‘Shot like a dog, or walled up for life, and driven about like brutes that are called men.’
‘Perfectly right. I am glad you agree with my view,’ said Ernest eagerly; ‘then why don’t you retreat while you have time, and the chance is open? Look at this blue sky; think of a good horse between your legs on this broad plain, of a day’s shooting, of waking full of life and vigour and going cheerfully to work on your own farm. Such a deuced good-looking, upstanding fellow as you are—what devil put it into your head to give every enemy you have in the world such a chance to laugh at you?’
‘Perhaps the devil did. Anyhow, I have been hunted about and falsely accused by the police, about horses and cattle that I never saw a head of; so I turned out.’
‘Just to put them thoroughly in the right,’ said Ernest. ‘They will thank you for that, and say they always knew it from the first. For God’s sake, if you have a grain of sense in your composition, if you have the least wish to live a man’s life and stand erect like a man before your fellows, for the sake of the mother that bore you’ (here the robber ground his teeth), ‘give up this stupid, stale trick of highway robbery, and you will cheat Old Nick yet.’
‘Well, I begin to think I was an infernal fool to turn out. It seems a trifle now to be vexed at, but what can I do? I’ve gone too far to turn back.’
‘Have you attempted to stop any one but me?’ asked Ernest.
‘No! I was waiting for the coach, which ought to have been here by this time, when I met you. Ha! there it comes.’
‘Take your resolution now,’ said Ernest solemnly, springing to his feet and standing before him. ‘Your fate for life or death is in your own hand: the life of a hunted, half-starved wolf, with perhaps a dog’s death, on one side; life, health, youth, liberty, perhaps a happy home, on the other. Are you mad, that you hesitate? or does God suffer the enemy to deceive and destroy in the dark hour a lost soul?’
As Ernest spoke, he fixed his clear blue eyes upon the face of the robber, now working as if torn by strong emotion.
Suddenly the latter strode a pace forward, and casting the revolver away as far as he could throw it in the dull green grass, said, ‘Damn the —— squirt! I wish I had never seen it. Here’s your two fives, sir, and my best thanks, for I ain’t much of a talker, but I feel it. Good-bye.’