e stable with the horses; but one of the serving
men having been aroused and having come to his assistance, he was
able quickly to join the party beside the fire, and coming forward
with a glad and confident step, he took the hand of the fairy-like
girl in his own, and placed it within that of his mother.

"Father, mother," he said, "I have brought you home my bride that
is to be. Listen, and I will tell you a strange story, and I know
you will not then withhold your love from one who has known little
of it, and who has led a strange, hard life amid all that is bad
and cruel, and is yet all that you can wish to find in woman--all
that is true and pure and lovely."

And then Jack, with the sort of rude eloquence sometimes found in
his class, told of his wooing of the robber's daughter; told of her
hatred and loathing of the scenes she was forced to witness, of the
life she was forced to lead; told of her fierce father's fierce
love gradually waning and turning to anger as he discovered that
she was not pliable material in his hands, to be bent to his stern
will; told how he had of late wished to wed her to the terrible
Simon Dowsett, and how she had felt at last that flight alone with
her own lover could save her from that fate.

Then he told of Paul's capture upon the very night for which the
flight had been planned; told how gallantly he had defied the
cruelty of the robber band, and how his Eva had effected his
liberation and had brought him with her to the trysting place. They
had planned before the details of the flight, and it would be death
to her to be sent back; but after her liberation of the captive,
the thought of facing that lawless band again was not to be thought
of.

And the farmer, who had listened to the tale with kindling eyes and
many a smothered ejaculation of anger and pity, suddenly put his
strong arms about the slight figure of the girl, and gave her a
hearty kiss on both cheeks.

"Thou art a good wench and a brave one," he said, "and I am proud
that my roof is the one to shelter thee from those lawless men, who
are the curse of our poor country.

"Jack, I told the mother that you must be going courting, and that
I should be right glad when you brought a bride to the old home.
And a bride this brave girl shall be as soon as Holy Church can
make you man and wife; and we will love her none the less for what
her father was. I always heard that the Fire Eater, as they call
him, had carried of