"I mean there's hand-bills up at both places, offering a hundred guineas reward; that's what I mean," replied the old man, kindling to excitement. "Him as rode the grey stallion has been about again. Galloping Jack they always called 'un that spoke of 'un to me—and if a man could steal a view of 'un, or get the wind of 'un, or so much as slot 'un where he harbours, 'tis a hundred golden guineas paid down in hand. I've moved many a right stag in my time, Master Gale, but never such a noble head as that."
Then, as fearing his loquacity must have compromised him in the eyes of so good a sportsman, Red Rube departed at a gallop, and was seen no more.
Abner Gale looked after him, with a smile. Lord Bellinger then had taken his advice, and adopted the most likely means of bringing to justice the perpetrator of an outrage that was both highway robbery and high treason. It interested the Parson but little save in so far as the grey horse was concerned. If its rider should come to the gallows he would do all he knew to put that noble beast in his own stable. In imagination, he was already galloping it over Exmoor, to go and see Nelly Carew.
Then the Parson sighed and swore, and sighed again, and put on his dingy cassock to marry the tardy couple who had waited so long.
He tied them up, however, fast and sure, before the stroke of noon, pocketing his fees with considerable satisfaction, for Mr. Gale took no delight in the gratuitous administrations of the Church, little thinking that, even while he pronounced the blessing, which it did not strike him seemed a mockery from such lips as his, John Garnet was turning out into the sunshine, fresh and fair, like a bridegroom himself, to wait upon Mistress Carew.
That gentleman lay long in bed without dreaming the pleasant dream again, so bethought him at last that it would be more to the purpose to rise and pursue the reality, than lose his time in sighing after the shadow. He was very far gone now. The posy she had given him stood in water at his bedside, every hour of the day seemed wasted that was not spent with this blue-eyed girl, and he never gave Waif a thought for more than a moment at a time.
Bold, blithe, and buoyant, he whistled a merry air as he strode up the village street, thinking of his first, last love, like a cock-bird in full plumage going to look for its mate He seemed to moult a feather or two though, as he passed the village stocks, on the posts of which, for want of a more prominent elevation, were posted two conspicuous hand-bills, beginning with a gigantic "Whereas," and continuing through a long and minute description of his own person, to the offer of one hundred guineas for his capture, dead or alive; the whole concluding with a flourish, in capital letters, to the glory of "Our Sovereign Lord the King."
He went on to see Nelly all the same, but resolved that he would put off to a more convenient season something he meant to have told her to-day.