tleman his jewelry."

I turned mighty red and pleaded guilty.

"I thought so. Gad! You're like to keep sheep by moonlight," chuckled
Creagh.

"Nonsense! They would never hang me," I cried.

"Wouldn't, eh! Deed, and I'm not so sure. The hue and cry is out for
you."

"Havers, man!" interrupted Macdonald sharply. "You're frightening the lady
with your fairy tales, Creagh. Don't you be believing him, my dear. The
hemp is not grown that will hang Kenneth."

But for all his cheery manner we were mightily taken aback, especially
when another rider came in a few minutes later with a letter to me from
town. It ran:--

Dear Montagu,

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends." Our pleasant little game is
renewed. The first trick was, I believe, mine; the second yours. The
third I trump by lodging an information against you for highway robbery.
Tony I shall not implicate, of course, nor Mac-What's-His-Name. Take
wings, my Fly-by-night, for the runners are on your heels, and if you
don't, as I live, you'll wear hemp. Give my devoted love to the lady. I
am,

Your most obed^t serv^t to command,
Rob^t Volney.

In imagination I could see him seated at his table, pushing aside a score
of dainty notes from Phyllis indiscreet or passionate Diana, that he might
dash off his warning to me, a whimsical smile half-blown on his face, a
gleam of sardonic humour in his eyes. Remorseless he was by choice, but he
would play the game with an English sportsman's love of fair play.
Eliminating his unscrupulous morals and his acquired insolence of manner,
Sir Robert Volney would have been one to esteem; by impulse he was one of
the finest gentlemen I have known.

Though Creagh had come to warn me of Volney's latest move, he was also the
bearer of a budget of news which gravely affected the State at large and
the cause on which we were embarked. The French fleet of transports,
delayed again and again by trivial causes, had at length received orders
to postpone indefinitely the invasion of England. Yet in spite of this
fatal blow to the cause it was almost certain that Prince Charles Edward
Stuart with only seven companions, of whom one was the ubiquitous
O'Sullivan, had slipped from Belleisle on the Doutelle and escaping the
British fleet had landed on the coast of Scotland. The emotions which
animated us on hearing of the gallant young Prin