The soldiers—most of them lads recruited from the Midland counties, and a pretty rough lot to boot—were only too ready for this additional bit of horseplay. ’Twas fun enough to sit an old scold in the ducking-stool, but to carry on the same game with Beau Brocade, the notorious highwayman, who had defied the four counties and set every posse of soldiers by the ears, would be rare sport indeed. With a shout of joy they seized Jock Miggs by the legs and shoulders, and with much laughter and many a lively sally they carried him to the shallow duck-pond at the further end of the green. Very sadly, and with many an anxious shake of the head, the village folk followed the little procession, which was headed by the Sergeant and pompous Master Inch. At the moment when the unfortunate shepherd was being swung in mid-air, preparatory to his immersion in the water, one of the soldiers laughingly dragged away the coat which swathed poor Miggs’s head and shoulders, and was near suffocating him. "We don’t want ’im to drown, do we?" he said, just as his comrades dropped the wretched man straight into the pond. Immediately there was a loud cry from beadle and spectators,— "Lud love us all! that bain’t Beau Brocade!" And one timid voice added,— "Why! ’tis Jock Miggs, the shepherd!" The beadle nearly had a fit of apoplectic rage. That cursed highwayman surely must be in league with the devil himself. The soldiers were gasping with astonishment, and staring open-mouthed at the dripping figure of Jock Miggs, who with unruffled stolidity was quietly struggling out of the water. "Lordy! Lordy! these be ’mazing times," he muttered in his vague, fatalistic way as he shook himself dry in the sunshine, after the manner of his own woolly sheep-dog. "Oho! ho! ha! ha! ha!" came in merry chorus from the crowd of village folk, "look at Jock Miggs, the highwayman!" The soldiers, were absolutely speechless. Master Inch, the beadle, had said emphatically,— "Damn!" Truly there was nothing more to be said: those who were inclined to be superstitious felt convinced that the devil himself had had something to do with this amazing substitution. That it was Beau Brocade who had been captured on the Heath last night none of those who were present at the time doubted for a single instant. To their minds the highwayman had been mysteriously spirited away by the agency of Satan his friend, who had quietly deposited Jock Miggs, the shepherd, in his place. John Stich, with Mistress Betty beside him, had watched these proceedings from the other end of the green, fully prepared to come to Miggs’s assistance and to disclose the latter’s identity at once if the horse-play became at all too rough. He now pushed his way through the group of soldiers, and good-naturedly taking hold of the bewildered shepherd’s arm, he led him to the porch of the Royal George.