nt on the part of
a wife, are not pleasant to describe: so we shall omit altogether
any account of the early married life of Mr. and Mrs. John Hayes. The
"Newgate Calendar" (to which excellent compilation we and the OTHER
popular novelists of the day can never be sufficiently grateful) states
that Hayes left his house three or four times during this period, and,
urged by the restless humours of his wife, tried several professions:
returning, however, as he grew weary of each, to his wife and his
paternal home. After a certain time his parents died, and by their
demise he succeeded to a small property, and the carpentering business,
which he for some time followed.

What, then, in the meanwhile, had become of Captain Wood, or Brock,
and Ensign Macshane?--the only persons now to be accounted for in our
catalogue. For about six months after their capture and release of
Mr. Hayes, those noble gentlemen had followed, with much prudence and
success, that trade which the celebrated and polite Duval, the ingenious
Sheppard, the dauntless Turpin, and indeed many other heroes of our most
popular novels, had pursued,--or were pursuing, in their time. And so
considerable were said to be Captain Wood's gains, that reports were
abroad of his having somewhere a buried treasure; to which he might have
added more, had not Fate suddenly cut short his career as a prig. He
and the Ensign were--shame to say--transported for stealing three
pewter-pots off a railing at Exeter; and not being known in the town,
which they had only reached that morning, they were detained by
no further charges, but simply condemned on this one. For this
misdemeanour, Her Majesty's Government vindictively sent them for seven
years beyond the sea; and, as the fashion then was, sold the use of
their bodies to Virginian planters during that space of time. It is
thus, alas! that the strong are always used to deal with the weak, and
many an honest fellow has been led to rue his unfortunate difference
with the law.

Thus, then, we have settled all scores. The Count is in Holland with his
wife; Mrs. Cat in Warwickshire along with her excellent husband; Master
Thomas Billings with his adoptive parents in the same county; and the
two military gentlemen watching the progress and cultivation of the
tobacco and cotton plant in the New World. All these things having
passed between the acts, dingaring-a-dingaring-a-dingledingleding, the
drop draws up, and the next act begins