'How now?' asked Plunket. 'Is anything the matter? You look as if you were on the road to be hung at Tyburn.' 'The matter is that to-morrow I shall not have a penny in the world,' answered Maclean, gloomily. 'Oh, things are never so bad as they seem,' said Plunket. 'Cheer up. Perhaps I can find a way to supply you with _more_ pennies. It only wants a little pluck and spirit! If _we_ haven't got any money, there are plenty of other people who have.' Maclean was silent. He understood at once what Plunket meant, and that he was being offered a partnership in a scheme of highway robbery. He had, as we know, stolen small sums before, but that felt to him a very different thing from stopping travellers along the road, and demanding 'their money or their life.' However, he soon shook off his scruples, and was ready to take his part in any scheme that Plunket should arrange. 'You are in luck just now,' said his tempter, who all this time had been watching his face and read the thoughts that were passing through his mind. 'I heard only this morning of a farmer who has sold a dozen fat oxen at the Smithfield Market, and will be riding home this evening with the money in his saddle-bags. If he had any sense he would have started early and ridden in company, but I know my gentleman well, and dare swear he will not leave the tavern outside the market till dusk is falling. So if we lie in wait for him on Hounslow Heath, he cannot escape us.' It was autumn, and dark at seven o'clock, when the farmer, not as sober as he might have been, came jogging along. He was more than half-way across, and was already thinking how best to spend the sixty pounds his beasts had brought him, when out of a hollow by the roadside sprang two men with masks and pistols, which were pointed straight at his horse's head. 'Your money or your life,' said one of them, while the other stood silent; and with trembling fingers the farmer unloaded his saddle-bags, and delivered up his watch. As soon as Plunket saw there was no more to be got out of him, he gave the horse a smart cut on his flanks, and the animal bounded away. All this while Maclean had not uttered a word, nor had he laid a finger on the victim. He had in reality trembled with fear quite as much as the farmer, and it was not till they were safe in Plunket's garret off Soho Square that he breathed freely. 'Sixty pounds, do you say? Not bad for one night's work,' cried Plunket. 'Well, friend James, I will give you ten pounds for your share, which I call handsome, seeing you did not even cock your pistol! But perhaps it is all one could expect for the first time, only on the next occasion you must do better. And you might just as well, you know, as if the officers of the peace catch you they will hang you to a certainty, never stopping to ask questions as to your share in the matter.'