Dead Men's Money

s breath, and the veins in his temples and forehead swelled out, big and black, with the effort of talking. He motioned to me to hand him a bottle of some stuff which he ha

e me, but I was always delicate in that way, ever since I was a nipper-strong as

citor of the town, and hoping to get my articles, and in due course become a

e a good hand at keeping a secret ver

as he was, the grip of his fingers was like steel, and yet I could see that he had n

rthwaite," I answered. "I should

he put in sharply. "I'll make it

ut it under his pillow, and drew out a

do a bit of a job for me-in private. Ten poun

be as glad of ten pounds as anybody, but I m

one this very night, and I'm laid here, and can't do it. You can do i

ething that nobody's t

Not even your mother-for even t

me that there was more in all this t

e now what it is you want, I'll keep that a dead secret from anybody for ev

. "You've the makings of a good lawyer, anyway. Well

known any ot

ere Till meets

w my own mother's

ey call it?-chapel, cell, something

rthwaite," I answered him. "

n, I ought to meet another man near

meet this othe

und if you will," he ans

is what I

hat?" I

a word that'll establish what they term your bony fides, and a messa

danger in

sserted. "Not half as much as

omely for it, all the same," I remar

job-aye, if it costs twenty pound! Somebody must meet this friend o' min

to do but what

t a thing!"

I said. "And the

e and wait about a bit, and if you see nobody there, say out loud, 'From James Gilverthwaite as is sick and can't c

anama," said I. "

by for a day or two, and you'll bide quiet in the place you know of till you hea

struck me. "How did you intend to get out there yourself, Mr.

out by the last train to the nighest station, and it being summer I'd ha' shifted for myself somehow durin

ly," I answered him.

o your mother?" h

replied. "Lea

as an easy business to mention to my mother that I wouldn't be in that night so very early. That part of my contract with the sick man upstairs I could keep well enough, in letter and spirit-all the same, I was not going out along Tweed-side at that hour of the night without some safeguard, and thoug

ne that I did not tell her of, nor had she a secret that she did not share with me. But then, to be sure, we had been neighbours all our lives, for her father, Andrew Dunlop, kept a grocer's shop not fifty yards from our house, and she and I had been playmates ever since our school-days, and had fallen to sober and serious love as soon as we arrived at what we at any rate called years of discretion-which means t

ening performance of ours. And in a quiet corner, where there was a seat on which we often sat whispering together of our future, I told her tha

; "I can tell you where the spot is that I'm to do the business at, for a fine lonely spot it is to be in at the time of night I'm to b

er mind, for Maisie was a girl of imagination, and the mention of a l

she said. "And it's a strange time and place you're talking

t do himself, being kept to his bed. But all the same, there's naught like taking precautions beforehand, and so I'll tell you what we

to the street, and I could knock at the pane as I passed by. Yet still she seemed uneasy, and I hastened to say what-not even then knowing her quite as well as I did later-I t

efore when I said that a

ound he

o take a message? Don't go, Hughie! What do you know of yon man except that he's a stranger that never speaks to a soul in the place, and wanders about like he was spying things? And I would

s way: yon Mr. Gilverthwaite has more money than he knows what to do with. He carries sovereigns in his pockets like they were sixpenny pieces! Ten

" she answered. "It's

meet-somebody. Y

no harm, and I'll give you a tap at the window as I pass your hous

nd I'll not be satisfied with any tap, neither. If you give one,

art to be one of reassurance, and presently we parted, an