"Stand and deliver!" said S——th, with a handkerchief over his face.
"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. Then, throwing down the gun, he set off after his victim; but the latter was now ahead, though his pursuer heard the clatter of his heavy shoes on the metal road.
"Ho, there! stop! 'twas a joke—a bet."