CHAPTER XXVIII.

God bless our King and Parliament,

And send he may make such knaves repent!

Loyal Songs against the Rump Parliament.

Ho, treachery! my guards, my cimeter!

BYRON.

When the irreverent Mr. Pepper had warmed his hands sufficiently to be

able to transfer them from the fire, he lifted the right palm, and with

an indecent jocularity of spirits, accosted the ci-devant ornament of

“The Asinaeum” with a sounding slap on his back, or some such part of

his conformation.

“Ah, old boy!” said he, “is this the way you keep house for us? A fire

not large enough to roast a nit, and a supper too small to fatten him

beforehand! But how the deuce should you know how to provender for

gentlemen? You thought you were in Scotland, I'll be bound!”

“Perhaps he did when he looked upon you, Ned!” said Tomlinson, gravely;

“'t is but rarely out of Scotland that a man can see so big a rogue in

so little a compass!”

Mr. MacGrawler, into whose eyes the palmistry of Long Ned had brought

tears of sincere feeling, and who had hitherto been rubbing the

afflicted part, now grumbled forth,--

“You may say what you please, Mr. Pepper, but it is not often in my

country that men of genius are seen performing the part of cook to

robbers!”

“No!” quoth Tomlinson, “they are performing the more profitable part of

robbers to cooks, eh!”

“Damme, you're out,” cried Long Ned,--“for in that country there are

either no robbers, because there is nothing to rob; or the inhabitants

are all robbers, who have plundered one another, and made away with the

booty!”

“May the de'il catch thee!” said MacGrawler, stung to the quick,--for,

like all Scots, he was a patriot; much on the same principle as a woman

who has the worst children makes the best mother.

“The de'il,” said Ned, mimicking the “silver sound,” as Sir W. Scott

had been pleased facetiously to call the “mountain tongue” (the Scots

in general seem to think it is silver, they keep it so carefully)

“the de'il,--MacDeil, you mean, sure, the gentleman must have been a

Scotchman!”

The sage grinned in spite; but remembering the patience of Epictetus

when a slave, and mindful also of the strong arm of Long Ned, he curbed

his temper, and turned the beefsteaks with his fork.

“Well, Ned,” said Augustus, throwing himself into a chair, which he drew

to the fire, while he gently patted the huge limbs of Mr. Pepper, as if

to admonish him that they were not so transparent as glass, “let us look

at the fire; and, by the by, it is your turn to see to the horses.”

“Plague on it!” cried Ned; “it is always my turn, I think. Holla, you

Scot of the pot! can't you prove that I groomed the beasts last? I'll

give you a crown to do it.”

The wise MacGrawler pricked up his ears.

“A crown!” said he,--“a crown! Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Pepper?

But, to be sure, you did see to the horses last; and this worthy

gentleman, Mr. Tomlinson, must remember it too.”

“How!” cried Augustus; “you are mistaken, and I'll give you half a

guinea to prove it.”

MacGrawler opened his eyes larger and larger, even as you may see

a small circle in the water widen into enormity, if you disturb the

equanimity of the surface by the obtrusion of a foreign substance.

“Half a guinea!” said he; “nay, nay, you joke. I'm not mercenary. You

think I am! Pooh, pooh! you are mistaken; I'm a man who means weel,

a man of veracity, and will speak the truth in spite of all the

half-guineas in the world. But certainly, now I begin to think of it,

Mr. Tomlinson did see to the creatures last; and, Mr. Pepper, it is your

turn.”

“A very Daniel!” said Tomlinson, chuckling in his usual dry manner.

“Ned, don't you hear the horses neigh?”

“Oh, hang the horses!” said the volatile Pepper, forgetting everything

else, as he thrust his hands in his pockets, and felt the gains of the

night; “let us first look to our winnings!”

So saying, he marched towards the table, and emptied his pockets

thereon. Tomlinson, nothing loath, followed the example. Heavens! what

exclamations of delight issued from the scoundrels' lips, as, one by

one, they inspected their new acquisitions!

“Here's a magnificent creature!” cried Ned, handling that superb watch

studded with jewels which the poor earl had once before unavailingly

redeemed,--“a repeater, by Jove!”

“I hope not,” said the phlegmatic Augustus; “repeaters will not tell

well for your conversation, Ned! But, powers that be! look at this

ring,--a diamond of the first water!”

“Oh, the sparkler! it makes one's mouth water as much as itself.

'Sdeath, here's a precious box for a sneezer,--a picture inside, and

rubies outside! The old fellow had excellent taste; it would charm him

to see how pleased we are with his choice of jewelry!”

“Talking of jewelry,” said Tomlinson, “I had almost forgotten the

morocco case. Between you and me, I imagine we have a prize there; it

looks like a jewel casket!”

So saying, the robber opened that case which on many a gala day had lent

lustre to the polished person of Mauleverer. Oh, reader, the burst of

rapture that ensued! Imagine it! we cannot express it. Like the Grecian

painter, we drop a veil over emotions too deep for words.

“But here,” said Pepper, when they had almost exhausted their transports

at sight of the diamonds,--“here's a purse,--fifty guineas! And what's

this? Notes, by Jupiter! We must change them to-morrow before they are

stopped. Curse those fellows at the Bank! they are always imitating us,

we stop their money, and they don't lose a moment in stopping it too.

Three hundred pounds! Captain, what say you to our luck?” Clifford had

sat gloomily looking on during the operations of the robbers; he now,

assuming a correspondent cheerfulness of manner, made a suitable reply,

and after some general conversation the work of division took place.

“We are the best arithmeticians in the world,” said Augustus, as he

pouched his share; “addition, subtraction, division, reduction,--we have

them all as pat as 'The Tutor's Assistant;' and, what is better, we make

them all applicable to the Rule of Three.”

“You have left out multiplication!” said Clifford, smiling. “Ah! because

that works differently. The other rules apply to the specie-s of the

kingdom; but as for multiplication, we multiply, I fear, no species but

our own!”

“Fie, gentlemen!” said MacGrawler, austerely,--for there is a wonderful

decorum in your true Scotsmen. “Actions are trifles; nothing can be

cleaner than their words!”

“Oh, you thrust in your wisdom, do you?” said Ned. “I suppose you want

your part of the booty!”

“Part!” said the subtilizing Tomlinson. “He has nine times as many parts

as we have already. Is he not a critic, and has he not the parts of

speech at his fingers' end?”

“Nonsense!” said MacGrawler, instinctively holding up his hands, with

the fork dropping between the outstretched fingers of the right palm.

“Nonsense yourself,” cried Ned; “you have a share in what you never

took! A pretty fellow, truly! Mind your business, Mr. Scot, and fork

nothing but the beefsteaks!”

With this Ned turned to the stables, and soon disappeared among the

horses; but Clifford, eying the disappointed and eager face of the

culinary sage, took ten guineas from his own share, and pushed them

towards his quondam tutor.

“There!” said he, emphatically.

“Nay, nay,” grunted MacGrawler; “I don't want the money,--it is my way

to scorn such dross!” So saying, he pocketed the coins, and turned,

muttering to himself, to the renewal of his festive preparations.

Meanwhile a whispered conversation took place between Augustus and the

captain, and continued till Ned returned.

“And the night's viands smoked along the board!”

Souls of Don Raphael and Ambrose Lamela, what a charming thing it is to

be a rogue for a little time! How merry men are when they have cheated

their brethren! Your innocent milksops never made so jolly a supper

as did our heroes of the way. Clifford, perhaps acted a part, but

the hilarity of his comrades was unfeigned. It was a delicious

contrast,--the boisterous “ha, ha!” of Long Ned, and the secret, dry,

calculating chuckle of Augustus Tomlinson. It was Rabelais against

Voltaire. They united only in the objects of their jests, and foremost

of those objects (wisdom is ever the but of the frivolous!) was the

great Peter MacGrawler.

The graceless dogs were especially merry upon the subject of the sage's

former occupation.

“Come, Mac, you carve this ham,” said Ned; “you have had practice in

cutting up.”

The learned man whose name was thus disrespectfully abbreviated

proceeded to perform what he was bid. He was about to sit down for that

purpose, when Tomlinson slyly subtracted his chair,--the sage fell.

“No jests at MacGrawler,” said the malicious Augustus; “whatever be his

faults as a critic, you see that he is well grounded, and he gets at

once to the bottom of a subject. Mac, suppose your next work be entitled

a Tail of Woe!”

Men who have great minds are rarely flexible,--they do not take a jest

readily; so it was with MacGrawler. He rose in a violent rage; and had

the robbers been more penetrating than they condescended to be, they

might have noticed something dangerous in his eye. As it was, Clifford,

who had often before been the protector of his tutor, interposed in his

behalf, drew the sage a seat near to himself, and filled his plate for

him. It was interesting to see this deference from Power to Learning! It

was Alexander doing homage to Aristotle!

“There is only one thing I regret,” cried Ned, with his mouth full,

“about the old lord,--it was a thousand pities we did not make him

dance! I remember the day, Captain, when you would have insisted on

it. What a merry fellow you were once! Do you recollect, one bright

moonlight night, just like the present, for instance, when we were doing

duty near Staines, how you swore every person we stopped, above fifty

years old, should dance a minuet with you?”

“Ay!” added Augustus, “and the first was a bishop in a white wig. Faith,

how stiffly his lordship jigged it! And how gravely Lovett bowed to him,

with his hat off, when it was all over, and returned him his watch and

ten guineas,--it was worth the sacrifice!”

“And the next was an old maid of quality,” said Ned, “as lean as a

lawyer. Don't you remember how she curvetted?”

“To be sure,” said Tomlinson; “and you very wittily called her a

hop-pole!”

“How delighted she was with the captain's suavity! When he gave her back

her earrings and aigrette, she bade him with a tender sigh keep them for

her sake,--ha! ha!”

“And the third was a beau!” cried Augustus; “and Lovett surrendered his

right of partnership to me. Do you recollect how I danced his beauship

into the ditch? Ah! we were mad fellows then; but we get sated--blases,

as the French say--as we grow older!”

“We look only to the main chance now,” said Ned. “Avarice supersedes

enterprise,” added the sententious Augustus.

“And our captain takes to wine with an h after the w!” continued the

metaphorical Ned.

“Come, we are melancholy,” said Tomlinson, tossing off a bumper.

“Methinks we are really growing old, we shall repent soon, and the next

step will be-hanging!”

“'Fore Gad!” said Ned, helping himself, “don't be so croaking. There are

two classes of maligned gentry, who should always be particular to avoid

certain colours in dressing; I hate to see a true boy in black, or a

devil in blue. But here's my last glass to-night! I am confoundedly

sleepy, and we rise early to-morrow.”

“Right, Ned,” said Tomlinson; “give us a song before you retire, and let

it be that one which Lovett composed the last time we were here.”

Ned, always pleased with an opportunity of displaying himself, cleared

his voice and complied.

A DITTY FROM SHERWOOD.

I.

Laugh with us at the prince and the palace,

In the wild wood-life there is better cheer;

Would you board your mirth from your neighbour's malice,

Gather it up in our garners here.

Some kings their wealth from their subjects wring,

While by their foes they the poorer wax;

Free go the men of the wise wood-king,

And it is only our foes we tax.

Leave the cheats of trade to the shrewd gude-wife

Let the old be knaves at ease;

Away with the tide of that dashing life

Which is stirred by a constant breeze!

II.

Laugh with us when you hear deceiving

And solemn rogues tell you what knaves we be

Commerce and law have a method of thieving

Worse than a stand at the outlaw's tree.

Say, will the maiden we love despise

Gallants at least to each other true?

I grant that we trample on legal ties,

But I have heard that Love scorns them too,

Courage, then,--courage, ye jolly boys,

Whom the fool with the knavish rates

Oh! who that is loved by the world enjoys

Half as much as the man it hates?

“Bravissimo, Ned!” cried Tomlinson, rapping the table; “bravissimo! Your

voice is superb to-night, and your song admirable. Really, Lovett, it

does your poetical genius great credit; quite philosophical, upon my

honour.”

“Bravissimo!” said MacGrawler, nodding his head awfully. “Mr. Pepper's

voice is as sweet as a bagpipe! Ah! such a song would have been

invaluable to 'The Asinaeum,' when I had the honour to--”

“Be Vicar of Bray to that establishment,” interrupted Tomlinson. “Pray,

MacGrawler, why do they call Edinburgh the Modern Athens?”

“Because of the learned and great men it produces,” returned MacGrawler,

with conscious pride.

“Pooh! pooh!--you are thinking of ancient Athens. Your city is called

the modern Athens because you are all so like the modern Athenians,--the

greatest scoundrels imaginable, unless travellers belie them.”

“Nay,” interrupted Ned, who was softened by the applause of the critic,

“Mac is a good fellow, spare him. Gentlemen, your health. I am going to

bed, and I suppose you will not tarry long behind me.”

“Trust us for that,” answered Tomlinson; “the captain and I will consult

on the business of the morrow, and join you in the twinkling of a

bedpost, as it has been shrewdly expressed.”

Ned yawned his last “good-night,” and disappeared within the dormitory.

MacGrawler, yawning also, but with a graver yawn, as became his wisdom,

betook himself to the duty of removing the supper paraphernalia: after

bustling soberly about for some minutes, he let down a press-bed in the

corner of the cave (for he did not sleep in the robbers' apartment), and

undressing himself, soon appeared buried in the bosom of Morpheus. But

the chief and Tomlinson, drawing their seats nearer to the dying embers,

defied the slothful god, and entered with low tones into a close and

anxious commune.

“So, then,” said Augustus, “now that you have realized sufficient funds

for your purpose, you will really desert us? Have you well weighed the

pros and cons? Remember that nothing is so dangerous to our state

as reform; the moment a man grows honest, the gang forsake him; the

magistrate misses his fee; the informer peaches; and the recusant

hangs.”

“I have well weighed all this,” answered Clifford, “and have decided on

my course. I have only tarried till my means could assist my will. With

my share of our present and late booty, I shall betake myself to the

Continent. Prussia gives easy trust and ready promotion to all who will

enlist in her service. But this language, my dear friend, seems strange

from your lips. Surely you will join me in my separation from the corps?

What! you shake your head! Are you not the same Tomlinson who at Bath

agreed with me that we were in danger from the envy of our comrades, and

that retreat had become necessary to our safety? Nay, was not this your

main argument for our matrimonial expedition?”

“Why, look you, dear Lovett,” said Augustus, “we are all blocks of

matter, formed from the atoms of custom; in other words, we are a

mechanism, to which habit is the spring. What could I do in an honest

career? I am many years older than you. I have lived as a rogue till I

have no other nature than roguery. I doubt if I should not be a coward

were I to turn soldier. I am sure I should be the most consummate of

rascals were I to affect to be honest. No: I mistook myself when I

talked of separation. I must e'en jog on with my old comrades, and in

my old ways; till I jog into the noose hempen or--melancholy

alternative!--the noose matrimonial.”

“This is mere folly,” said Clifford, from whose nervous and masculine

mind habits were easily shaken. “We have not for so many years discarded

all the servile laws of others, to be the abject slaves of our own

weaknesses. Come, my dear fellow, rouse yourself. Heaven knows, were I

to succumb to the feebleness of my own heart, I should be lost indeed.

And perhaps, wrestle I ever so stoutly, I do not wrestle away that which

clings within me, and will kill me, though by inches. But let us not be

cravens, and suffer fate to drown us rather than swim. In a word, fly

with me ere it be too late. A smuggler's vessel waits me off the coast

of Dorset: in three days from this I sail. Be my companion. We can both

rein a fiery horse, and wield a good sword. As long as men make war one

against another, those accomplishments will prevent their owner from

starving, or--”

“If employed in the field, not the road,” interrupted Tomlinson, with a

smile,--“from hanging. But it cannot be! I wish you all joy, all success

in your career. You are young, bold, and able; and you always had a

loftier spirit than I have. Knave I am, and knave I must be to the end

of the chapter!”

“As you will,” said Clifford, who was not a man of many words, but he

spoke with reluctance: “if so, I must seek my fortune alone.”

“When do you leave us?” asked Tomlinson.

“To-morrow, before noon. I shall visit London for a few hours, and then

start at once for the coast.”

“London!” exclaimed Tomlinson; “what, the very den of danger? Pooh! you

do not know what you say: or do you think it filial to caress Mother

Lobkins before you depart?”

“Not that,” answered Clifford. “I have already ascertained that she is

above the reach of all want; and her days, poor soul! cannot, I fear, be

many. In all probability she would scarcely recognize me; for her habits

cannot much have improved her memory. Would I could say as much for her

neighbours! Were I to be seen in the purlieus of low thievery, you know,

as well as I do, that some stealer of kerchiefs would turn informer

against the notorious Captain Lovett.”

“What, then, takes you to town? Ah! you turn away your face. I guess!

Well, Love has ruined many a hero before; may you not be the worse for

his godship!”

Clifford did not answer, and the conversation made a sudden and long

pause; Tomlinson broke it.

“Do you know, Lovett,” said he, “though I have as little heart as most

men, yet I feel for you more than I could have thought it possible.

I would fain join you; there is devilish good tobacco in Germany, I

believe; and, after all, there is not so much difference between the

life of a thief and of a soldier.”

“Do profit by so sensible a remark,” said Clifford. “Reflect! how

certain of destruction is the path you now tread; the gallows and the

hulks are the only goals!”

“The prospects are not pleasing, I allow,” said Tomlinson; “nor is it

desirable to be preserved for another century in the immortality of a

glass case in Surgeons' Hall, grinning from ear to ear, as if one had

made the merriest finale imaginable. Well! I will sleep on it, and you

shall have my answer tomorrow; but poor Ned?”

“Would he not join us?”

“Certainly not; his neck is made for a rope, and his mind for the Old

Bailey. There is no hope for him; yet he is an excellent fellow. We must

not even tell him of our meditated desertion.”

“By no means. I shall leave a letter to our London chief; it will

explain all. And now to bed. I look to your companionship as settled.”

“Humph!” said Augustus Tomlinson.

So ended the conference of the robbers. About an hour after it had

ceased, and when no sound save the heavy breath of Long Ned broke the

stillness of the night, the intelligent countenance of Peter MacGrawler

slowly elevated itself from the lonely pillow on which it had reclined.

By degrees the back of the sage stiffened into perpendicularity, and

he sat for a few moments erect on his seat of honour, apparently in

listening deliberation. Satisfied with the deep silence that, save the

solitary interruption we have specified, reigned around, the learned

disciple of Vatel rose gently from the bed, hurried on his clothes,

stole on tiptoe to the door, unbarred it with a noiseless hand, and

vanished. Sweet reader! while thou art wondering at his absence, suppose

we account for his appearance.

One evening Clifford and his companion Augustus had been enjoying the

rational amusement at Ranelagh, and were just leaving that celebrated

place when they were arrested by a crowd at the entrance. That crowd was

assembled round a pickpocket; and that pickpocket--O virtue, O wisdom,

O Asinaeum!--was Peter MacGrawler! We have before said that Clifford was

possessed of a good mien and an imposing manner, and these advantages

were at that time especially effectual in preserving our Orbilius from

the pump. No sooner did Clifford recognize the magisterial face of

the sapient Scot, than he boldly thrust himself into the middle of

the crowd, and collaring the enterprising citizen who had collared

MacGrawler, declared himself ready to vouch for the honesty of the

very respectable person whose identity had evidently been so grossly

mistaken. Augustus, probably foreseeing some ingenious ruse, of his

companion, instantly seconded the defence. The mob, who never descry any

difference between impudence and truth, gave way; a constable came up,

took part with the friend of two gentlemen so unexceptionally dressed;

our friends walked off; the crowd repented of their precipitation, and

by way of amends ducked the gentleman whose pockets had been picked. It

was in vain for him to defend himself, for he had an impediment in his

speech; and Messieurs the mob, having ducked him once for his guilt,

ducked him a second time for his embarrassment.

In the interim Clifford had withdrawn his quondam Mentor to the asylum

of a coffee-house; and while MacGrawler's soul expanded itself by wine,

he narrated the causes of his dilemma. It seems that that incomparable

journal “The Asinaeum,” despite a series of most popular articles upon

the writings of “Aulus Prudentius,” to which were added an exquisite

string of dialogues, written in a tone of broad humour, namely,

broad Scotch (with Scotchmen it is all the same thing), despite these

invaluable miscellanies, to say nothing of some glorious political

articles, in which it was clearly proved to the satisfaction of

the rich, that the less poor devils eat the better for their

constitutions,--despite, we say, these great acquisitions to British

literature, “The Asinaeum” tottered, fell, buried its bookseller, and

crushed its author. MacGrawler only,--escaping, like Theodore from the

enormous helmet of Otranto,--MacGrawler only survived. “Love,” says Sir

Philip Sidney, “makes a man see better than a pair of spectacles.”

Love of life has a very different effect on the optics,--it makes a

man wofully dim of inspection, and sometimes causes him to see his own

property in another man's purse! This deceptio visus, did it impose upon

Peter MacGrawler? He went to Ranelagh. Reader, thou knowest the rest!

Wine and the ingenuity of the robbers having extorted this narrative

from MacGrawler, the barriers of superfluous delicacy were easily done

away with.

Our heroes offered to the sage an introduction to their club; the offer

was accepted; and MacGrawler, having been first made drunk, was next

made a robber. The gang engaged him in various little matters, in which

we grieve to relate that though his intentions were excellent, his

success was so ill as thoroughly to enrage his employers; nay, they were

about at one time, when they wanted to propitiate justice, to hand him

over to the secular power, when Clifford interposed in his behalf. From

a robber the sage dwindled into a drudge; menial offices (the robbers,

the lying rascals, declared that such offices were best fitted to the

genius of his country!) succeeded to noble exploits, and the worst of

robbers became the best of cooks. How vain is all wisdom but that of

long experience! Though Clifford was a sensible, and keen man, though he

knew our sage to be a knave, he never dreamed he could be a traitor.

He thought him too indolent to be malicious, and--short-sighted

humanity!--too silly to be dangerous. He trusted the sage with the

secret of the cavern; and Augustus, who was a bit of an epicure,

submitted, though forebodingly, to the choice, because of the

Scotchman's skill in broiling.

But MacGrawler, like Brutus, concealed a scheming heart under a stolid

guise. The apprehension of the noted Lovett had become a matter of

serious desire; the police was no longer to be bribed, nay, they were

now eager to bribe. MacGrawler had watched his time, sold his chief, and

was now on the road to Reading to meet and to guide to the cavern Mr.

Nabbem of Bow Street and four of his attendants.

Having thus, as rapidly as we were able, traced the causes which brought

so startlingly before your notice the most incomparable of critics, we

now, reader, return to our robbers.

“Hist, Lovett!” said Tomlinson, half asleep, “methought I heard

something in the outer cave.”

“It is the Scot, I suppose,” answered Clifford: “you saw, of course, to

the door?”

“To be sure!” muttered Tomlinson, and in two minutes more he was asleep.

Not so Clifford: many and anxious thoughts kept him waking. At one

while, when he anticipated the opening to a new career, somewhat of

the stirring and high spirit which still moved amidst the guilty and

confused habits of his mind made his pulse feverish and his limbs

restless; at another time, an agonizing remembrance,--the remembrance

of Lucy in all her charms, her beauty, her love, her tender and innocent

heart,--Lucy all perfect, and lost to him forever,--banished every other

reflection, and only left him the sick sensation of despondency and

despair. “What avails my struggle for a better name?” he thought.

“Whatever my future lot, she can never share it. My punishment is

fixed,--it is worse than a death of shame; it is a life without hope!

Every moment I feel, and shall feel to the last, the pressure of a chain

that may never be broken or loosened! And yet, fool that I am! I cannot

leave this country without seeing her again, without telling her that I

have really looked my last. But have I not twice told her that? Strange

fatality! But twice have I spoken to her of love, and each time it was

to tear myself from her at the moment of my confession. And even now

something that I have no power to resist compels me to the same idle and

weak indulgence. Does destiny urge me? Ay, perhaps to my destruction!

Every hour a thousand deaths encompass me. I have now obtained all for

which I seemed to linger. I have won, by a new crime, enough to bear me

to another land, and to provide me there a soldier's destiny. I should

not lose an hour in flight, yet I rush into the nest of my enemies, only

for one unavailing word with her; and this, too, after I have already

bade her farewell! Is this fate? If it be so, what matters it? I no

longer care for a life which, after all, I should reform in vain if I

could not reform it for her; yet--yet, selfish and lost that I am!

will it be nothing to think hereafter that I have redeemed her from the

disgrace of having loved an outcast and a felon? If I can obtain honour,

will it not, in my own heart at least,--will it not reflect, however

dimly and distantly, upon her?”

Such, bewildered, unsatisfactory, yet still steeped in the colours

of that true love which raises even the lowest, were the midnight

meditations of Clifford; they terminated, towards the morning, in an

uneasy and fitful slumber. From this he was awakened by a loud yawn from

the throat of Long Ned, who was always the earliest riser of his set.

“Hullo!” said he, “it is almost daybreak; and if we want to cash our

notes and to move the old lord's jewels, we should already be on the

start.”

“A plague on you!” said Tomlinson, from under cover of his woollen

nightcap; “it was but this instant that I was dreaming you were going to

be hanged, and now you wake me in the pleasantest part of the dream!”

“You be shot!” said Ned, turning one leg out of bed; “by the by, you

took more than your share last night, for you owed me three guineas

for our last game at cribbage! You'll please to pay me before we part

to-day: short accounts make long friends!”

“However true that maxim may be,” returned Tomlinson, “I know one much

truer,--namely, long friends will make short accounts! You must ask Jack

Ketch this day month if I'm wrong!”

“That's what you call wit, I suppose!” retorted Ned, as he now,

struggling into his inexpressibles, felt his way into the outer cave.

“What, ho, Mac!” cried he, as he went, “stir those bobbins of thine,

which thou art pleased to call legs; strike a light, and be d---d to

you!”

“A light for you,” said Tomlinson, profanely, as he reluctantly left his

couch, “will indeed be a 'light to lighten the Gentiles!'”

“Why, Mac, Mac!” shouted Ned, “why don't you answer? faith, I think the

Scot's dead!”

“Seize your men!--Yield, sirs!” cried a stern, sudden voice from the

gloom; and at that instant two dark lanterns were turned, and their

light streamed full upon the astounded forms of Tomlinson and his gaunt

comrade! In the dark shade of the background four or five forms were

also indistinctly visible; and the ray of the lanterns glimmered on

the blades of cutlasses and the barrels of weapons still less easily

resisted.

Tomlinson was the first to recover his self-possession. The light

just gleamed upon the first step of the stairs leading to the stables,

leaving the rest in shadow. He made one stride to the place beside the

cart, where, we have said, lay some of the robbers' weapons; he had

been anticipated,--the weapons were gone. The next moment Tomlinson had

sprung up the steps.

“Lovett! Lovett! Lovett!” shouted he.

The captain, who had followed his comrades into the cavern, was already

in the grasp of two men. From few ordinary mortals, however, could any

two be selected as fearful odds against such a man as Clifford,--a man

in whom a much larger share of sinews and muscle than is usually the

lot even of the strong had been hardened, by perpetual exercise, into

a consistency and iron firmness which linked power and activity into a

union scarcely less remarkable than that immortalized in the glorious

beauty of the sculptured gladiator. His right hand is upon the throat of

one assailant; his left locks, as in a vice, the wrist of the other; you

have scarcely time to breathe! The former is on the ground, the pistol

of the latter is wrenched from his grip, Clifford is on the step;

a ball--another--whizzes by him; he is by the side of the faithful

Augustus!

“Open the secret door!” whispered Clifford to his friend; “I will draw

up the steps alone.”

Scarcely had he spoken, before the steps were already, but slowly,

ascending beneath the desperate strength of the robber. Meanwhile Ned

was struggling, as he best might, with two sturdy officers, who appeared

loath to use their weapons without an absolute necessity, and who

endeavoured, by main strength, to capture and detain their antagonist.

“Look well to the door!” cried the voice of the principal officer, “and

hang out more light!”

Two or three additional lanterns were speedily brought forward; and over

the whole interior of the cavern a dim but sufficient light now rapidly

circled, giving to the scene and to the combatants a picturesque and

wild appearance.

The quick eye of the head-officer descried in an instant the rise of the

steps, and the advantage the robbers were thereby acquiring. He and two

of his men threw themselves forward, seized the ladder, if so it may be

called, dragged it once more to the ground, and ascended. But Clifford,

grasping with both hands the broken shaft of a cart that lay in reach,

received the foremost invader with a salute that sent him prostrate and

senseless back among his companions. The second shared the same fate;

and the stout leader of the enemy, who, like a true general, had kept

himself in the rear, paused now in the middle of the steps, dismayed

alike by the reception of his friends and the athletic form towering

above, with raised weapons and menacing attitude. Perhaps that moment

seemed to the judicious Mr. Nabbem more favourable to parley than to

conflict. He cleared his throat, and thus addressed the foe:

“You, sir, Captain Lovett, alias Howard, alias Jackson, alias Cavendish,

alias Solomons, alias Devil,--for I knows you well, and could swear to

you with half an eye, in your clothes or without,--you lay down your

club there, and let me come alongside of you, and you'll find me as

gentle as a lamb; for I've been used to gemmen all my life, and I knows

how to treat 'em when I has 'em!”

“But if I will not let you 'come alongside of me,' what then?”

“Why, I must send one of these here pops through your skull, that's

all!”

“Nay, Mr. Nabbem, that would be too cruel! You surely would not harm one

who has such an esteem for you? Don't you remember the manner in which

I brought you off from Justice Burnflat, when you were accused, you know

whether justly or--”

“You're a liar, Captain!” cried Nabbem, furiously, fearful that

something not meet for the ears of his companions should transpire.

“You knows you are! Come down, or let me mount; otherwise I won't be

'sponsible for the consequences!”

Clifford cast a look over his shoulder. A gleam of the gray daylight

already glimmered through a chink in the secret door, which Tomlinson

had now unbarred and was about to open.

“Listen to me, Mr. Nabbem,” said he, “and perhaps I may grant what you

require! What would you do with me if you had me?”

“You speaks like a sensible man now,” answered Nabbem; “and that's after

my own heart. Why, you sees, Captain, your time is come, and you can't

shilly-shally any longer. You have had your full swing; your years are

up, and you must die like a man! But I gives you my honour as a gemman,

that if you surrenders, I'll take you to the justice folks as tenderly

as if you were made of cotton.”

“Give way one moment,” said Clifford, “that I may plant the steps firmer

for you.”

Nabbem retreated to the ground; and Clifford, who had, good-naturedly

enough, been unwilling unnecessarily to damage so valuable a

functionary, lost not the opportunity now afforded him. Down thundered

the steps, clattering heavily among the other officers, and falling like

an avalanche on the shoulder of one of the arresters of Long Ned.

Meanwhile Clifford sprang after Tomlinson through the aperture, and

found himself--in the presence of four officers, conducted by the shrewd

MacGrawler. A blow from a bludgeon on the right cheek and temple of

Augustus felled that hero. But Clifford bounded over his comrade's

body, dodged from the stroke aimed at himself, caught the blow aimed

by another assailant in his open hand, wrested the bludgeon from the

officer, struck him to the ground with his own weapon, and darting

onward through the labyrinth of the wood, commenced his escape with a

step too fleet to allow the hope of a successful pursuit.