Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by Google Books(the New York Public Library) Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=XYgnAAAAMAAJ&pg (the New York Public Library) [Illustration: Front cover. "Minion of the moon: A romance of the king's highway." Thomas Wilkinson Speight] [Illustration: "God people, your money or your lives!" he said.] A MINION OF THE MOON BY T. W. SPEIGHT AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE," "HOODWINKED," "BY DEVIOUS WAYS," "THE HEART OF A MYSTERY," ETC. NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 156 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK MDCCCXCVII Copyright, 1896, BY NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY CONTENTS -------- THE PROLOGUE CHAPTER I. "We fly by Night." II. On the King's Highway THE NARRATIVE I. A Prentice Hand. II. In Search of a Lodging. III. Mr. Ellerslie of Rockmount. IV. The Squire of Stanbrook. V. Family Matters. VI. A Man who Never Forgave. VII. Who shall be Heir? VIII. "A Woman of a Thousand." IX. Converging Threads. X. The Sequel of Miss Baynard's Adventure. XI. "Little Short of Miraculous." XII. A Startling Recognition. XIII. Love the Conqueror. XIV. A Fresh Actor on the Scene. XV. "Fate Points the Way." XVI. The Shears of Atropos. XVII. An Astounding Discovery. XVIII. The Missing Heir. XIX. Mutual Confidences. XX. The Adventures of a Snuff-Box. XXI. In Quest of the Missing Heir. XXII. The Hon Mrs. Bullivant to Captain Ferris. XXIII. A Joyful Surprise. XXIV. A Parting and a Letter. XXV. A Desperate Resolve. XXVI. "For my Sake." XXVII. Three Years After. A MINION OF THE MOON. THE PROLOGUE. CHAPTER I. "WE FLY BY NIGHT." When the nineteenth century was still a puling infant scarcely able to stand alone, and not yet knowing what to make of the strange hurly-burly into which it found itself born, Abel Ringwood and Sarah his wife were respectively landlord and landlady of the King's Arms, a noted commercial hotel and posting-house at Appleford, a town in the North of England, on one of the great coach roads from the south to Scotland. All His Majesty's mails, which travelled by that route, stopped to change horses at the King's Arms, and, as there was a great deal of private posting by noblemen and rich commoners in those days, the hotel stables had seldom fewer than from twenty to thirty horses in them at one time.