hen Clifford interposed in his behalf. From
a robber the sage dwindled into a drudge; menial offices (the robbers,
the lying rascals, declared that such offices were best fitted to the
genius of his country!) succeeded to noble exploits, and the worst of
robbers became the best of cooks. How vain is all wisdom but that of
long experience! Though Clifford was a sensible, and keen man, though he
knew our sage to be a knave, he never dreamed he could be a traitor.
He thought him too indolent to be malicious, and--short-sighted
humanity!--too silly to be dangerous. He trusted the sage with the
secret of the cavern; and Augustus, who was a bit of an epicure,
submitted, though forebodingly, to the choice, because of the
Scotchman's skill in broiling.

But MacGrawler, like Brutus, concealed a scheming heart under a stolid
guise. The apprehension of the noted Lovett had become a matter of
serious desire; the police was no longer to be bribed, nay, they were
now eager to bribe. MacGrawler had watched his time, sold his chief, and
was now on the road to Reading to meet and to guide to the cavern Mr.
Nabbem of Bow Street and four of his attendants.

Having thus, as rapidly as we were able, traced the causes which brought
so startlingly before your notice the most incomparable of critics, we
now, reader, return to our robbers.

"Hist, Lovett!" said Tomlinson, half asleep, "methought I heard
something in the outer cave."

"It is the Scot, I suppose," answered Clifford: "you saw, of course, to
the door?"

"To be sure!" muttered Tomlinson, and in two minutes more he was asleep.

Not so Clifford: many and anxious thoughts kept him waking. At one
while, when he anticipated the opening to a new career, somewhat of
the stirring and high spirit which still moved amidst the guilty and
confused habits of his mind made his pulse feverish and his limbs
restless; at another time, an agonizing remembrance,--the remembrance
of Lucy in all her charms, her beauty, her love, her tender and innocent
heart,--Lucy all perfect, and lost to him forever,--banished every other
reflection, and only left him the sick sensation of despondency and
despair. "What avails my struggle for a better name?" he thought.
"Whatever my future lot, she can never share it. My punishment is
fixed,--it is worse than a death of shame; it is a life without hope!
Every moment I feel, and shall feel to the last, the pressure of a chain
that may never be broken or loosened