The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1908-07-04 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

CHAPTER I. -PACE TO PACE  Ho remembered all his life afterwards' the oold, wild dawn, and the uniamiliar I look of things ee they emerged from the shadows of night. He was not used to be, abroad so early. The boy followed like a little dog at hail heels, whimpering softly to himself. Pincher had come back from chasing the rabbit, and was trotting soberly ahead of him. He had a dreamy wonder as to what the dog would do without him, when he should be in prison, between the four square wells, if, indeed, the lighter of the two alternatives fell to his share. The thought of the prison recalled to him sharply the two prisoner* waiting for his succour. In point of time they had not been there very long. They would have stayed where he left them in a place of comparative safety. He remembered the air of su.bmiesion Priscilla had worn, sweetly obedient, like a beloved child. Why, what • flower God had set in his ugly and waste plot! He had meditated in a half-drunken freak, forcing a woman. old and ugly, to be his wife, that he might have her money. He had meant to have her money and }mink her, poor hag, to the other end of his house out of his sight, out of hi. thoughts. He seemed to see the I thing now in all its native hideousness. And, behold, the woman he would have ' sacrificed to his needs and cast away had looked at him with the eyes of a wife, and alreadyabe knew that his heart was not the place of dust and ashes he had thought it. Already the spring stirred in what he hod thought dead, and the verdure sprang upon it. A thousand, thousand pities that after all they must be separated! But there was nothing else for it. Only he had the seen* of the peacocks, and there was no other way, since the house was claw-guarded, but to walk straight in, deliver them out of the trap into which he had led them, and afterwards let what would happen.  Won't you take tie other way, your Honour?" the crippled boy *aid. plucking at hie sleeve, with fingers as weak as the clams of a little bird. "Didn't I tell you that they were wailing round the house to take your Honour?" "Never mind, Jimmy," Pierce Rowan said, looking at the boy with an odd impersonal kindness. "Perhaps, after all, I wouldn't have been a very good man to be on my keeping. It would irk me, you see, to be always running. Some day I shou3d do 'what I am going to do now, and give myself up." He felt as though be saw the boy at a long distance off; as though he were &avulsing another man's case, and not his own. A thousand thousand pities that Pierce Rowan, who was a harmless fellcnv, and so equeamish that the dying eyes of a bird he had *hot made him feel like a murderer. should have carried that pistol. One of his friends had taken it out of AS cue and handed it to him that evening when he had set out on the expedition to abduct the Quaker's daughter. tolling him that it was a useful thing to have at hand in case of a row. After all, he had only meant to fire across the water; not at the boat. If only it hadn't slewed round so suddenly! A thousand thousand pities! But there it was, irrevocable as life and death. Mr. -Caulfield of Moy eat his horse at the door of Carrigrowan House, listening with what patience he might to 4pbn Penn, who stood by the horee's head, one knotted hand upon the horee's shoulder, Ile though he would detain the rider by force, if that were necessary. "Well, Mr. Penn," he said, "I have done all that is incumbent on me to do. My men are watching the houee. I do rot believe that Sir Pierce Rowan is within it, but time will tell. And now, if you please, this, is an unprofitable discussion. If you will remove your hand I shall be off." . . . .  " If thee Siert not a friend of the man Rowan! But I cannot acquit thee of an intention of letting him escape." "Confound you, gir; who mires whether you acauit me or not?" Mr. Caulfield broke forth in sudden passion. "My judgment does not he in your bands. Be good enough to stand baok!" (To be Continued.)