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Updated: May 24, 2025
It was five o'clock next morning before my courier returned with Nance Lousely and her father. I had gone to sleep in the Squire's elbow-chair before the hall fire, with the zealous thief-takers in attendance, turn and turn about, as sentries over me, fifty guineas being well worth guarding. The butler watched at the door, wakefully anxious to earn the crown I had promised him.
He took my hand, looked at me intently, with his grey eyes very thoughtful and steady, and then said quietly, "Samuel Nixon, Bachelor of Arts, sometime Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford." "Commonly called 'Swift Nicks," I added, smiling. "Right first time," he cried gleefully, and shot off like an arrow towards Manchester. So Nance Lousely had not got her pinnerfull of guineas after all.
Now I could walk side by side with Margaret and not be ashamed, at any rate not of my hat. "The rogue jerked it off when I winged him," said I. "Gom! He did jump, that's sartin," said the farmer, whose name, I ought to say, I had learned was Job Lousely. It was quite a step down to the road, and we made no further discovery till we got to the gate.
But Nance Lousely was a simple country maiden, such as I was born and bred amongst, and at that time I had no vile red stubble, rough as a horse-comb, on my chin. We were interrupted by the lackey, who came with Mr. Dot Gibson's respects to his honour, and would his honour like the refreshment of a shave and a bath as both were at his service? Like master, like man.
"Of course you know there's only one end of it." "Yes," I replied, and hummed a stave of "Lillibullero." He leaned forward and said impressively, "The gibbet, Mr. Wheatman!" "Draughty places!" said I, smiling, as I thought of Nance Lousely. "I can feel the wind whistling through my bones." "You are pleased to be facetious, sir. It does credit, I must say, to your nerves."
We found out sweet Nance Lousely, and filled her pinner full of guineas after all, and left her tearful and happy. We knelt together by a simple grave in the Catholic burial-ground at Leek, and on the top of Shap we stood, with tears in our eyes, beside the great stone that marked the resting-place of Donald and his chief.
The carousers might be, nay, almost certainly were, soldiers, though there had been none in the town when Job Lousely had left it less than two hours ago. The news of my escapade might well have leaked into Stafford by now; I was very well known in the town, and the stranger might be some Stafford chap benighted at Uttoxeter after his business at the market.
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