use me genteelly; they only hold up a finger, beckon me,
and I follow as quietly as a lamb. But you bluster and insult, as though
you had never dealings with gentlemen." Poor Jack, he was of a proud
stomach, and could not abide interference; yet they would never let him
go free. And he would have been so happy had he been allowed his own
way. To pull out a rusty pistol now and again, and to take a purse from
a traveller--surely these were innocent pleasures, and he never meant to
hurt a fellow-creature. But for all his kindness of heart, for all his
love of splendour and fine clothes, they took him at last.

'And this time, too, it was a watch which was our ruin. How often did I
warn him: "Jack," I would say, "take all the money you can. Guineas tell
no tale. But leave the watches in their owners' fobs." Alas! he did not
heed my words, and the last man he ever stopped on the road was that
pompous rascal, Dr. Bell, then chaplain to the Princess Amelia. "Give me
your money," screamed Jack, "and take no notice or I'll blow your
brains out." And the doctor gave him all that he had, the mean-spirited
devil-dodger, and it was no more than eighteenpence. Now what should a
man of courage do with eighteenpence? So poor Jack was forced to seize
the parson's watch and trinkets as well, and thus it was that a second
time we faced the Blind Beak.

When Jack brought home the watch, I was seized with a shuddering
presentiment, and I would have given the world to throw it out of the
window. But I could not bear to see him pinched with hunger, and he
had already tossed the doctor's eighteenpence to a beggar woman. So
I trudged off to the pawnbroker's, to get what price I could, and I
bethought me that none would know me for what I was so far away as
Oxford Street. But the monster behind the counter had a quick suspicion,
though I swear I looked as innocent as a babe; he discovered the owner
of the watch, and infamously followed me to my house.

'The next day we were both arrested, and once more we stood in the hot,
stifling Court of the Old Bailey. Jack was radiant as ever, the one
spot of colour and gaiety in that close, sodden atmosphere. When we were
taken from Bow Street a thousand people formed our guard of honour, and
for a month we were the twin wonders of London. The lightest word, the
fleetest smile of the renowned highwayman, threw the world into a fit
of excitement, and a glimpse of Rann was worth a king's ransom. I could
l