ee going to ride on the heath?"

"I hope you'll protect me, kind sir," said the maid,
"As to ride this heath over, I'm sadly afraid;
For robbers, they say, here in numbers abound,
And I wouldn't for anything I should be found,
For, between you and me, I have five hundred pound."

"If that is thee own, dear," the Quaker, he said,
"I ne'er saw a maiden I sooner would wed;
And I have another five hundred just now,
In the padding that's under my saddle-bow,
And I'll settle it all upon thee, I vow!"

The maiden she smil'd, and her rein she drew,
"Your offer I'll take, but I'll not take you,"
A pistol she held at the Quaker's head--
"Now give me your gold, or I'll give you my lead,
'Tis under the saddle, I think you said."

The damsel she ripped up the saddle-bow,
And the Quaker was never a quaker till now!
And he saw, by the fair one he wished for a bride,
His purse borne away with a swaggering stride,
And the eye that shamm'd tender, now only defied.

"The spirit doth move me, friend Broadbrim," quoth she,
"To take all this filthy temptation from thee,
For Mammon deceiveth, and beauty is fleeting,
Accept from thy maiden this right-loving greeting,
For much doth she profit by this Quaker's meeting!

"And hark! jolly Quaker, so rosy and sly,
Have righteousness, more than a wench, in thine eye;
Don't go again peeping girls' bonnets beneath,
Remember the one that you met on the heath,
Her name's Jimmy Barlow, I tell to your teeth."

"Friend James," quoth the Quaker, "pray listen to me,
For thou canst confer a great favor, d'ye see;
The gold thou hast taken is not mine, my friend,
But my master's; and truly on thee I depend,
To make it appear I my trust did defend.

"So fire a few shots thro' my clothes, here and there,
To make it appear 'twas a desp'rate affair."
So Jim he popp'd first through the skirt of his coat,
And then through his collar--quite close to his throat;
"Now one thro' my broadbrim," quoth Ephraim, "I vote."

"I have but a brace," said bold Jim, "and they're spent,
And I won't load again for a make-believe rent."--
"Then!"--said Ephraim, producing his pistols, "just give
My five hundred pounds back, or, as sure as you live,
I'll make of your body a riddle or sieve."

Jim Barlow was diddled--and, tho' he was game,
He saw Ephraim's pistol so deadly in aim,
That he gave up the gold, and he took to his scrapers,
And when the whole story got into the papers,
They said that "_the thieves were n