d wrote the letter from her
brother stating all these particulars, and Ensign Macshane received
full instructions how to perform the part of the "brother officer." What
consideration Mr. Wood received for his services, we cannot say; only
it is well known that Mr. Hayes caused to be committed to gaol a young
apprentice in his service, charged with having broken open a cupboard in
which Mr. Hayes had forty guineas in gold and silver, and to which none
but he and his wife had access.

Having made these arrangements, the Corporal and his little party
decamped to a short distance, and Mrs. Catherine was left to prepare
her husband for a speedy addition to his family, in the shape of this
darling nephew. John Hayes received the news with anything but pleasure.
He had never heard of any brother of Catherine's; she had been bred at
the workhouse, and nobody ever hinted that she had relatives: but it
is easy for a lady of moderate genius to invent circumstances; and with
lies, tears, threats, coaxings, oaths, and other blandishments, she
compelled him to submit.

Two days afterwards, as Mr. Hayes was working in his shop with his lady
seated beside him, the trampling of a horse was heard in his courtyard,
and a gentleman, of huge stature, descended from it, and strode into the
shop. His figure was wrapped in a large cloak; but Mr. Hayes could not
help fancying that he had somewhere seen his face before.

"This, I preshoom," said the gentleman, "is Misther Hayes, that I have
come so many miles to see, and this is his amiable lady? I was the
most intimate frind, madam, of your laminted brother, who died in King
Lewis's service, and whose last touching letthers I despatched to you
two days ago. I have with me a further precious token of my dear friend,
Captain Hall--it is HERE."

And so saying, the military gentleman, with one arm, removed his cloak,
and stretching forward the other into Hayes's face almost, stretched
likewise forward a little boy, grinning and sprawling in the air, and
prevented only from falling to the ground by the hold which the Ensign
kept of the waistband of his little coat and breeches.

"Isn't he a pretty boy?" said Mrs. Hayes, sidling up to her husband
tenderly, and pressing one of Mr. Hayes's hands.

*****

About the lad's beauty it is needless to say what the carpenter thought;
but that night, and for many many nights after, the lad stayed at Mr.
Hayes's.

CHAPTER VIII.