"There!" he said with sudden earnestness, "I’ll only make restitution to the poor whom you have robbed. You may thank your stars that an angel came down from heaven to-day and cast eyes of tender pity upon me, so that I care not to rob you, save for those in dire want. You may mount that nag of yours now, and continue your journey to Brassington. No turning aside, remember, and answer me when I challenge your good-night." Master Mittachip and his clerk had no call to be told twice. They mounted with as much agility as their trembling limbs would allow. Truly they considered themselves lucky in having saved some money out of the clutches of the rogue, and did not care to speculate on the cause of their good fortune. A few minutes later their lean horse was once more on its way, bearing its double burden. At first they had both looked back, attracted—now that their terror was gone—by the sight of that tall, youthful figure on the beautiful thoroughbred standing there on the crest of the hill and gradually growing more and more dim in the fast-gathering mist. The bridle path at this point dips very suddenly and a sharp declivity leads thence, straight on to Brassington. Beau Brocade’s sharp eyes, accustomed to the gloom, watched horse and riders until the mist enveloped them and hid them from his view. Then he called loudly,— "Good-night!" And faintly echoing came the quaking reply,— "Good-night!" After that there was silence again. The outlaw was alone upon the Heath once more, the Heath which had been his home for so long. For him it had no cruelty and held no terror: the tall gorse and bracken oft sheltered him from the rain! Wrapped in his greatcoat, he had oft watched the tiny lizards darting to and fro in the grass, or listened to the melancholy cry of moorhen or heron. The tiny rough branches of the heather had been a warm carpet on which he had slept on lazy afternoons. The outlaw found a friend in great and lonely Nature, and when he was aweary he laid his head on her motherly breast, and like a child found rest. CHAPTER XVII A FAITHFUL FRIEND How long he stood there on the spur of the hill he could not afterwards have told. It may have been a few seconds, perhaps it was an eternity. During those few seconds or that eternity, the world was re-created for him: for him it became more beautiful than he had ever conceived it in his dreams. A woman’s smile had changed it into an earthly paradise. A new and strange happiness filled his being, and set brain and sinews on fire. A happiness so great that his heart well nigh broke with the burden of it, and the bitter longing for what could never be. The cry of a moorhen thrice repeated at intervals roused him from his dreams. "John Stich," he murmured, "I wonder now what brings him out to-night!"