[Pg 46]

“I swear you shall go then,” said the Skinner.

“Here, take the trash,” cried Birch, as he threw aside the purse, which he had contrived to conceal, notwithstanding the change in his garments.

The robber raised it from the floor with a fiendish laugh.

“Aye, but it shall be to your father in heaven.”

“Monster! have you no feeling, no faith, no honesty?”

“To hear him, one would think there was not a rope around his neck already,” said the other laughing. “There is no necessity for your being uneasy, Mr. Birch; if the old man gets a few hours the start of you in the journey, you will be sure to follow him before noon to-morrow.”

This unfeeling communication had no effect on the peddler, who listened with gasping breath to every sound from the room of his parent, until he heard his own name spoken in the hollow, sepulchral tones of death. Birch could endure no more, but shrieking out:

“Father! hush—father! I come—I come!” he darted by his keeper, and was the next moment pinned to the wall by the bayonet of another of the band. Fortunately, his quick motion had caused him to escape a thrust aimed at his life, and it was by his clothes only that he was confined.

“No, Mr. Birch,” said the Skinner, “we know you too well for a slippery rascal, to trust you out of sight—your gold, your gold!”

“You have it,” said the peddler, writhing in agony.

“Aye, we have the purse, but you have more purses. King George[71] is a prompt paymaster, and you have done him many a piece of good service. Where is your hoard? Without it you will never see your father.”

“Remove the stone underneath the woman,” cried the peddler, eagerly; “remove the stone.”

“He raves! He raves!” said Katy, instinctively moving her position to a different stone from the one on which she [Pg 47]had been standing. In a moment it was torn from its bed, and nothing but earth was seen underneath.

[Pg 47]

“He raves! you have driven him from his right mind,” continued the trembling 

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