in the shadowed background, some bruised and broken heart?  What does it matter that he betrays his trust, breaks his oath, blackens his name, slurs his friends, and recruits the army, wan and sinister, of all the fallen since time began?  To him, apparently, it matters less than a drifting leaf in the wind of this October day.  He remembers all that he should forget, and forgets all that should be remembered.  There pass by him in long parade Tom and Dick and Harry and others of their ilk.  He sees them, and he sees little else.  It is a host of choice spirits, and they have banners flying.  His courage mounts.  Brave emulation! noble rivalry!  He, too, will be bold; he, too, will join their regiment!  For him, too, the spoils of opportunity and a daughter of the game!  He feels the summer in the air, and all Brummagem rises upon his horizon.  Farewell to patient drudgery and the slow playing over of the tune of life!  He’s for a brisker air, he’s for ‘Over the hills and far away.’

“His little plans are laid.  I say ‘little,’ gentlemen, advisedly, for in all this there is no greatness.  We speak of a self-seeker here, and all the ends of such an one are small, and he himself has not attained the full stature of a man.  The ambitious soul before us!  By stealth he practises until he can sign his employer’s name, more lifelike almost than life!  By stealth he gains impressions of the keys.  By stealth he eyes the only wealth that his mole mind can value!  By stealth he makes his preparations, and by stealth he cons the miles and the post-houses between him and the country to which he means to carry himself and his stolen goods!  He is assiduous at his desk; his employers nod approval, praise him for a lad of parts, and hold him up for emulation.  In his brain one air continues,—­’Over the hills and far away.’

“The day approaches.  The forgery is done, the accustomed hand slips easily in and out of the golden drawer, and all the roads are got by heart.  We have the loan of a horse—­before another dawn we will be gone.  O Fortune of great thieves, stand pat! and kindly tune run on!  ’Over the hills and far away.’

“We have been told by the worthy gentlemen, his employers, that so trustworthy did they consider the prisoner at the bar, so able in their affairs and assiduous in their service, that this very day it was in their minds to increase his pay and to raise him quite above his fellow clerks to an honourable post indeed.  He did not give them time, gentlemen, he did not give them time!  The hour is here, the notes are sewn within the lining of our well-brushed riding-coat, the master key is in our itching palm!  We’ll lurk until midnight, then in the dark room we will unlock the drawer.  If we are heard, softly as we step in the silence of the night—­if a watchman come—­the worse for the watchman!  We carry pistols, and the butt of one against his forehead will do the work.  For we are bold, gentlemen, we are as bold as Caesar or Buonaparte!  We won’t be stopped—­we won’t!  We’re for ‘Over the hills and far away.’”