Parson Ives had been very handsome in his youth, and though worn by years (he was forty years older than his child), and by the grief of bereavement, he was yet famous for his good looks.

Betty wore a short dark green riding-habit and a broad felt hat.  She was as much at home on horseback as on foot, and seldom in the mornings wore a less business-like costume.

The other two occupants of the coach were to ordinary eyes less interesting.  Mistress Mary Jones was a faded woman, who had once been pretty, a spinster, a great friend of Betty’s, and one of her father’s parishioners.  She was an excellent woman in her way, albeit somewhat given to terrors both real and fanciful.

Her opposite neighbor was a man past the prime of life, owner and breeder of large herds of cattle near Wancote, a man who, after attending the Newbury markets, often returned home by this very coach, and was believed to carry large sums of money in the flap-pockets of his many-caped riding-coat.

Mr. Barnes had a fixed mask-like countenance, his bushy eyebrows almost met in a wrinkle that told of thought and deep calculation.  He was clean-shaven, and his chin was swathed in a huge neckcloth of white muslin; he wore his hat low on his brow.

“I like not to be out so late on the high road,” said he very suddenly, so that both Mr. Ives and Mistress Mary Jones started, and Betty, whom nothing ever startled, turned her great blue eyes inquiringly on him.

“Why, sir?” she asked.

“Why, my good young lady, because the Newbury sales are just over, and it is well known that the stock reared on Belford home farm has sold well”

“Are the roads not safe then, sir?” asked Mr. Ives rather anxiously.

“I do not quite say that, for it is many a long day since the coach was attacked between Newbury and Wancote; but rumour has been busy.”

“Ha!” cried Betty, sitting upright eagerly.

“It is said that Wild Jack Barnstaple has been heard of in the neighbourhood.”

“Heaven help us!” shrieked Mary Jones.

“Be calm, I entreat you, my dear madam, and have pity on my unfortunate toes!  Zounds! it is torture enough to be subject to periodical gout, without such an infliction as the stamp of a lady’s fashionable heel on the tender place.”

“But you say Wild Jack is in the neighbourhood!  Oh Heaven! what will become of us!”

Betty’s blooming cheek had turned just a faint shade paler, but the rosy colour came rushing back, her eyes flashed.

Suddenly stooping forward she said in a low voice: 

“Mr. Barnes, you may confide in me.  Do you carry much money?”

He answered in a tone of assumed ease, “Paper to the value of nearly a thousand pounds.”

“Then look you, Mr. Barnes,” said Betty in her natural voice, “I have a proposal to make to you.  Give the valuables you have to us—­to Miss Mary Jones and to myself.  Wild Jack, all say, is a gentleman—­should he, by any unfortunate chance, be on the road to-night, he will not rob women.  Your money will be safe.”