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intruder came, now, that would not “down.” It was conscience. They began to
feel a vague fear that they had been doing wrong to run away; and next they
thought of the stolen meat, and then the real torture came. They tried to argue it
away by reminding conscience that they had purloined sweetmeats and apples
scores of times; but conscience was not to be appeased by such thin plausibilities.
It seemed to them, in the end, that there was no getting around the stubborn fact
that taking sweetmeats was only “hooking,” while taking bacon and hams and
such valuables was plain simple stealing-and there was a command against that
in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the
business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.
Then conscience granted a truce, and these curiously inconsistent pirates fell
peacefully to sleep.