Page 322 - A Jacobite Exile

highway robberies, to my knowledge."

"You see," Charlie went on, "there is no doubt whatever what will happen,
if we hand you over to the officers. You will be hung at Tyburn, to a moral

certainty. There is no getting out of that.

"Now, on the other hand, you have the alternative of making a clean breast

of your dealings with John Dormay, of how he put you at Lynnwood to act
as a spy, how you hid those two letters he gave you in my father's cabinet,

and how he taught you the lying story you afterwards told before the
magistrates at Lancaster. After having this story written down, you will
sign it in the presence of this officer and his wife, and you will also repeat

that story before any tribunal before which you may be brought.

"I don't know whether this is a hanging matter, but, at any rate, I can
promise that you shall not be hung for it. The Duke of Marlborough has
taken the matter in hand, and will, I have no doubt, be able to obtain for

you some lesser punishment, if you make a clean breast of it. I don't say
that you will be let free. You are too dangerous a man for that. But, at any

rate, your punishment will not be a heavy one--perhaps nothing worse than
agreeing to serve in the army. You understand that, in that case, nothing
whatever will be said as to your being Dick Cureton, or of your connection

with these last coach robberies. You will appear before the court simply as
Robert Nicholson, who, having met Captain Jervoise and myself, felt

constrained to confess the grievous wrong he did to our fathers, and other
gentlemen, at the bidding of, and for money received from, John Dormay."

"I do not need any time to make up my mind," the highwayman said. "I am
certainly not going to be hung for the advantage of John Dormay, who has

paid me poorly enough, considering that it was through me that he came
into a fine estate. I take it that you give me your word of honour, that if I
make a clean breast of it, and stick to my story afterwards, this other

business shall not be brought up against me."

"Yes, we both promise that on our word of honour."