"Good luck to ye, for a free rider and a bold!" shouted the washerwoman,
as he passed. "If ye're meeting Mister Beelzeboob, jist back the baste
up to him, and show him his consort that ye've got on the crupper. I'm
thinking it's no long he'd tarry to chat. Well, well, it's his life that
we saved, he was saying so himself--though the plunder is nothing
to signify."
The cries of Betty Flanagan were too familiar to the ears of Captain
Lawton to elicit a reply. Notwithstanding the unusual burden that
Roanoke sustained, he got over the ground with great rapidity, and the
distance between the cart of Mrs. Flanagan and the chariot of Miss
Peyton was passed in a manner that, however it answered the intentions
of the trooper, in no degree contributed to the comfort of his
companion. The meeting occurred but a short distance from the quarters
of Lawton, and at the same instant the moon broke from a mass of clouds,
and threw its light on objects.
Compared with the simple elegance and substantial comfort of the
Locusts, the "Hotel Flanagan" presented but a dreary spectacle. In the
place of carpeted floors and curtained windows, were the yawning cracks
of a rudely-constructed dwelling, and boards and paper were ingeniously
applied to supply the place of the green glass in more than half the
lights.
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