He was again about to retire; but the Earl once more spoke, saying, “Your behaviour to me, sir, especially about this ring, has been such that, without asking impertinent questions, I would fain serve you.—­Can I do it ?”

“I fear not, my lord; I fear not,” replied the stranger.  Then seeming to recollect himself, with a sudden start, he approached nearer to the carriage, saying, “I had forgot—­you can, my lord!—­you can.”

“In what manner?” demanded the peer.

“That I cannot tell your lordship here and now,” replied the highwayman:  “time is wanting, and, doubtless, my companions’ patience is worn away already.”

“Well,” replied the Earl, “if you will venture to call upon me at my own house, some ten miles hence, which, as you know me, you probably know also, I will hear all you have to say, serve you if I can, and will take care that you come and go with safety.”

“I offer you a thousand thanks, my lord,” replied the other, “and will venture as fearlessly as I would to my own chamber.” [Footnote:  It may be interesting to the reader to know that the whole of this scene, even to a great part of the dialogue, actually took place in the beginning of the reign of William III.]

Thus saying, he drew back and closed the door; and then making a signal to his companions to withdraw from the heads of the horses, he bade the postilions drive on, and sprang upon his own beast.

“What have you got, Lennard? what have you got?” demanded the man who was at the other door of the carriage:  “what have you got—­you have had a long talk about it?”

“A heavy purse,” replied Sherbrooke; “what the contents are, I know not—­a watch, a chain, and three gold seals.—­I’m almost sorry that I did this thing.”

“Sorry!” cried the other; “why you insisted upon doing it yourself, and would let no other take the first adventure out of your hands.”

“I did not mean that,” replied Sherbrooke “I did not mean that at all!  If the thing were to be done, and I standing by, I might as well do it as see you do it.  What I mean is, that I am sorry for having taken the man’s money at all!”

“Pshaw!” replied the other:  “You forget that he is one of the enemy, or rather, I should say, a traitor to his king, to his native-born prince, and therefore is fair game for every true subject of King James.”

“He stood by him a long time,” replied Sherbrooke, “for all that—­as long, and longer than the King stood by himself.”

“Never mind, never mind, Colonel,” said one of the others, who had come up by this time; “you won’t need absolution for what’s been done to-night; and I would bet a guinea to a shilling, that if you ask any priest in all the land, he will tell you, that you have done a good deed instead of a bad; but let us get back to the inn as quick as we can, and see what the purse contains.”