"Now, will you be still?" cried Paddy in vast exasperation. But here Jem Bottles spoke with angry resolution. "Come, now! Read! 'Tis not me that talks too much, and the day wanes." "Well, well, I would not be hurried, and that's the truth," said Paddy soothingly. "Listen now." I heard a rustling of paper. "Ahem!" said Paddy, "Ahem! Are ye listening, Jem Bottles?" "I be," replied the highwayman. "Ahem!" said Paddy. "Ahem! Are ye listening, Jem Bottles?" "I be," replied the highwayman. "Then here's for it," said Paddy in a formidable voice. There was another rustling of paper. Then to my surprise I heard Paddy intone, without punctuation, the following words: "Dear Sister Mary I am asking the good father to write this because my hand is lame from milking the cows although we only have one and we sold her in the autumn the four shillings you owe on the pig we would like if convenient to pay now owing to the landlord may the plague take him how did your Mickey find the fishing when you see Peggy tell her--" Here Jem Bottles's voice arose in tones of incredulity. "And these be the papers of the great Earl!" he cried. Then the truth flashed across my vision like the lightning. My two madmen had robbed the carriage of the Earl of Westport, and had taken, among other things, the Earl's papers--my papers--Lady Mary's papers. I strode around the haycock. "Wretches!" I shouted. "Miserable wretches!" For a time they were speechless. Paddy found his tongue first. "Aye, 'tis him! 'Tis nothing but little black men and papers with him, and when we get them for him he calls us out of our names in a foreign tongue. 'Tis no service for a bright man," he concluded mournfully. "Give me the papers," said I. Paddy obediently handed them. I knew them. They were my papers--Lady Mary's papers. "And now," said I, eyeing the pair, "what mischief have you two been compassing?" Paddy only mumbled sulkily. It was something on the difficulties of satisfying me on the subjects of little black men and papers. Jem Bottles was also sulky, but he grumbled out the beginning of an explanation. "Well, master, I bided under the tree till him here came, and then we together bided. And at last we thought, with the time so heavy, we might better work to handle a purse or two. Thinking," he said delicately, "our gentleman might have need of a little gold. Well, and as we were riding, a good lad from the--your worship knows where--tells us the Earl's carriage is halting there for a time, but will go on later without its escort of two gentlemen; only with servants. And, thinking to do our gentleman a good deed, I brought them to stand on the highway, and then he--"