You can
imagine how his new prospects brightened on a boy of this
disposition. To be the servant and companion of a fugitive, a
soldier, and a murderer, rolled in one--to live by stratagems,
disguises, and false names, in an atmosphere of midnight and
mystery so thick that you could cut it with a knife--was really, I
believe, more dear to him than his meals, though he was a great
trencherman, and something of a glutton besides. For myself, as
the peg by which all this romantic business hung, I was simply
idolised from that moment; and he would rather have sacrificed his
hand than surrendered the privilege of serving me.
We arranged the terms of our campaign, trudging amicably in the
snow, which now, with the approach of morning, began to fall to
purpose. I chose the name of Ramornie, I imagine from its likeness
to Romaine; Rowley, from an irresistible conversion of ideas, I
dubbed Gammon. His distress was laughable to witness: his own
choice of an unassuming nickname had been Claude Duval! We settled
our procedure at the various inns where we should alight, rehearsed
our little manners like a piece of drill until it seemed impossible
we should ever be taken unprepared; and in all these dispositions,
you maybe sure the despatch-box was not forgotten. Who was to pick
it up, who was to set it down, who was to remain beside it, who was
to sleep with it--there was no contingency omitted, all was gone
into with the thoroughness of a drill-sergeant on the one hand and
a child with a new plaything on the other.
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