s countermanded. Your messenger was sent back the richer by twenty
pounds."

"How does this concern me?" asked the sheriff.

"You shall hear. I had been on the outposts that night, and, returning
to the camp, I surprised two men robbing, beating, and, as I thought,
murdering a third. One of the vagabonds escaped undetected, but with a
blow from the butt of my musket which he will carry to his grave. The
other I thrashed on the spot. He was the bailiff Scroope, whom you put
up to witness against me. Their victim was the messenger from the
castle, and he was James Wilson, otherwise Wilson Garth. You know
this? No? Then listen. Rumor of his treachery, and of the price he had
been paid for it, had already been bruited abroad, and the two
scoundrels had gone out to waylay and rob him. He was lamed in the
struggle and faint from loss of blood. I took him back and bound up
his wound. He limped to the end of his life."

"Still I fail to see how this touches myself," interrupted the
sheriff.

"Really? I shall show you. Next morning, under cover of a thick fog,
we besieged the city. We got beneath your guns and against your gates
before we were seen. Then a company of horse came out to us. _You_
were there. You remember it? Yes? At one moment we came within four
yards. I saw you struck down and reel out of the saddle. 'This man,' I
thought, 'believes in his heart that I did him a grievous wrong. I
shall now do him a signal service, though he never hear of it until
the Judgment Day.' I dismounted, lifted you up, bound a kerchief about
your head, and was about to replace you on your horse. At that instant
a musket-shot struck the poor beast, and it fell dead. At the same
instant one of our own men fell, and his riderless horse was prancing
away. I caught it, threw you on to its back, turned his head towards
the castle, and drove it hard among your troops. Do you know what
happened next?"

"Happened next--" repeated the sheriff mechanically, with astonishment
written on every feature of his face.

"No, you were insensible," continued Ralph. "At that luckless moment
the drum beat to arms in a regiment of foot behind us. The horse knew
the call and answered it. Wheeling about, it carried you into the
heart of our own camp. There you were known, tried as a deserter, and
imprisoned. Perhaps it was natural that you should set down your ill
fortune to me."

The sheriff's eyes were riveted on Ralph's face, and for a time he
seeme