Chapter 26 Chapter 27 of Paul Clifford by Edward Boer Lytton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 26 The rogues were very merry on their booty. They said a thousand things that showed the wickedness of their morals. Gioblah. They fixed on a spot where they made a cave, which was large enough to receive them, and their horses. This cave was enclosed within a sort of thicket of bushes and brambles from this station they used to issue, etc., memoirs of Richard Turpin. It was not for several minutes after their flight had commenced that any conversation passed between the robbers. Their horses flew on like wind, and the country through which they rode presented to their speed no other obstacle than an occasional hedge or a shortcut through the thicknesses of some leafless beech wood. The stars lent them a merry light, and the spirits of two of them at least were fully in sympathy with the exhilaration of the pace and the air. Perhaps in the third a certain presentiment that the present adventure would end last merely then it had begun conspired with other causes of gloom to check that exaltation of the blood which generally follows a successful exploit. The path which the robbers took wound by the sides of long woods or across large tracks of uncultivated land, nor did they encounter anything living by the road save now and then a solitary owl wheeling its gray body around the skirts of the bare woods or occasionally troops of conies pursuing their sports and enjoying their midnight food in the fields. Heavens cried the tall robber whose incognito we need no longer preserve, and who, as our readers are doubtless aware, answered to the name of Pepper, heavens cried he, looking upward at the starry skies in a sort of ecstasy, what a jolly life this is. Some fellows like hunting, darn it, what hunting is like the road. If there be sport in hunting down a nasty fox, how much more is there in hunting down a nice clean nobleman's carriage? If there be joy in getting a brush, how much more is there in getting a purse? If it be pleasant to fly over a hedge in the broad daylight, hang me if it be not ten times finer sport to skim it by night. Here goes, look how the hedges run away from us and the silly old moon dances about as if the sight of us put the good lady in spirits. Those old mates are always glad to have an eye upon such fine, dashing young fellows. Eye cried the more erudite and sententious Augustus Tomlinson roused by success from his usual philosophical sobriety, no work is so pleasant as night work, and the witches, our ancestors, burned were in the right to ride out on their broomsticks with the owls and the stars. We are their successors now, Ned. We are your true fly-by-nights. Only, quote Ned, we are a cursed, deal more clever than they were, for they played their game without being a bit the richer for it, and we, I say Tomlinson, where the devil did you put that red Morocco case? Experience never enlightens the foolish, said Tomlinson, or you would have known without asking that I had put it in the very safest pocket in my coat. Gad, how heavy it is! Well, cried Pepper, I can't say, I wish it were lighter. Only think of our robbing, my Lord, twice, and on the same road, too. I say, Leavitt, exclaimed Tomlinson, was it not odd that we should have stumbled upon our bathroom so unceremoniously lucky for us that we are so strict in robbing in masks? He would not have thought the better of Bath Company if he had seen our faces. Leavitt or rather Clifford had hitherto been silent. He now turned slowly in his saddle and said, As it was, the poor devil was very nearly dispatched. Long Ned was making short work with him if I had not interposed. And why did you, said Ned? Because I will have no killing. It is the curse of the noble art of our profession to have passionate professors like thee. Passionate repeated Ned, Well, I am a little choleric, I own it, but that is not so great a fault on the road as it would be in housebreaking. I don't know a thing that requires so much coolness and self-possession as cleaning out a house from top to bottom, quietly and civilly, mind you. That is the reason, I suppose then, said Augustus, that you altogether renounced that career your first adventure was housebreaking. I think I have heard you say. I confess it was a vulgar debut, not worthy of you. No, Harry Cook seduced me, but the specimen I saw that night disgusted me of picking locks. It brings one in contact with such low companions. Only think there was a merchant, a rag merchant, one of the party. For, said Tomlinson, in solemn disgust, I, you may well turn up your lip, I never broke into a house again. Who were your other companions? asked Augustus. Only Harry Cook, a noted highwayman, and a very singular woman. Here, Ned's narrative was interrupted by a dark defile through a wood, allowing room for only one horseman at a time. They continued this gloomy path for several minutes until it lengthened, brought them to the brink of a large dell, overgrown with bushes and spreading around somewhat in the form of a rude semicircle. Here the robbers dismounted and led their reeking horses down the descent. Long Ned, who went first, paused at a cluster of bushes, which seemed so thick as to defy intrusion, but which, yielding on either side to the experienced hand of the robber, presented what appeared the mouth of a cavern. A few steps along the passage of this gulf brought them to a door, which even, seen by torchlight, would have appeared so exactly similar in color and material to the rude walls on either side as to have deceived any unsuspecting eye, and which in the customary darkness brooding over it might have remained for centuries undiscovered. Touching a secret latch, the door opened and the robbers were in the secure precincts of the red cave. It may be remembered that among the early studies of our exemplary hero, the memoirs of Richard Turpin had formed a conspicuous portion, and it may also be remembered that in the miscellaneous adventures of that gentleman, nothing had more delighted the juvenile imagination of the student than the description of the forest cave in which the gallant Turpin had been accustomed to conceal himself, his friend, his horse. And that sweet saint who lay by Turpin's side, or to speak more domestically, the respectable Mrs. Turpin, so strong a hold indeed had that early reminiscence fixed upon our hero's mind that no sooner had he risen to eminence among his friends than he had put the project of his childhood into execution. He had selected for the scene of his ingenuity an admirable spot, in a thinly peopled country surrounded by commons and woods, and yet as Mr. Robbins would say if he had to dispose of it by auction within an easy ride of populace and well frequented roads, it possessed all the advantages of secrecy for itself and convenience for depredation. Very few of the gang and those only who had been employed in its construction were made acquainted with the secret of this cavern, and as our adventurers rarely visited it, and only on occasions of urgent want or secure concealment, it had continued for more than two years, undiscovered and unsuspected. The cavern originally hollered by nature, owed but little to the decorations of art. Nevertheless, the roughness of the walls was concealed by a rude but comfortable heiress of matting. Four or five of such seats as the robbers themselves could construct were drawn around a small but bright wood fire, which as there was no chimney spread a thin volume of smoke over the apartment. The height of the cave added to the universal reconciler custom prevented, however, this evil from being seriously unpleasant, and indeed like the tenants of an Irish cabin, perhaps the inmates attached a degree of comfort to a circumstance which was coupled with their dearest household associations. A table formed of a board, coarsely planed, and supported by four legs of irregular size, made equal by the introduction of blocks or wedges between the legs and the floor, stood warming its own coups self by the fire. At one corner, a covered cart made a conspicuous article of furniture no doubt useful either in conveying plunder or provisions. Beside the wheels were carelessly thrown two or three course carpenters tools, and the more warlike utilities of a blunder bus, a rifle, and two broadswords. In the other corner was an open cupboard containing rows of pewter, platters, mugs, et cetera. Opposite the fireplace, which was to the left of the entrance, an excavation had been turned into a dormitory. And fronting the entrance was a pair of broad, strong wooden steps ascending to a large hollow about eight feet from the ground. This was the entrance to the stables, and as soon as their owners released the reins of the horses, the docile animals proceeded one by one, leisurely up the steps in the manner of quadrupeds educated at the public seminary, abassed lease, and disappeared within the aperture. These steps, when drawn up, which, however, from their extreme clumsiness, required the united strength of two ordinary men, and was not that instantaneous work, which it should have been, made the place above a tolerably strong hold. For the wall was perfectly perpendicular and level, and it was only by placing his hands upon the ledge and so lifting himself gymnastically upward that an active assailant could have reached the eminence. A work which defenders equally acted, it may easily be supposed, would not be likely to allow. This upper cave for our robbers paid more attention to their horses than themselves, as the nobler animals of the two species was evidently fitted up with some labor. The stalls were rudely divided. The litter of dried fern was clean, troughs were filled with oats, and a large tub had been supplied from a pond at a little distance. A cart, harness, and some old wagoner's frocks were fixed on pegs to the wall, while at the far end of these singular stables was a door strongly barred, and only just large enough to admit the body of a man. The Confederates had made it an express law never to enter their domain by this door, or to use it except for the purpose of escape, should the cave ever be attacked. In which case, while one or two defended the entrance from the inner cave, another might unbar the door, and as it opened upon the thickest part of the wood, through which, with great ingenuity, a labyrinthine path had been cut, not easily tracked by ignorant pursuers, these precautions of the highwaymen had provided a fair hope of at least a temporary escape from any invading enemies. Such were the domestic arrangements of the red cave, and it will be conceded that at least some skill had been shown in the choice of the spot if there were a lack of taste in its adornments. While the horses were performing their nightly assent, our three heroes, after securing the door, made it once to the fire, and there, O reader, they were greeted in, welcomed by one, an old and revered acquaintance of thine, whom in such a scene it will equally astound and wound thee to rebehold. No then, but first we will describe to thee the occupation and the garb of the august person, each to whom we allude, bending over a large gridiron, dainfully bespread with stakes of a fatted rump, the individual stood, with his right arm buried above the elbow, and his right hand grasping that mimic trident known unto grass drometers by the monosyllable fork. His wiggless head was adorned with a cotton nightcap, his upper vestment was discarded, and a white-ish apron flowed gracefully down his middle man. His stockings were unguarded and permitted between the knee and the calf, interesting glances of the rude carnal. One list shoe and one of leather manufacture cased his ample feet, enterprise, or the noble glow of his present culinary profession, spread a yet rosier blush over accountants, early tinge by generous libations, and from beneath the curtain of his pallid eyelashes his large and rotund orbs gleamed dazzlingly on the newcomers. Such a reader was the aspect and the occupation of the venerable man whom we have long since taught thee to admire, such a last for the mutabilities of earth was a new chapter only can contain the name. End of chapter 26. Chapter 27. Caliban hast thou not dropped from heaven? Tempest. Peter McGrawler. End of chapter 27. Chapter 28 of Paul Clifford by Edward Boer Lytton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 28. 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 cemetery, 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, the cost of the C. Duvall ornament of the asinium with a sounding slap on his back or some such part of his confirmation.  But how, the deuce, should you know how, true 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, tis but rarely out of Scotland that a man can see so big a road in so little a compass. Mr. McGrawler, 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 which 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, quote Tomlinson, they are performing the more profitable part of robbers to cooks, eh? Dan, 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 their way with the booty. May the devil catch thee, said McGrawler, 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 devil, said Ned, mimicking the silver sound, as Sir W. Scott had been pleased facetiously to call the mountain tongue. The Scots in general seemed to think it is silver, they keep it so carefully. The devil, McDeal, you mean, sure, the gentleman must have been a Scotsman. 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 curved his temper and turned the beef steaks 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.  I'll give you a crown to do it. The wise McGrawler picked 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 horse's 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. McGrawler opened his eyes larger and larger, even as you may see a small circle in the water, widening into enormity if you disturb the equanimity of the surface by the abtrusion of a foreign substance. Half a guinea, said he, nay, nay, you joke, I'm not mercenary. You think I am poo poo, you are mistaken. I'm a man who means wheel. The man of veracity will speak the truth in spite of all the half guinnies in the world. But certainly now I begin to think of it, Mr. Tomlinson did see to the creature's 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 horse's nay? O 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 loathed, followed the example, heavens, what exclamations of delight issued from the scoundrel's 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 Joe, I hope not, said the phlegmatic Augustus. Repeaters will not tell well for your conversation, Ned, for powers that be, look at this ring, a diamond of the first water. O, the sparkler, it makes one's mouth water, as much as itself. Steph, 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'd 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 gallant day, had lent luster to the polished person of my leverer. O, 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, that side of the diamonds, here's a purse, vifty guineas. And what's this? Notes by Jupiter. We must change them tomorrow 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. 300 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've left out multiplication, said Clifford smiling. All because that works differently. The other rules apply to the species of the kingdom. But as for multiplication, we multiply. I fear no species but our own. By gentlemen, said McGrawler, austerely, for there is a wonderful decorum in your true Scotsman. Actions or 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 subtleizing 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 McGrawler 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. Scott. And fork nothing but the beef steaks. But this Ned turned to the staples and soon disappeared among the horses. But Clifford, eyeing the disappointed and eager face of that culinary sage, took 10 guineas from his own share and pushed them towards his quantum tutor. There said he emphatically, nay, nay, granted McGrawler, 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 vians smoked along the board. Souls of Don Raphael and Ambrose LaMella.  How merry men are when they have cheated their brethren. Your innocent milk sops never made so jolly a supper as did our heroes of the way. Clifford perhaps acted apart, but the hilarity of his comrades was unthamed. It was a delicious contrast, the boisterous ha-ha of long Ned and the secret dry calculating chuckle of Augustus Tomlinson. He was rabbley against Voltaire. They united only in the objects of their jests and foremost of those objects. Wisdom is ever the butt of the frivolous was the great Peter McGrawler. The graceless dogs were especially merry upon the subject of the sage's former occupation. Come back, you car 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 McGrawler, said the malicious Augustus. Whatever it be his faults as a critic, you see that he is well grounded and he gets it once to the bottom of a subject. Max, suppose your next work be entitled a tale of woe. Men who have great minds are rarely flexible. They do not take a jest readily, so it was with McGrawler. 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 play for him. It was interesting to see this deference from power to learning. It was Alexander doing homage to Aristotle. There's only one thing I regret, cried Ned with his mouth full about the old Lord. He 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 stains, how you swore every person we stopped above 50 years old should dance a menuette with you. I added Augustus and the first was a bishop in a white wig, faith how stiffly his lordship jigged it and how gravely love it 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 coveted? To be sure, said Tomlinson, and you very readily called her a hot pole.  And the third was a bow, cried Augustus and loved it, surrendered his right of partnership to me. Do you recollect how I danced his bow ship into the ditch? We were mad fellows then, but we get sated, blazees, as the French say, as we grow older. We look only to the main chance now, said Ned, avarice supersize enterprise, added the sententious Augustus. And our captain takes the wine with an H after the W, continued that metaphorical Ned. Come, we are melancholy, said Tomlinson, tossing off a bumper. He thinks we are really growing old. We shall repent soon, and the next step will be hanging. Forgad, said Ned, helping himself, don't be so croaking. There are two classes of malign gentry who should always be particular to avoid certain colors and dressing.  I'm confoundedly sleepy and we rise early tomorrow. Right, Ned, said Tomlinson, give us a song before you retire and let it be that one which love it composed the last time we were here. Ned, always pleased with an opportunity of displaying himself, cleared his voice and complied. I did he from Sherwood. One, 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 neighbor's malice, gather it up in our garners here? Some kings there wealth from their subjects ring, while by their foes they the poor wax, free go the men of the wise wood king, and it is only our foes we tax. Lead the cheats of trade to the shrew good wife that the old bee knaves at ease, away with the tide of that dashing life which is stirred by a constant breeze.  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've heard that love scorns them too. Courage, then, courage ye jolly boys, whom the fool with the navy's rates owe, who that is loved by the world enjoys, have as much as the man it hates. Bravesimo net, cry Tomlinson, wrapping the table. Bravesimo, your voice is superb tonight and your song admirable. Really love it, it does your peretical genius, great credit, quite philosophical upon my honor. Bravesimo, said McGrawler, nodding his head awfully. Mr. Pepper's voice is as sweet as a bagpipe. Ah, such a song would have been invaluable to the asinium when I had the honor to be vicar of gray to that establishment. Interrupted Tomlinson, pray McGrawler, why do they call Edinburgh the modern Athens? Because of the learned and great minute produces, return McGrawler with conscious pride. Poo-poo, you are thinking of ancient Athens. Your city is called the modern Athens because you're also like the modern Athenians. The greatest scoundrels imaginable and less travelers 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'm going to bet and I suppose you will not tarry long behind me. Trust us for that, answered Tomlinson. The captain and I will consult in the business of the Mara and join you in the twinkling of a bed post as it has been shrewdly expressed. Ned yawned his last good night and disappeared within the dormitory. McGrawler, yawning also, but with a graver yawn as became his wisdom, betook himself to the duty of removing the separate paraphernalia. After busting soberly about for some minutes, he let down a press bed in the corner of the cave for he did not sleep in the robber's apartment and then dressing himself, soon appeared buried in the bosom of Morpheus. But the chief in Tomlinson, drawing those seats near it 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 tangs. I've well weighed all this, and through Clifford and have decided on my course, I've only teary-tilted my means, could assist my will. With my share of our present and late booty, I shall retake 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 drained from your lips. Surely you will join me in my separation from the core. 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 lover, 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'm many years older than you. I've lived as a rogue till I have no other nature than roguery. I doubt if I should not be a coward where I to turn soldier. I'm 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 be in jargon with my old comrades and in my old ways till I jog into the noose, hempen, or melancholy alternative, the noose, matrimonial. This is Mirfali, say 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 where I to succumb to the feebleness of my own heart. I should be lost indeed. And perhaps, Russell, not ever so stoutly, I do not, Russell, 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. Anywhere 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 rain 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, interrupt a tommy and sin 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. Nay by am and nay by 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. Tomorrow, 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 poof. You do not know what you say, or do you think it filial to caress mother Lopkins before you depart? Not that, answered Clifford. I've 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 neighbors, were I to be seen in the pearl use 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 worst for his Godship. Clifford did not answer, and the conversation made a sudden and long pause. Tomlinson broke it. 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's not so much difference between the life of a thief and of a soldier. To profit by so sensible a remark, said Clifford, reflect how certain of destruction is the path you now tread. The gallows and the hawks 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 Surgeon's 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. He will explain all, and out of bed, I look to your companionship as settled, hum, said our guest, as 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 McGrawler 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 honor, apparently enlisting deliberation. Satisfied with the deep silence, that saved the solitary interruption we have specified rained around. The learned disciple of the tale rose gently from the bed, hurried on his clothes, stole on tiptoe to the door, and barred 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 of run-of-law, 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, oh virtue, oh wisdom, oh asinium, was Peter McGrawler. We have before said that Clifford was possessed of a good mean, and an imposing manner, and these advantages were at that time especially effectual in preserving our orbilliest from the pump. No sooner did Clifford recognize the magisterial face of the sapient Scott, than he boldly thrust himself into the middle of the crowd, and collaring the enterprising citizen who had collared McGrawler, 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 defense. The mob who never described any difference between impudence and truth gave way. A constable came up, took part with the friend of two gentlemen, so an exceptionally 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 messused the mob, having ducked him once for his guilt, ducked him a second time for his embarrassment. In the interim, Clifford had withdrawn his quantum mentor to the asylum of a coffee house, and while McGrawler's soul expanded itself by wine, he narrated the causes of his dilemma. It seems that that incomparable journal, The Asceneum, despite a series of most popular articles upon the writings of Aulis Pridentius, to which were added an exquisite string of dialogues written in a tone of broad humor, namely broad scotch, with Scotchman, it is all the same thing. Despite these invaluable miscellaneous, 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 Asceneum, Totterd, Fell, buried its bookseller and crushed its author. McGrawler only escaping like the adore from the enormous helmet of Otranta. McGrawler 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 woefully dim of inspection and sometimes causes him to see his own property in another man's purse. This deceptive visus did it impose upon Peter McGrawler. He went to Ranilof, reader, now knows the rest. Wine and the ingenuity of the robbers having extorted this narrative from McGrawler, 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 McGrawler, 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 dredge. 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. Our vain is all wisdom but that of long experience. Though Clifford was a sensible and keen man, though we knew our sage to be a naïve, he never dreamed he could be a traitor.  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. Let McGrawler, like Brutus, concealed his scheming heart under a stolid guise. The apprehension of the noted love that had become a matter of serious desire. The police was no longer to be broad, nay, they were now eager to bribe. McGrawler had watched his time, sold his cheap and was now on the road to Reading to meet and to guide to the cavern. Mr. Nabom 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 return to our robbers. His love it, said Tomlinson half asleep. We thought I heard something in the outer cave. It is the Scotch, I suppose, answered Clifford. You saw, of course, to the door, to be sure, butter Tomlinson, and in two minutes more, he was asleep. Not so Clifford, many and anxious thoughts kept him waking and 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 beaverish and his limbs restless. At another time and 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, vanished every other reflection and only left him the sixth 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? I perhaps to my destruction, every hour a thousand deaths encompass me. I've now obtained all for which I seem to linger. I've 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 rushed into the nest of my enemies only for one unavailing word with her and this too after I've already bad 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 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 honor, 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 colors 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 net who was always the earliest riser of his set. A low 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, Saint Thomas, and from undercover 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'd be shot, said Ned, turning one leg out of bed, and by the by you took more than your share last night for you owed me three guineas for our last game at Cribbage. You pleased to pay me before we part today. Short accounts make long friends. However true that maxim may be, return, Thomas, and 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. White hoe, Mack, righty, as he went, stir those bobbins of thine which thou art pleased to call legs, strike a light and be dirned to you. A light for you, said Thomas, and profanely as he reluctantly left his couch, will indeed be a light to lighten the Gentiles. Why, Mack, Mack, shouted, Ned, why don't you answer, faith I think the Scots did? 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 gone 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. Love it, love it, love it, shouted he. The captain, who had followed his comrades into the cabin, 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 sculptor 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 low to use their weapons without an absolute necessity and who endeavored by main strength to capture and detain their antagonists. 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 described in an instant the rise of the steps and the advantage the robbers were thereby acquiring. He and two of his men through themselves forward seized the ladder, if so it may be called, dragged it once more to the ground and descended, 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 the judicious Mr. Nebbon more favorable to parlay than to conflict. He cleared his throat and thus addressed the foe. You, sir, Captain Levitt, Ailey's Howard, Ailey's Jackson, Ailey's Cavendish, Ailey's Solomon's, Ailey's 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 gemming all my life and I know how to treat him when I hasn't. But if I will not let you come alongside of me, what then? Why am I sent one of these here pops through your skull? That's all. Nay, Mr. Nebbon, that would be too cruel. You surely would not harm one who has such an esteem for you.    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. Nebbon, 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 Nebbon. And that's after my own heart. While you cease, Captain, your time has come and you can't surely shall it any longer.  But I give you my honor as a gemma that if you surrender, 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 farmer for you. Nebbon retreated to the ground and Clifford, who had, naturally 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 McGrawler, a blow from a bludgeon on the right cheek and temple of Augustus Belvathira. But Clifford bounded over his comrades body, dodged from the stroke aimed at himself, caught the blow aimed by another assailant. In his open hand rested 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, to flee to allow the hope of a successful pursuit. End of chapter 28. Chapter 29 of Paul Clifford by Edward Bower Lytton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 29. In short, Isabella, I offer you myself. Heavens, cried Isabella, what do I hear? You, my lord, castle of Otranto. A novel is like a weatherglass where the man appears out at one time, the woman at another. Variable as the atmosphere, the changes of our story now represent Lucy to the reader. That charming young person who it may be remarked is, her father accepted, the only unsophisticated and unsullied character in the pages of a story in some measure designed to show in the depravities of character, the depravities of that social state wherein characters are formed, was sitting alone in her apartment at the period in which we returned to her. As time and that innate and insensible fund of healing, which nature has placed in the bosoms of the young in order that her great law, the passing away of the old, may not leave to lasting and keen a wound, had softened her first anguish at her father's death, the remembrance of Clifford again, resumed its ancient sway in her heart. The loneliness of her life, the absence of amusement, even the sensitiveness and languor which succeed to grief conspired to invest the image of her lover in a tenderer and more impressive guise. She recalled his words, his actions, his letters and employed herself whole hours, whole days and nights in endeavoring to decipher their mystery. Who that has been loved will not acknowledge the singular and mighty force with which a girl, innocent herself, clings to the belief of innocence and her lover. In breasts, young and unacquainted with the world, there is so pure a credulity in the existence of unmixed good, so firm a reluctance to think that where we love there can be that which we would not esteem or where we admire there can be that which we ought to blame, that one may almost deem it an argument in favor of our natural power to attain a greater eminence in virtue than the habits and arts of the existing world will allow us to reach. Perhaps it is not paradoxical to say that we could scarcely believe perfection in others for not the germ of perfectability in our own minds. When a man has lived some years among the actual contests of faction without imbibing the prejudice as well as the experience, how wonderingly he smiles at his worship of former idols, how different a color does history wear to him, how cautious is he now to praise, how slow to admire, how prone to cavill. Human nature has become the human nature of art and he estimates it not from what it may be but from what in the corruptions of a semi-civilization it is. But in the same manner as the young student clings to the belief that the sage or the minstrel who has enlightened his reason or chained his imagination is in character as ingenious elevated above the ordinary herd, free from the passions, the frivolities, the little meannesses and the darkening vices which ordinary flesh is there to does a woman who loves for the first time cling to the imagined excellence of him she loves. Whenever Lina is so shocked at the idea of an occasional fit of intoxication in her noble, her unrivaled lover who does not acknowledge how natural were her feelings. Had Avalina been married six years and the same lover then her husband been really guilty of what she suspected who does not feel that it would have been very unnatural to have been shocked in the least at the occurrence. She would not have loved him less nor admired him less nor would he have been less than noble and the unrivaled he would have taken his glass too much have joked the next morning on the event that gentle Avalina would have made him a cup of tea but that which would have been a matter of pleasantry and the husband would have been matter of damnation in a lover. But to return to Lucy, if it be so hard, so repellent to believe a lover guilty even of a trivial error, we may readily suppose that Lucy never for a moment admitted the supposition that Clifford had been really guilty of gross error or willful crime. True that expressions in his letter were more than suspicious but there's always a charm in the candor of self condemnation as it is difficult to believe the excellence of those who praise themselves so it is difficult to fancy those criminal who condemn. What to is the process of a woman's reasoning alas she is too credulous of physiognomist the turn of a throat with her is the unearing token of nobleness of mind and no one can be guilty of a sin who is blessed with a beautiful forehead, how fondly, how fanatically Lucy loved. She had gathered together a precious and secret hoard, a glove, a pen, a book, a withered rose leaf, treasures rendered inestimable because he had touched them but more than all had she the series of his letters from the first formal note written to her father meant for her in which he answered an invitation and requested Ms. Brandon's acceptance of the music she had wished to have to the last wild and to her inexplicable letter in which he had resigned her forever. On these relics her eyes fed for hours and as she poured over them and over thoughts too deep not only for tears but for all utterance or conveyance you might have almost literally watched the fading of her rich cheek and the pining away of her rounded and elastic form. It was just in such a mood that she was buried when her uncle knocked at her door for admittance. She hurried away her treasures and hastened to admit and greet him. I have come said he smiling to beg the pleasure of your company for an old friend who dines with us today.  Do not let me disturb so important in occupation as your toilet dress yourself my love and join us. Lucy turned with a suppressed sigh to the glass. The uncle lingered for a few moments surveying her with mingled pride and doubt. He then slowly left the chamber. Lucy soon afterwards descended to the drawing room and beheld with a little surprise for she had not had sufficient curiosity to inquire the name of the guest in the slender form and comely features of Lord Millevereur. The Earl approached with the same grace which had in his earlier youth rendered him almost irresistible but which now from the contrast of years with manner contained a slight mixture of the comic. He paid his compliments and in paying them declared that he must leave it to his friend Sir William to explain all the danger he had dared for the sake of satisfying himself that Miss Brandon was no less lovely than when he had last beheld her. Yes indeed said Brandon with a scarcely perceptible sneer. Lord Millevereur has literally endured the moving accidents of flood and field where he was nearly exterminated by a high remand and all but drowned in a ditch. Come in me to a friend for setting one off to the best advantage said Millevereur gaily instead of attracting your sympathy you see Brandon would expose me to your ridicule judge for yourself whether I deserve it. Millevereur proceeded to give with all the animation which belonged to his character, the particulars of that adventure with which the reader is so well acquainted. He did not we may be sure feel any scruple in representing himself and his prowess in the most favorable colors. The story was scarcely ended when dinner was announced during that meal. Millevereur exerted himself to be amiable with infinite address suiting his conversation more than he had hitherto deigned to do to the temper of Lucy and more anxious to soften than to dazzle. He certainly never before appeared to her so attractive. We are bound to add that the point of attraction did not reach beyond the confession that he was a very agreeable old man. Perhaps if there had not been a certain half melancholy vein in his conversation possibly less uncongenial to his lordship from the remembrance of his lost diamonds and the impression that Sir William Brandon's cook was considerably worse than his own, he might not have been so successful in pleasing Lucy. As for himself, all the previous impressions she had made on him returned in colors yet more vivid, even the delicate and subdued cast of beauty which had succeeded to her earlier brilliancy was far more charming to his festivities and courtly taste than her former glow of spirits and health. He felt himself very much in love during dinner and after it was over and Lucy had retired, he told Brandon with the passionate air that he adored his niece to distraction. The wily judge affected to receive the intimation with indifference but knowing that too long an absence is injurious to a grand passion, he did not keep me lever very late over his wine. The Earl returned rapturously to the drawing room and basalt Lucy in a voice in which affectation seemed swooning with the light to indulge him with a song. More and more enchanted by her ascent he drew the music stool to the harpsichord placed a chair beside her and presently appeared lost in transport. Meanwhile, Brandon with his back to the pair covered his face with his handkerchief and to all the parents yielded to the voluptuousness of an after dinner repose. Lucy's song book opened accidentally at a song which had been praised by Clifford and as she sang her voice took a richer and more tender tone than in malevolous presence it had ever before assumed. The complaint of the violets which lose their scent in May. In the shadow that falls from the silent hill we slept in our green retreats and the April showers were want to fill our hearts with sweets. And though we lay in a lowly bower yet all things loved us well and the waking bee left her ferris flower with us to dwell. But the warm May came in his pride to rue the wealth of our honeyed store and our hearts just felt his breath and knew their sweets no more. And the summer rains on the quiet spot where we dwell and its suns and showers bring balm to our sister's hearts but not ah, not to ours. We live, we bloom, but forever o'er is the charm of the earth and sky. To our life he heavens that balm restore or bid us die. As with eyes suffused with many recollections and a voice which melted away in an indescribable and thrilling pathos Lucy ceased her song. The lever, charmed out of himself, gently took her hand and holding the soft treasure in his own, scarcely less soft. He murmured, angel, sing on, life would be like your own music if I could breathe it away at your feet. There had been a time when Lucy would have laughed outright at this declaration and even as it was a suppressed and half art smile played in the dimples of her beautiful mouth and bewitchingly contrasted the swimming softness of her eyes. Drawing rather an erroneous omen from the smile, my lever raptorously continued, still detaining the hand which Lucy endeavored to extricate. Yes, enchanting, Ms. Brandon, I who have for so many years boasted of my invulnerable heart and subdued at last. I've long, very long struggled against my attachment to you, alas, it is in vain and you behold me now utterly at your mercy. Make me the most miserable of men or the most enviable, enchantress, speak. Really, my Lord, said Lucy, hesitating yet rising and freeing herself from his hand, I feel it difficult to suppose you serious and perhaps this is merely a gallantry to me by way of practice on others. Sweet Lucy, if I may so call you, answered my lever with an ardent gaze, do not I implore you even for a moment. Affect to mistake me, do not for a moment suggest that what to me is the bane or bliss of life. Dare I hope that my hand and heart which I now offer you are not deserving of your derision. Lucy gazed on her Adora with a look of serious inquiry. Brandon still appeared to sleep. If you are in earnest, my Lord, said Lucy, after a pause, I'm truly and deeply sorry for the friend of my uncle I shall always have esteem.  A blank and puzzled bewilderment for a moment clouded the expressive features of my lever. It passed away. How sweet is your rebuke, said he. Yes, I do not yet deserve any other sentiment than esteem. You are not to be one precipitately, a long trial, a long course of attentions, a long knowledge of my devoted and ardent love alone will entitle me to hope for a warmer feeling in your breast.  My Lord, said Lucy, smiling now no longer half-archly, you must pardon me for believing your proposal can be nothing but a jest. But here I beseech you, let it rest forever. Do not mention this subject to me again. By heavens, cried my lever, this is too cruel. Randon, intercede with me for your knees. So William started, naturally enough, from his slumber, and my lever continued, yes, intercede for me. You, my oldest friend, be my greatest benefactor. I sue to your knees, she affects to disbelieve. Will you convince her of my truth, my devotion, my worship? Disbelieve you, said the blind judge with the same secret sneer that usually lurked in the corners of his mouth. I do not wonder that she is slow to credit the honor you have done her, and for which the noblest damsels in England have sighed in vain. Lucy, will you be cruel to Lord Milevera? Believe me, he has often confided to me his love for you, and if the experience of some years avails, there is not a question of his honor and his truth. I leave his fate in your hands. Brandon turned to the door, stay, dear sir, said Lucy, and instead of interceding for Lord Milevera, intercede for me. Her look now settled into a calm and decided seriousness of expression. I feel highly fluttered by his Lordship's proposal, which as you say, I might well doubt to be gravely meant. I wish him all happiness with a lady of higher desserts, but I speak from an unalterable determination when I say that I can never accept the dignity with which he would invest me. So saying, Lucy, walk quickly to the door and vanished, leaving the two friends to comment as they would upon her conduct. You have spoiled all with your precipitation, said the uncle, precipitation darn it. What would you have? I've been 50 years making up my mind to marry, and now when I have not a day to lose, you talk of precipitation, answer the lover, throwing himself into an uneasy chair.  Brandon sat speechless, eyeing the mortified face of the courtier with a malicious complacency, and there was a pause of several minutes. So we then mastering the strange feeling which made him always rejoice in whatever through ridicule on his friend approached, laid his hand kindly on Malevera's shoulder, and talked to him of comfort and of encouragement. The reader will believe that Malevera was not a man whom it was impossible to encourage. End of chapter 29, chapter 30 of Paul Clifford by Edward Bower Lytton. This lever of box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 30. Before he came, everything loved me, and I had more things to love than I could reckon by the hairs of my head. Now I feel I can love but one, and that one has deserted me. Well, be it so, let her perish, let her be anything but mine. Melmouth. Early the next morning, Sir William Brandon was closeted for a long time with his niece, previous to his departure to the duties of his office, anxious and alarmed for the success of one of the darling projects of his ambition. He spared no art in his conversation with Lucy that his great ingenuity of eloquence and wonderful insight into human nature could suggest in order to gain at least a foundation for the raising of his scheme. Among other resources of his worldly tact, he hinted at Lucy's love for Clifford, and though darkly and subtly, as befitting the purity of the one he addressed, this abandoned and wily person did not scruple to hint also at the possibility of indulging that love after marriage, though he denounced as the last of in decorums the crime of encouraging it before. This hint, however, fell harmless upon the innocent ear of Lucy. She did not in the remotest degree comprehend its meaning. She only with a glowing cheek and a pouting lip resented the illusion to a love which she thought it insolent in any one even to suspect. When Brandon left the apartment, his brow was clouded in his eye, absent and thoughtful. It was evident that there had been little in the conference with his niece to please or content him. Miss Brandon herself was greatly agitated for there was in her uncle's nature that silent and impressive secret of influencing or commanding others which almost so invariably and yet so quietly attains the wishes of its owner. And Lucy who loved and admired him sincerely, not the less perhaps for a certain modicum of fear was greatly grieved at perceiving how rooted in him was the desire of that marriage which she felt was a moral impossibility. But if Brandon possessed the secret of sway, Lucy was scarcely less singularly endowed with the secret of resistance. It may be remembered in describing her character that we spoke of her as one who seemed to the superficial as if to yielding and soft temper but circumstances gave the lie to manner and prove that she eminently possessed a quiet firmness and latent resolution which gave to her mind and nobleness and trustworthy power that never would have been suspected by those who met her among the ordinary paths of life. Brandon had not been long gone when Lucy's may came to inform her that a gentleman who expressed himself very desirous of seeing her waited below. The blood rushed from Lucy's cheek at this announcement simple as it seemed what gentleman could be desirous of seeing her was it Clifford? She remained for some moments motionless and literally unable to move. At length she summoned courage and smiling with self-contempt at a notion which appeared to her after thoughts utterly absurd. She descended to the drawing room. The first glance she directed towards the stranger who stood by the fireplace with folded arms was sufficient. It was impossible to mistake though the face was averted the unequal form of her lover. She advanced eagerly with a faint cry, checked herself and sank upon the sofa. Clifford turned towards her and fixed his eyes upon her countenance with an intense and melancholy gaze but he did not utter a syllable and Lucy after pausing in expectation of his voice looked up and caught in alarm the strange and peculiar aspect of his features. He approached her slowly and still silent but his gaze seemed to grow more earnest and mournful as he advanced. Yes said he at last in a broken and indistinct voice. I see you once more after all my promises to quit you forever my solemn farewell after all that I have cost you for Lucy you love me, you love me and I shudder while I feel it. After all I myself have borne and resisted my once more come willfully into your presence. How have I burned and sickened for this moment? How have I said let me be holder once more, only once more and fate may then do her worst. Lucy dear, dear Lucy forgive me for my weakness. It is now in bitter and stern reality the very last I can be guilty of. As he spoke Clifford sank beside her he took both her hands in his and holding them though without pressure again look passionately upon her innocent yet eloquent face. It seemed as if he were moved beyond all the ordinary feelings of reunion and of love. He did not attempt to kiss the hands he held and though the touch thrilled through every vein and fiber of his frame his clasp was as light as that in which the first humidity of a boy's love ventures do stamp itself. You are pale Lucy said he mournfully and your cheek is much thinner than it was when I first saw you. When I first saw you I would for your sake that that had never been. Your spirits were like them Lucy. Your laugh came from the heart. Your steps burned the earth. Joy broke from your eyes.  And now look upon me Lucy. Lift those soft eyes and teach them to flash upon me indignation and contempt. Oh, not thus, not thus. I could leave you happy. Yes, literally blessed if I could fancy you. Less forgiving, less gentle, less angelic. What have I to forgive? said Lucy tenderly. What everything for which one human being can pardon another. Have not deceit and injury been my crimes against you?  Have I marred these or not? Oh Clifford said Lucy rising from herself and from all selfish thoughts. Why? Why will you not trust me? You do not know me. Indeed, you do not.  Do you believe I could betray it? Or do you think that if you had done that for which all the world forsook you, I could forsake? Lucy's voice faltered at the last words, but it sank as the stone sinks into deep waters to the very core of Clifford's heart. Transported from all resolution and all forbearance, he wound his arms around her in one long and impassioned caress and Lucy as her breath mingled with his and her cheek drooped upon his bosom did indeed feel as if the past could contain no secret powerful enough even to weaken the affection with which her heart clung to his. She was the first to extricate herself from their embrace. She drew back her face from his and smiling on him through her tears with a brightness that the smiles of her earliest youth have never surpassed.  They who accuse themselves the most bitterly are not often those whom it is most difficult to forgive. And you must pardon me if I doubt the extent of the blame you would so lavishly impute to yourself. I'm now alone in the world. Hear the smile withered from Lucy's lips. My poor father is dead. I can injure no one by my conduct. There's no one on earth to whom I am bound by duty. I am independent. I'm rich. You profess to love me. I'm foolish and vain and I believe you. Perhaps also I have the fond hope which so often makes dupes of women. The hope that if you have heard, I may reclaim you. If you have been unfortunate, I may console you. I know, Mr. Clifford, that I am saying that for which many would despise me and for which perhaps I ought to despise myself, but there are times when we speak only as if some power at our hearts constrained us despite ourselves and it is thus that I have now spoken to you. It was with an air very unwanted to herself that Lucy concluded her address for her usual characteristic was rather softness and dignity, but as if to correct the meaning of her words which might otherwise appear unmaidingly, there was a chase to proud, yet not the less of tender and sweet propriety and dignified frankness and her look and manner so that it would have been utterly impossible for one who heard her not to have done justice to the nobleness of her motives or not to have felt both touched and penetrated as much by respect as by any warmer or more familiar feeling. Clifford who had risen while she was speaking listened with her countenance that buried at every word she uttered, now all hope, now all despondency as she ceased the expression hardened into a settled and compulsive resolution. It is well said he mutteringly, I am worthy of this, very, very worthy, generous noble girl, had I been an emperor I would have bowed down to you in worship but through debates to degrade you, no, no. Is there debasement in love, murmur Lucy? Clifford gazed upon her with a sordid enthusiastic and self-gratulatory pride. Perhaps he felt to be thus loved and by such a creature was matter of pride even in the lowest circumstances to which he could ever be exposed. He drew his breath hard, said his teeth and answered. You could love then an outcast without birth, fortune or character? No, you believe this now but you could not. Could you desert your country, your friends and your home all that you are born and fitted for? Could you attend one over whom the sword hangs through a life subjected every hour to discovery and disgrace? Could you be subjected yourself to the moodiness of an evil memory and the gloomy silence of remorse? Could you be the victim of one who has no merit but is loved for you and who, if that love can destroy you, becomes utterly redeemed? Yes, Lucy, I was wrong. I will do you justice. All this, nay more, you could bear and your generous nature would disdain the sacrifice. But am I to be all selfish and you all devoted? Are you to yield everything to me and I to accept everything and yield none? Alas, I have but one good, one blessing to yield and that is yourself. Lucy, I deserve you. I outdo you in generosity. All that you would deserve for me is nothing, O God, nothing to the sacrifice I make to you. And now, Lucy, I've seen you and I must once more bid you farewell. I'm on the eve of quitting this country forever. I shall enlist in a foreign service, perhaps. And Clifford's dark eyes flash with fire. You will yet hear of me and not blush when you hear. But, and his voice faltered for Lucy, hiding her face with both hands, gave way to her tears and agitation, but in one respect you've conquered. I believe that you could never be mine, that my past life had forever deprived me of that hope. I now begin with a rapture that can bear me through all ordeals to form a more daring vision. A soil may be effaced, an evil name may be redeemed. The past is not set and sealed without the power of revoking what has been written. If I can win the right of meriting your mercy, I will throw myself on it without reserve. Till then, or till death, you won't see me no more.  The next moment she heard his step on the stairs, the door closed heavily and jarringly upon him, and Lucy felt one bitter pang, and for some time at least she felt no more. End of Chapter 30. Chapter 31 of Paul Clifford by Edward Bower Lytton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 31. Many things fall between the cup and the lip. Your man does please me with his conceit. Comes Shannon Hugh accoutred as you see disguised, and thus am I to gall the constable. Now have among you for a man at arms, high constable was Moore, though he laid dictator by the heels, then Johnson, tail of a tub. Meanwhile Clifford strode rapidly through the streets which surrounded the judge's house, and turning to an obscure quartier of the town entered a gloomy lane or alley. Here he was abruptly accosted by a man wrapped in a shaggy gray coat of somewhat a suspicious appearance. Ah ha, captain city, you are beyond your time, but all's well. Attempting with indifferent success, the easy self-possession which generally marked his address to his companions, Clifford repeating the stranger's words replied, all's well, what, are the prisoners released? No faith answer the man with a rough laugh, not yet, but all in good time. It is a little too much to expect the justices to do our work, though, by the Lord Harry we often do theirs. But then asked Clifford impatiently, why the poor fellows have been carried to the town of Blank, and brought before the queer coffin, Magistrate, there I arrived, though I said off the moment you told me and did the journey in four hours. The examination lasted all yesterday and they were reminded till today, let's see, it is not yet noon, we may be there before it's over. And this is what you call well, said Clifford angrily. No, captain, don't be glim-flashy, you have not heard all yet. It seems that the only thing buffed hard against them was by a stout grazier who was cried stand to some 50 miles off the town, so the queer coffin thanks of sending the poor fellows to the jail of the county where they did the business. Ah, that may leave some hopes for them, we must look sharp to their journey. If they once get to prison, their only chances are the file and the bribe. Unhappily, neither of them is so lucky as myself at that trade. No, indeed, there is not a stone wall in England that the great captain loved it, could not creep through elsewhere, said the admiring satellite. Saddle the horses and load the pistols, I will join you in 10 minutes, have my farmer's dress ready, the false hair, et cetera, choose your own trim. Make haste, the three feathers is the house of meeting. And in 10 minutes only, Captain, punctually, the stranger turned a corner and was out of sight, Clifford muttering, yes, I was the cause of their apprehension, it was I who was sought. It is not fair that I should strike a blow for their escape before I attempt my own. Continued his course till he came to the door of a public house. The sign about the seamen swung a loft portraying the jolly tar with a fine pewter pot in his hand considerably huger than his own circumference. An immense pug sat at the door, lulling its tongue out as if having stuffed itself to the tongue, it was forced to turn that useful member out of its proper place. The shutters were half closed, but the sounds of coarse merriment issued Jovi late forth. Clifford disconcerted the pug and crossing the threshold, cried in a loud tone, Jan seen, ear answered a gruff voice and Clifford passing on came to a small parlor adjoining the tap, there seated by a round oak table. He found mine host a red fierce weather-beaten but bloated-looking personage like Dick Hatteraek in a drop-swing. How now, captain, cried he in a guttural accent and enter larding his discourse with certain Dutch graces which, with our readers' leave, we will omit as being unable to spell them. How now, not gone yet. Know I start for the coast tomorrow. Business keeps me today. I came to ask if Mellon may be fully depended on. I, honest to the backbone, and you are sure that in spite of my late delays he will not have left the village. Sure, what else can I be? Don't I know Jack Mellon these 20 years? He would lie like a dog in a calm for 10 months together without moving a hair's breadth if he was under orders. And his vessel is swift and well-manned in case of an officer's chase.  Then goodbye, Janssen. There is something to keep your pipe alight. We shall not meet within the three seas again, I think. England is as much too hot for me as Holland for you.  And when the lads come to know their loss, they won't know they have lost the bravest and truest gill that ever took to the Tobi. So goodbye and be darned to you. With his valedictory benediction, the mine-host released Clifford and that Robert hastened to his apartment at the three feathers. He found all prepared, he hastily put on his disguise and his follower let out his hoarse. A noble animal of the grand Irish breed of remarkable strength and bone and save only that it was somewhat sharp in the quarters of fault, which they who look for speed as well as grace will easily forgive of most unequal beauty in its symmetry and proportions. Where did the courser know and proudly did it render obeisance to its master, snorting and patiently and rearing from the hand of the attendant Robert? The sagacious animal freed itself of the rain and as it tossed its long mane in the breeze of the fresh air came trotting to the place where Clifford stood. So ho, Robert, so ho, what thou chafes that I have left thy fellow behind at the red cave? Him we may never see more, but while I have life I will not leave thee, Robert. With these words the Robert finally stroked the shining neck of his favorite steve and as the animal returned to caress by rubbing his head against the hands and the athletic breast of its master, Clifford felt at his heart somewhat of that old gray seester of the blood which had been once to him the chief charm of his criminal profession and which in the late change of his feelings he had almost forgotten. Well, Robin, well, he renewed as he kissed the face of his steve where we will have some days like our old ones yet. Thou shalt say, ha, ha, to the trumpet and bear thy master along on more glorious enterprises than he has yet thanked thee for sharing. Thou wilt now be my only familiar, my only friend, Robin. We too shall be strangers in a foreign land but thou wilt make thyself welcome easier than thy lord, Robin. And thou wilt forget the old days and thine old comrades and thine own loves when ha, and Clifford turned abruptly to his attendant who addressed him, it is late you say, true, look ye, it will be unwise for us both to quit London together. You know the sixth milestone, join me there and we can proceed in company. Not unwilling to linger for a parting cup the comrade assented to the providence of the plan proposed. And after one or two additional words of caution and advice, Clifford mounted and rode from the yard of the inn. As he passed through the tall wooden gates into the street, the imperfect gleam of the wintry sun falling over himself and his steed it was scarcely possible even in spite of his disguise and rude garb to conceive a more gallant and striking specimen of the lawless and daring tribe to which he belonged. The height, strength, beauty and exquisite grooming visible in the steed, the sparkling eye, the bold profile, the sinewy chest, the graceful limbs and the careless and practice horsemanship of the rider. Looking after his chief with a long and an admiring gaze, the robbers said to the hostile of the inn and aged and withered man who had seen nine generations of highwaymen rise and vanish, their joy, when did you ever look on a hero like that, the bravest heart, the frankest hand, the best judge of a horse and the handsomest man that ever did honor to Houndslow. For all that returned the hustler shaking his palsy head and turning back to the taproom for all that master, his time be up, mark my wits, captain Lovett will not be over the year, no, nor may have the month.  And this will be the captain's seventh, come the 21st of next month, but he be a fine chap and I'll go to his hanging. Pish, said the robber, pivishly, he himself was verging towards the end of his sixth year, Pish, mind I, tells it you master and somehow or other I thinks and I has experience in these things by the fey of his eye and the drop of his lip that the captain's tongue will be up today. Here the robber lost all patience and pushing the horny boater of evil against the wall he turned on his heel and sought some more agreeable companion to share his stirrup cup. It was in the morning of the day following that in which the above conversations occurred that the sagacious Augustus Tomlinson and the valorous Edward Pepper handcuffed and fettered for jogging along the road in a post chest with Mr. Nabom squeezed him by the side of the former and two other gentlemen and Mr. Nabom's confidence mounted on the box of the chaise and interfering sadly as long knit growlingly remarked with the beauty of the prospect. I will quote Nabom unavoidably thrusting his elbow into Tomlinson's side while he drew out his snuff box and helped himself largely to the intoxicating dust. You had best prepare yourself, Mr. Pepper for a change of prospects. I believe this is how there is little to please you in guide, prison. Nothing makes men surface ceaseless as most fortune to others, said Augustus, moralizing and turning himself as well as he was able in order to deliver his body from the pointed elbow of Mr. Nabom. When a man is down in the world all the bystanders, very dull fellows before suddenly become wits. You reflect on I, said Mr. Nabom. Well, it does not sinify a pin for directly we does our duty. You chaps become audaciously ungrateful. Ungrateful, said Pepper, what a plague have we got to be grateful for?  One's hair is flattered down like a pancake. And as for one's legs, you'd better cut them off at once then tuck them up in a place of foot square to say nothing of these legarty irons. The only irons partnable in your eyes, Ned, said Tomlinson, are the curling irons, eh?  And when I puts myself out of the way to oblige you with a shea, you slang's eye for it. Peace, good Nabom, said Augustus, with a sage's dignity, you must allow a little bad humor in men so unhappily situated as we are. The soft answer turned out the way rad. Tomlinson's answer softened Nabom and by way of conciliation, he held his snuff box to the nose of his unfortunate prisoner. Shutting his eyes, Tomlinson long and earnestly sniffed up the luxury and as soon as with his own kerchief of spotted yellow, the officer had wiped from the proboscis some lingering grains Tomlinson thus spoke. You see as now Mr. Nabom in a state of broken down opposition, but our spirits are not broken too. In our time, we have had something to do with the administration and our comfort at present is the comfort of fallen ministers. Oh, oh, you were in the Methodist line before you took to the road, said Nabom, not so answered Augustus gravely. We were the Methodists of politics, not of the church. Namely, we lived upon our flock without a legal authority to do so and that which the law withheld from us, our wits gave. But tell me, Mr. Nabom, are you addicted to politics? Why they says I be, said Mr. Nabom with a grin. And for my part, I think all who serves the king should stand up for him and take care of their little families. You speak what others think, answered Tomlinson smiling also, and I will now, since you like politics, point out to you what I dare say you have not observed before. What be that, said Nabom? A wonderful likeness between the life of the gentleman adorning his majesty's senate and the life of the gentleman whom you are conducting to his majesty's jail. The libelous parallel of Augustus Tomlinson. We enter our career, Mr. Nabom, as your embryo ministers enter parliament by bribery and corruption. There's this difference indeed between the two cases we are enticed to enter by the bribery and corruptions of others. They enter spontaneously by dent of their own. At first, deluded by romantic visions, we like the glory of our career better than the profit. And in our youthful generosity, we profess to attack the rich solely from consideration for the poor. By and by as we grow more hardened, we laugh at these boyish dreams. Peasant or prince fares equally at our impartial hands. We grasp at the bucket, but we score not the thimblefold. We use the word glory only as a trap for proselytes and apprentices. Our fingers like an offer's door are open for all that can possibly come into them. We consider the wealthy as our salary, the poor as our perquisites. What is this but a picture of your member of parliament ripening into a minister, your patriot mellowing into your placeman? And mark me, Mr. Nevin, is not the very language of both as similar as the deeds? What is the phrase either of us loves to employ to deliver what the public? And do not both invariably deliver it of the same thing, namely its purse? Do we want an excuse for sharing the gold of our neighbors or abusing them if they resist? Is not our mutual our pithiest plea distressed? True, your patriot calls it distress of the country, but does he ever a bit more than we do mean any distress but his own? When we are brought low and our coats are shabby, do we not both shake our heads and talk of reform? And when, oh, when we are up in the world, do we not both kick reform to the devil? How often your parliament man vacates his seat only for the purpose of resuming it without way to your purse? How often do men have our seats been vacated for the same men, sometimes indeed, he really finishes his career by accepting the hundreds. It is by accepting the hundreds that ours may be finished too. Ned drew a long sigh. Notice now, Mr. Mabin, in the zine of our prosperity, we have filled our pockets, we have become great in the mouths of our party, our pals and maras and our blow-ins adore. What do we in this short-lived summer save and be thrifty? Oh, no, we must give our dinners and make light of our lush. We sport horses on the race course and look big at the multitude. We have bubbled. Is not this your minister coming to office? Does not this remind you of his equipage, his palace, his plate? In both cases, lightly one lavishly wasted and the public, whose cash we are fingered, may at least have the pleasure of gaping at the figure we make with it. This, then, is our harvest of happiness. Our foes, our friends are ready to eat us with envy, yet what is so little enviable as our station, every not both are common vexations and our mutual disquietes. Do we not both bribe?  Is not the secret question with each? It is all confoundedly fine, but how long will it last? Now, Mr. Nabham, note me, reverse the portrait we are falling. Our career is over. The road is shut to us and new plunderers are robbing the carriages that once we robbed. Is not this the lot of, no, no, I deceive myself? Your minister, your jobman, for the most part milk, the popular cow, while there's a drop in the udder. Your chancellor declines on a pension. Your minister attenuates on a grant. The feet of your great rogues may be gone from the treasury benches, but they have their little fingers in the treasury. Their past services are remembered by his majesty, ours only noted by the recorder. They save themselves for they hang by one another. We go to the devil, for we hang by ourselves. We have our little day of the public and all is over, but it is never over with them. We both hunt the same fox, but we are your fair riders. They are your knowing ones. We take the leap and our necks are broken. They sneak through the gates and keep it up to the last. As he concluded, Talmanson's head dropped on his bosom, and it was easy to see that painful comparisons mingled perhaps with secret murmurs of the injustice of fortune, where rankling in his breast. Long Ned, setting gloomy silence and even the heart-heart of the severe Mr. Nabom, was softened by the effecting parallel to which he had listened. They had proceeded without speaking for two or three miles, when Long Ned, fixing his eyes on Talmanson, exclaimed, Do you know Talmanson? I think it was a burning shame and love it to suffer us to be carried off like muttons without attempting to rescue us, by the way. It is all his fault that we are here for it was he whom Nabom wanted, not us. Very true said the cunning policeman, and if I were you, Mr. Pepper, hang me if I would not behave like a man of spirit and show his little concern for him as he shows for you. Why, Lord, now I doesn't want to tice you, but this, I does know, the justices are very anxious to catch love it. And one who gives him up and says a word or two about his character, so as to make conviction certain, may himself be certain of a free pardon for all, the little sprees and so forth.  And now I think of it, love it, could scarcely have assisted us. One man alone, even love it, clever as he is, could not have forced us out of the clutches of you and your marmodons, Mr. Nabom. And when we were at once at that place, they took excellent care of us. But tell me now, my dear Nabom, and Long Ned's voice weadled itself into something like softness. Tell me, do you think the Grazier will buff it home? No doubt of that, said the unmoved Nabom, Long Ned's face fell, and what if he does? Said he, they can but transport us. Don't dissave yourself, Master Pepper, said Nabom, you're too old a hand for the herring pond. There resolved to make gallows apples of all such numperals, non-pareas, as you. Ned cast a southern look at the officer. A pretty comforter you are, said he. I've been in a purse jest with a pleasanter fellow elsewhere. You may call me an apple if you will, but I take it, I'm not an apple. You'd like to see peeled. With this pugilistic and menacing pond, the lengthy hero relapsed into meditative silence. Our travelers were now entering a row skirted on one side by a common, of some extent and on the other by a thick head row which, through its breaks, gave occasional glimpses of woodland and fallow, interspersed with crossroads and tiny brooklets. There goes a jolly fellow, said Nabom, pointing to an athletic rookie man, riding before the carriage dressed in a farmer's garb, and mounted on a large and powerful horse of the Irish breed. The dare say he is well acquainted with your grazier, Mr. Tomlinson. He looks mortal like one of the same kidney, and here comes another chap. As the stranger was joined by a short, stout, ruddy man in a Carter's frock, riding on a horse less joey than his comrades, but of the lengthy, reedy lank, yet muscular race, which a knowing jockey would like to bet on. Now that's what I call a comely lad, continued Nabom, pointing to the latter horseman, none of your thin-faced, dark, strapping fellows like that.  That's a beauty for my money, honesty stamped on his face, Mr. Tomlinson, I dare says. And the officer grinned for he had been a lad of the cross in his own day. I dare says, poor innocent booby, he knows none of the ways of London town, and if he has not as merry life as some folks may have, he may have a longer. But a merry one forever for such lad as us, Mr. Pepper, I say, as you heard, as how Bill Fang went to scratch land, Scotland, and was stretched for smashing queer screens that is hung for uttering forged notes. He died nation, game for when his father, who was a gray-headed parson, came to see him after the sentence. He says to the governor, says he give us a tip, olden, to pay the expenses and die decently. The parson forks him out, ten shiners, preaching all the while like winky. Bob drops one of the guineas between his fingers and says, oh, Rodin, you have only tipped us nine of the yellow boys, just now you said as how it was ten. On this, the parish bull, who was as poor as if he had been a mouse of the church instead of a curate, lugs out another, and Bob turning round to the jailer cries, flung the governor out of a guiney by God's back. Now that's what I call keeping it up to the last. Mr. Nabham has scarcely finished this anecdote when the farmer, like a stranger, who had kept up by the side of the chaise, suddenly rode to the window and touching his hat, set in a Norfolk accent, where the gentleman we met on the road belonging to your party, they were asking after a chaise and pair. No, said Nabham, there be no gentleman as belongs to our party. So, saying he tipped a knowing wink at the farmer and glanced over his shoulder at the prisoners. What, you are going all alone, said the farmer. I, to be sure, answered Nabham, not much danger, I think, in the daytime with the sun out as big as a sixpence, which is as big as ever I see him in this country. And at that moment, the shorter stranger whose appearance had attracted the praise of Mr. Nabham, that personage was himself very short and ruddy, and who had hitherto been riding close to the post horses and talking to the officers on the box, suddenly threw himself from his seat. And in the same instant that he arrested the horses of the chaise struck the postillion to the ground with a short heavy bludgeon, which he drew from his frock. A whistle was heard and answered as if by a signal three fellows armed with bludgeon's leap from the page. And in the interim, the pretended farmer dismounting flung open the door of the chaise and seizing Mr. Nabham by the collar, swung him to the ground with a celerity that became the circular rotundity of the policeman's figure rather than the deliberate gravity of his dignified office. Rapid and instantaneous, as had been this work, it was not without a check, although the policeman had not dreamed of a rescue in the very face of the day, and on the high road their profession was not, that which suffered them easily to be surprised. The G-Guardians of the Dickey leap nimbly to the ground, but before they had time to use their firearms to the new aggressors who had appeared from the hedge closed upon them and bore them to the ground. While the scuffle took place, the farmer had disarmed the prostrate Nabham and giving him in charge to the remaining Confederate, extricated Tomlinson and his comrade from the chaise. His city in a whisper, beware my name, my disguise hides me at present, lean on me, only through the hedge a cart waits there and you are safe. With these broken words he assisted the robbers as well as he could in spite of their manacles through the same part of the hedge from which the three allies had sprung. They were already through the barrier, only the long legs of Ned Pepper lingered behind. When at the far end of that road, which was perfectly straight, a gentleman's carriage became visible. A strong hand from the interior of the hedge, seizing Pepper, dragged him through and Clifford, for the reader need not be told who was the farmer, perceiving the approaching reinforcement, shouted at once for flight. The robber who had guarded Nabham and who indeed was no other than old bags, slow as he habitually was, lost not an instant in providing for himself. Before you could say, Lao Domus, he was on the other side of the hedge. The two men engaged with the police officers were not capable of an equal celerity, but Clifford throwing himself into the contest and engaging the policemen, gave the robbers the opportunity of escape. They scrambled through the fence, the officers, tough fellows in king, clungy, lustily to them till one was fell by Clifford and the other catching against the stump was forced to relinquish his hold. He then sprang back into the road and prepared for Clifford, who now, however, occupied himself rather infugitive than warlike measures. Meanwhile, the moment the other rescuers had passed the Rubicon of the hedge, their flight and that of the gentleman who had passed before them commenced. On this mystic side of the hedge was a crossroad striking at once through an intricate and wooded part of the country, which allowed speedy and ample opportunities of dispersion. Here a light cart drawn by two swift horses in a tandem fashion awaited the fugitives. Long Ned and Augustus were stowed down at the bottom of this vehicle. Three fellows filed away at their arms and a fourth who had hitherto remained inglorious with the cart gave the lash and he gave it handsomely to the corsairs. Away rattled the equipage and thus was achieved a flight still memorable in the annals of the elect and long quoted as one of the boldest and most daring exploits that illicit enterprise ever accomplished. Clifford and his equestrian comrade only remained in the field or rather the road. The former sprang it once on his horse. The latter was not long in following the example but the policeman who it has been said baffled in detaining the fugitives of the hedge had the back into the road was not idle. In the meanwhile, when he saw Clifford about to mount instead of attempting to seize the enemy, he recurred to his pistol, which in the late struggle hand to hand he had been unable to use and taking sure aim at Clifford whom he judged and wants to be the leader of the rescue. He lodged a ball in the right side of the robber at the very moment he had set spurs in his horse and turned to fly. Clifford's head drew to the saddle boat. Fiercely the horse sprang on the robber endeavored despite his reeling senses to retain his seat. Once he raised his head, once he nerved his slackened and listless limbs and then with a faint groan, he fell to the earth. The horse bounded but one step more and true to the tutorship it had received stopped abruptly. Clifford raised himself with great difficulty on one arm. With the other hand he drew forth a pistol. He pointed it deliberately towards the officer that wounded him. The man stood motionless, cowering and scrollbound beneath the dilating eye of the robber. It was but for a moment that the man had caused for dread for muttering between his ground teeth while it wasted on an enemy. Clifford turned the muzzle towards the head of the unconscious steed, which seemed sorrowfully and wistfully to incline towards him. Thou, he said whom I have fed in love shall never know hardship from another. And with the merciful cruelty he dragged himself one pace near to his beloved steed, uttered a well-known word which brought the docile creature to his side and placing the muzzle of the pistol close to his ear. He fired and fell back senseless at the exertion. The animal staggered and dropped down dead. Meanwhile Clifford's comrade profiting by the surprise and sudden panic of the officer was already out of reach and darting across the common, he and his ragged coarser speedily vanished. And of chapter 31.