“No, master—­thank you the zame—­I will take nothing but what I have won.”

Charles was anxious to visit “old Tom Prescot and his wife,” of whom the stranger had spoken; but the company to which he belonged was to march forward to Plymouth on the following day, and there to embark.  His brother officers also dissuaded him from the thought.

“Why, Sim,” said they, “the likeness between you and the conqueror of the ring was certainly a very pretty coincidence, and your meeting each other quite a drama.  But, my good fellow,” added they, laughing, “take the advice of older heads than your own—­don’t examine too closely into your father’s faults.”

Three years passed, and Charles, now promoted to the rank of a lieutenant, accompanied the Duke of York in his more memorable than brilliant campaign in Holland.  A soldier was accused of having been found sleeping on guard; he was tried, found guilty, and condemned to be shot.  A corporal’s guard was accompanying the doomed soldier from the place where sentence had been pronounced against him to the prison-house, from whence he was to be brought forth for execution on the following day.  Lieutenant Sim passed near them.  A voice exclaimed—­

“Master! master!—­save me! save me!”

It was the voice of the condemned soldier.  The lieutenant turned round, and in the captive who called to him for assistance he recognised the Devonshire wrestler—­the strange portrait of himself.  And even now, if it were possible, the resemblance between them was more striking than before; for, in the stranger, the awkwardness of the peasant had given place to the smartness of the soldier.  Charles had felt an interest in him from the first moment he beheld him; he had wished to meet him again, and had resolved to seek for him should he return to England; and now the interest that he had before felt for him was increased tenfold.  The offence and the fate of the doomed one were soon told.  The lieutenant pledged himself that he would leave no effort untried to save him; and he redeemed his pledge.  He discovered, he obtained proof that the condemned prisoner, George Prescot, had been employed on severe and dangerous duties, against which it was impossible for nature longer to stand up, but in all of which he had conducted himself as a good, a brave, and a faithful soldier; and, more, that it could not be proved that he was actually found asleep at his post, but that he was stupified through excess of fatigue.

He hastened to lay the evidence he had obtained respecting the conduct and innocence of the prisoner before his Royal Highness, who, whatever were his faults, was at least the soldier’s friend.  The Duke glanced over the documents which the lieutenant laid before him; he listened to the evidence of the comrades of the prisoner.  He took a pen; he wrote a few lines; he placed them in the hands of Lieutenant Sim.  They contained the free pardon of Private Prescot.  Charles rushed with the pardon in his hand to the prisoner; he exclaimed—­