"Sh! sh! sh! speak not of the devil, Master Duffy, lest he appear!..." "Hark!!!" The two men now clung trembling to one another; not ten paces from them there came the sound of a horse’s snorting, then suddenly a voice rang out clearly through the mist-laden air,— "Hello! who goes there!" "The Lord have mercy upon us!" whispered Mittachip. "It must be Beau Brocade himself," echoed the clerk. The next moment a horse and rider came into view. Master Mittachip and his clerk were too terrified even to look. The former had jerked the reins and brought his lean nag to a standstill, and both men now sat with eyes closed, teeth chattering, their very faces distorted with fear. Beau Brocade had reined his horse quite close to them, and was peering through his black mask at the two terror-stricken faces. Evidently they amused him vastly, for he burst out laughing. "Odd’s my life! here’s a pretty pair of scarecrows! ... Well! I see you can stand, so now let’s see what you’ve got to deliver!" At this Master Mittachip contrived to open his eyes for a second; but the black mask, and the heavily cloaked figure looked so ghostlike, so awful in the mist, that he promptly closed them again, and murmured with a shudder.— "Mercy, oh, noble sir! We ... we are poor men!..." "Poor-spirited men, you mean?" quoth Beau Brocade, giving the trembling figure a quick, vigorous shake. "Now then! off that nag of yours! Quick’s the word!" But even before this word of command Master Mittachip, dragging his clerk after him, had tumbled, quaking, off his horse. They now stood clinging to each other, a miserable bundle of frightened humanity. "Come!" said Beau Brocade, looking down with some amusement at the spectacle. "I’m not going to hurt you—I never shoot at snipe! But you’ll have to turn out your pockets and sharp too, an you want to resume your journey to-night." He had seized Master Duffy by the collar. The clerk was an all too-ready prey for any highwayman, and stooping from his saddle, Beau Brocade had quickly extracted a leather bag from the pocket of his coat. "Oho! guineas, as I live!" "Kind sir," began Duffy, tremblingly. "Now, listen to me, both of you," said Beau Brocade, trying to hide his enjoyment of the scene under an air of great sternness. "I know who you are. I know what work you’ve been doing this afternoon. Extorting rents barely due from a few wretched people, for your employers as hard-hearted as yourselves." "Kind sir..." "Silence! or I shoot! Besides, ’twere no use to tell me lies. The people about here know me. They call me Beau Brocade. I know them and their troubles. I happened to hear, for instance, that you extracted two guineas from the Widow Coggins, threatening her with a process for dilapidations unless she gave you hush money." "’Twas not our fault, kind sir..."