"You are a good girl,
Betty," and she kissed her warmly, and hurried away to the glass to
rearrange her elaborate curls of hair.
Mr. Ives came home full of excitement: he had heard great news in
Wancote, the whole town was ringing with it.
"What do you think has happened?" he cried as he came into the room.
"Has John come home?" asked Betty eagerly.
"No, child, and the servants say that they never expect him until he
appears, he is often away like this for a few days. The news is quite
otherwise--Wild Jack has been taken."
"Ah!" cried the women in a breath, and Betty turned white as a sheet.
"What will they do with him!" asked Mary.
"He was taken on the king's highway, some twenty miles from here on the
Newbury Road, on the cross roads where the steep way comes down from the
downs. It seems that an important paper had fallen into the possession
of some individual here, convicting many well-known gentlemen about
Wancote of loyalty to him that is over the sea, and Sir Harry Clare was
to carry the paper to Newbury to-night. I warrant some not very distant
friends of ours were shaking in their shoes."
"They rode four together and all well-armed; but Wild Jack was too much
for them--he and two others attacked the party; he seized the paper
himself, after a short encounter with young Clare, whose horse he shot
dead.
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