miss Walkinshaw about your lordship's remarks,” I cried in an uncontrollable heat that the lady should be the subject of implications so unkind. He stared, and then kissed his hand to me with laughter and a bow, “Ha!” he cried, “here's another young gentleman of sentiment. Stap me if I say a word against the lady for your sake, Andy Greig's nephew.” And back he went to his bottle.