To Sarah he was known as “Mr Jones”; and to her innocent mind it never occurred that he could be other than the painter he professed to be.  The villagers, however, were sceptical.  True, the stranger was a pleasant man who always gave them a cheery “good-day,” and gossiped with them in the friendliest manner.  But that there was some mystery connected with him, all agreed.  “Painter chaps” were notoriously poor, and this man always seemed to have plenty of money to fling about.  Then, he would disappear periodically, and always returned with more money.  Where did he go, and how did he get his gold?  There could be little doubt about it.  This handsome, mysterious, pleasant-tongued stranger must be a highwayman; for it was a fact that every time he was absent, a coach or a chaise was held up in the neighbourhood and its occupants relieved of their valuables.

Suspicion became certainty when Mr Jones bought a piece of land in their village and began to build the finest house in the whole district, a house which must cost, in their bucolic view, a “mint o’ money.”  But Mr Jones simply smiled at their suspicions, and made himself more agreeable than ever.  He loved the farmer’s daughter, and she made no concealment of her love for him, and nothing else mattered.  He had won his “beggar-maid,” and happiness was at last within his grasp.

When he asked his hosts for the hand of their daughter in marriage, the good lady was indignant.  “Marry Sarah!” she exclaimed.  “What, to a fine gentleman?  No, indeed; no happiness can come from such a marriage!”

But the farmer for once put his foot down.  “Yes,” he said, “he shall marry her.  The lass loves him dearly; and has he not house and land, too, and plenty of money to keep her?” And thus it came to pass that one October day the church-bells of Bolas rang a merry peal; the villagers put on their gala clothes; and, amid general rejoicing, qualified by not a few dark hints and forebodings, Sarah Hoggins was led to the rustic altar by her “highwayman” bridegroom.

For two ideally happy years Mr Jones lived with his humble bride in the fine new house which he had built for her, and which he called Burleigh Villa.  He had lived down his character of highwayman, and was regarded, and respected, as the most important man in the village.  He was even appointed to the honourable offices of churchwarden and overseer; while under his tuition his peasant-wife was becoming, in the words of the village gossips, “quite the lady.”

One day towards the end of December, 1793, after two years of this idyllic life, Mr Jones chanced to read in a country paper news which he had dreaded, for it meant a revolution in his life, the return to the world he had so gladly forsaken.  His dream of the simple life, of peaceful days, was at an end.  His uncle, the old Earl, was dead, and the coronet and large estates had devolved on him.  Should he refuse to take them, and end his days in this idyllic obscurity, or should he claim the “baubles,” and return to the hollow splendour of a life on which he had turned his back?