"God help me!" cried the man, in a fit of newborn fear. "I'm a father,
have wife and bairns; but I canna spare my life to a highwayman. Here,
here, here."
And fumbling nervously in his pocket, and shaking all over, not at all
like the old object of similitude, but rather like a branch of a tree
driven by the wind, he thrust something into S----th's hand, and rushing
past him, was off on the road homewards. Nor was it a quick walk under
fear, but a run, as if he thought he was or would be pursued for his
life, or brought down by the long range of the gun he had seen in the
hands of the robber.
Yes, it was easily done, and it was done; but how to be undone at a time
when the craving maw of the noose dangled from the post, in obedience to
the Procrustes of the time!
And S----th felt it was done. His hand still held what the man had
pushed into it, but by-and-by it was as fire. His brain reeled; he
staggered, and would have fallen, but for S----k, who, leaping the dyke,
came behind him.
"What luck?"
"This," said S----th,--"the price of my life," throwing on the ground
the paper roll.
"Pound-notes," cried S----k, taking them up. "One, two, three, four,
five; more than sixpence."
"Where is the man?" cried S----th, as, seizing the notes from the hands
of S----k, he turned round.
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