"
"Touan?" repeated Mary. "Why, that's the great bushranger, that is out
to the north; is it not?"
"The same man, cousin! And there I sat hob and nob with him for half an
hour in the 'Lake George' public-house. If Desborough had come in, he'd
have hung me for being found in bad company. Ha! ha! ha!"
"My dear partner," she said, "what a terrible escape! Suppose he had
risen on you?"
"Why I'd have broken his back, cousin," said Tom, "unless my right hand
had forgot her cunning. He is a fine man of his weight: but, Lord, in a
struggle for life and death, I could break his neck, and have one more
claim on Heaven for doing so; for he is the most damnable villain that
ever disgraced God's earth, and that is the truth. That man, cousin, in
one of his devil's raids, tore a baby from its mother's breast by the
leg, dashed its brains out against a tree, and then--I daren't tell a
woman what happened." [Note: Tom was confusing Touan with Michael Howe.
The latter actually did commit this frightful atrocity; but I never heard
that the former actually combined the two crimes in this way.]
"Tom! Tom!" said Mary, "how can you talk of such things?"
"To show you what we have to expect if he comes this way, cousin; that
is all.
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