Gie him time to
repent, an' let the law tak' its coarse. The cunning scoundrel! Even at
the risk o' 's life he wadna let us ken whaur his waggon road is, but
I've a thocht, man, that it's yonner whaur the rock rises oot o' the
swamp." Then the good Squire took off his hat, and thanked God for the
defeat of the evil doers.
Light though the night was, to continue the pursuit would have been the
height of folly. The force was mustered and inspected by the so-called
Colonel Carruthers, and the Sergeant-Major Terry. Including themselves,
it was found to consist of no fewer than seventeen persons, one of whom
was a woman, and the other a lad of about fifteen years of age, Matilda
Nagle and her boy Monty. "I will show you where the road is," she said
to the Squire; "it is hard to find, but I know it. When Stevy tried to
find it, Harding and he put him to sleep, so that I couldn't wake him
up. Harding is asleep now too; I put him, and Monty helped, didn't you,
Monty?"
Carruthers looked, and saw that the woman's right hand and that of the
idiot boy were alike stained with blood. All his own men were safe and
sound, not a scratch on any one of them.
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