or tells us, is an historical personage. He appears first
in the first chapter of "The Story of Kennett," when, having spent the
day in a fox-hunt with Alfred Barton, and the evening at the tavern in
the same company, he beguiles his comrade into a lonely place, reveals
himself, and, with the usual ceremonies, robs Barton of his money and
watch. Thereafter, he is seen again, when he rides through the midst of
the volunteers of Kennett, drinks at the bar of the village tavern, and
retires unharmed by the men assembled to hunt him down and take him.
After all, however, he is a real brigand, and no hero; and Mr. Taylor
manages his character so well as to leave us no pity for the fate of a
man, who, with some noble traits, is in the main fierce and cruel. He is
at last given up to justice by the poor, half-wild creature with whom he
lives, and whom, in a furious moment, he strikes because she implores
him to return Gilbert his money.

As for Gilbert, through all the joy of winning Martha, and the sickening
disappointment of losing his money, the shame and anguish of the mystery
that hangs over his origin oppress him; and, having once experienced the
horror of suspecting that Martha's father might also be his, he suffers
hardly less torture when the highwayman, on the day of his conviction,
sends to ask an interview with him. But Sandy Flash merely wishes to
ease his conscience by revealing the burial-place of Gilbert's money;
and when the young man, urged to the demand by an irresistible anxiety,
implores, "You are not my father?" the good highwayman, in great and
honest amazement, declares that he certainly is not. The mystery
remains, and it is not until the death of the old man Barton that it is
solved. Then it is dissipated, when Gilbert's mother, in presence of
kindred and neighbors, assembled at the funeral, claims Alfred Barton as
her husband; and after this nothing remains but the distribution of
justice, and the explanation that, long ago, before Gilbert's birth, his
parents had been secretly married. Alfred Barton, however, had sworn his
wife not to reveal the marriage before his father's death, at that time
daily expected, and had cruelly held her to her vow after the birth of
their son, and through all the succeeding years of agony and
contumely,--loving her and her boy in his weak, selfish, cowardly way,
but dreading too deeply his father's anger ever to do them justice. The
reader entirely sympathizes with Gilb