"Ye are welcome to them back. I have no use for them. Maybe 'twill teach him a lesson in manners, and that will serve;" whereat I turned the contents of my pocket upon the table and thrust them towards her. She sat looking at the gold and the jewels for some moments in silence, while I looked at her. She was, I'll warrant, a pious good woman, and though such are not generally to my taste, I can appreciate ripe goodness and beauty, and it irked me to think of her being bound with such a surly and unmannerly boar. But presently, with a start, she put out her hands and began to collect the pieces with fever in her haste, glancing fearfully at the door; and no sooner had she disposed of them than in stalks my portentous friend, with an ugly look on his phiz.
"You come from Bristol, sir," says he in a loud voice, "and maybe can explain why you set forth for Taunton from this very house two hours agone by the Bristol Road?"
I gave him a steady stare, for it was plain to me now how he had come by his information, and that he had been questioning the innkeeper about me. It mattered not a rap to me, for he could prove nothing against me, and even if he had, I would have kissed the beam if I could not have settled with that hulking dung-fork. So said I equably,—
"Why the devil should I explain to you?"
"Well, to the justices, if you like it better," said he with an angry snort. "I had a notion that I recognised that voice, and now I know it for certain. You are the thief that made me deliver in the snow on the heath. You have stolen my guineas and my jewels."
Now, he had no witnesses against me, and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have deceived him, and played him off, and got him into a tangle of fact and evidence and imaginings. But, bless me, ere I could get fairly started upon the sally the poor lady darts in and shoves the fat in the fire.
"Oh, Charles," she cried trepidantly, going towards him, "this gentleman has preserved my life. I pray you forget not that. 'Tis Christmas Eve," says she, "'tis the eve of our Lord's birth, and should teach us mercy. Sir Charles," she says, poor thing, a-bleating, "as you hope for Christ's compassion for yourself visit not this short-coming on one that has shown himself so full of tenderness and pity."
"The devil!" thinks I to myself, pulling a lugubrious face. "She plays King's prosecutor to me. What's to do?"
"Stand aside," says he to her sharply, and glowering on me. But I looked him in the phiz with a smile; I was not incommoded by this silly business, not I. "You make no denial," said he, restraining himself with an effort, as I could see. "You are a ruffianly gallows-bird. You shall hang."
"Oh, Charles," pleaded the poor lady in despair, "he has made restitution. Here's all that was yours—rings, guineas and all. Spare him, I implore you, for his kindness and consideration to me."