The grim smile which disfigured still more the visage of Rivers at the ludicrous association which the proposed abduction of the lawyer awakened in his mind, was reflected fully back from that of his companion, whose habit of face, however, in this respect, was more notorious for gravity than any other less stable expression.  He carried out, in words, the fancied occurrence; described the lawyer as raving over his undocketed and unargued cases, and the numberless embryos lying composedly in his pigeonholes, awaiting, with praiseworthy patience, the moment when they should take upon them a local habitation and a name; while he, upon whom they so much depended, was fretting with unassuaged fury in the constraints of his prison, and the absence from that scene of his repeated triumphs which before had never been at a loss for his presence.

“But come—­let us mount,” said the landlord, who did not feel disposed to lose much time for a jest.  “There is more than this to be done yet in the village; and, I take it, you feel in no disposition to waste more time to-night.  Let us be off”

“So say I, but I go not back with you, Wat.  I strike across the woods into the other road, where I have much to see to; besides going down the branch to Dixon’s Ford, and Wolf’s Neck, where I must look up our men and have them ready.  I shall not be in the village, therefore, until late to-morrow night—­if then.”

“What—­you are for the crossroads, again,” said Munro.  “I tell you what, Guy, you must have done with that girl before Lucy shall be yours.  It’s bad enough—­bad enough that she should be compelled to look to you for love.  It were a sad thing if the little she might expect to find were to be divided between two or more.”

“Pshaw—­you are growing Puritan because of the dark.  I tell you I have done with her.  I can not altogether forget what she was, nor what I have made her; and just at this time she is in need of my assistance.  Good-night!  I shall see Dillon and the rest of them by morning, and prepare for the difficulty.  My disguise shall be complete, and if you are wise you will see to your own.  I would not think of flight, for much may be made out of the country, and I know of none better for our purposes.  Good-night!”

Thus saying, the outlaw struck into the forest, and Munro, lingering until he was fairly out of sight, proceeded to rifle the person of Forrester—­an act which the disdainful manner and language of his companion had made him hitherto forbear.  The speech of Rivers on this subject had been felt; and, taken in connection with the air of authority which the mental superiority of the latter had necessarily imparted to his address, there was much in it highly offensive to the less adventurous ruffian.  A few moments sufficed to effect the lightening of the woodman’s purse of the earnings which had been so essential a feature in his dreams of cottage happiness; and while engaged in this transfer, the discontent of the landlord with his colleague in crime, occasionally broke out into words—­