"Which seein' you say so, I'll not deny," said he. "So I'll trouble you for your purse an' also your ticker--an' sharp's the word!" And speaking, he whipped a pistol beneath my chin, whereupon I delivered up the articles named as quickly as my consternation would allow. "And now," said he, pocketing my erstwhile property and seizing my arm again, "come on, friend, an' let this be a warnin' never to disturb a 'ighwayman wot grieves." "Why do you grieve?" "For my Chloe!" "Your wife?" "Wife--no! Never 'ad a wife--never shall. There's no woman breathin' could ekal my Chloe for love an' faithfulness--used to nibble my 'air, she did, poor lass!" "Nibble your hair?" I repeated. "Pray who was she?" "My mare, for sure--my pretty mare as 'adn't 'er ekal for speed nor wind--my mare as they Bow Street dogs shot an' left to bleed 'er life out in the mud an' be damned to 'em." "Then the tale of your wife and babies weeping for you was untrue?" "Every word of it, friend. An' what then? A man's apt to say anything to save 'is neck--now ain't 'e? Wouldn't you?" Now at this I was silent and we walked for a while with never a word. "And your mother?" I questioned at last. "Your mother praying for you--was that also untrue?" "My mother," said he, lifting his face to the radiant moon, "my mother died three years ago--on her knees--prayin' for me--an' it's like enough she's on 'er knees afore th' Throne a-prayin' for me this werry minute." "And yet you are a--highwayman?" "Why, friend, 'tis in the family, y' see. My father was one afore me an' uncommon successful--much looked up to in 'is perfession, though a little too quick o' th' trigger finger--but 'e was took at last, 'ung at Tyburn an' gibbeted on Blackheath. They took me to see 'im in 'is chains, an' bein' only a little lad, I cried all the way back 'ome to my mother an' found 'er a-cryin' too. But because 'e'd been so famous in 'is perfession they gibbeted 'im very 'igh, an' so, as folk 'ad looked up to 'im in life they did the same in death." "Yours is a very evil, dangerous life," said I, after a while. "Evil?" he repeated. "Well, life mostly is evil if ye come to think on it. An' as for danger--'t's so-so--three times shot, six times in jail an' many a rousin' gallop wi' the hue an' cry behind. But arter all 'tis my perfession an' there's worse, so what I am I'll be." "And will you let your mother pray in vain?" "In vain," he repeated, "in vain? Why, blast the Pope, hasn't she saved me from bein' scragged many a time--didn't she save me t'night?" "Doesn't she pray rather that you may turn honest?" "Honest!" quoth he, spitting. "Let them be honest as can! An' look 'ee, my lad, I'll tell ye what--you leave my dead mother alone or 't will be the worse for ye."