larke?"

"I am not at liberty to answer that question," replied the prisoner.
"Suffice it, sir, I was travelling through this region on a mission of
duty. My purpose was to act against the enemy. So far the charge is
true, and only to this extent. I came with no design to pry into the
condition of the royal troops; I sought only a successful passage
through a contested, though sadly overpowered country."

"You offered no money to Adair," said St. Jermyn again, as if insisting
on this point of exculpation, "but what you have already called a
moderate requital for his entertainment?"

"None," replied the prisoner--"except," he added, "a guinea, to induce
him to release, from some wicked torture, a wolf he had entrapped."

"It will not do," said Colonel Innis, shaking his head at St. Jermyn;
and the same opinion was indicated in the looks of several of the court.

"I was at Walter Adair's that night, and saw the gentleman there, and
heard all that was said by him; and I am sure that he offered Watty no
money," said our little apple-girl, who had been listening with
breathless anxiety to the whole of this examination, and who had now
advanced to the table as she spoke the words. "And I can tell more about
it, if I am asked."

"And who are you, my pretty maid?" inquired Colonel Innis, as he lifted
the bonnet from her head and let loose a volume of flaxen curls down
upon her neck.

"I am Mary Musgrove, the miller's daughter," said the damsel, with great
earnestness of manner, "and Watty Adair is my uncle, by my mother's
side--he married my aunt Peggy; and I was at his house when Major Butler
and Mr. Horse Shoe Robinson came there."

"And what in the devil brought you here?" said Habershaw gruffly.

"Silence!" cried Innis, impatient at the obtrusive interruption of the
gross captain. "What authority have you to ask questions? Begone, sir."

The heavy bulk of Hugh Habershaw, at this order, sneaked back into the
crowd.

"I came only to sell a few apples," said Mary.

"Heaven has sent that girl to the rescue of my life," said Butler, under
the impulse of a feeling which he could not refrain from giving vent to
in words. "Pray allow me, sir, to ask her some questions."

"It is your privilege," was the answer from two or three of the court;
and the spectators pressed forward to hear the examination.

Butler carefully interrogated the maiden as to all the particulars of
his visit, and she, with the most scrupulous fi