In rushed the enemies, Baron, High Sheriff, and all, to seize him.

Not a word spoke the Bandit, but his attitude was sublime,--even Vance cried "bravo;" and just as he is seized, halter round his neck, and about to be hanged, down from the chasm above leaps his child, holding the title-deeds, filched from the Baron, and by her side the King's Lieutenant, who proclaims the Bandit's pardon, with due restoration to his honours and estates, and consigns to the astounded Sheriff the august person of the Remorseless Baron.

Then the affecting scene, father and child in each other's arms; and then an exclamation, which had been long hovering about the lips of many of the audience, broke out, "Waife, Waife!" Yes, the Bandit, who appeared but in the last scene, and even then uttered not a word, was the once great actor on that itinerant Thespian stage, known through many a fair for his exuberant humour, his impromptu jokes, his arch eye, his redundant life of drollery, and the strange pathos or dignity with which he could suddenly exalt a jester's part, and call forth tears in the startled hush of laughter; he whom the Cobbler had rightly said, "might have made a fortune at Covent Garden." There was the remnant of the old popular mime!--all his attributes of eloquence reduced to dumb show! Masterly touch of nature and of art in this representation of him,--touch which all who had ever in former years seen and heard him on that stage felt simultaneously.

He came in for his personal portion of dramatic tears.

"Waife, Waife!" cried many a village voice, as the little girl led him to the front of the stage.
He hobbled; there was a bandage round his eyes.