He had a notion--and, indeed, I don't know that it was a wrong one--that his profession was now, as before, strictly military, and according to the rules of honour.

Robbing he called plundering the enemy; and hanging was, in his idea, a dastardly and cruel advantage that the latter took, and that called for the sternest reprisals.
The other gentlemen concerned were strangers to Mr.Brock, who felt little inclined to trust either of them upon such a message, or with such a large sum to bring back.

They had, strange to say, a similar mistrust on their side; but Mr.Brock lugged out five guineas, which he placed in the landlady's hand as security for his comrade's return; and Ensign Macshane, being mounted on poor Hayes's own horse, set off to visit the parents of that unhappy young man.

It was a gallant sight to behold our thieves' ambassador, in a faded sky-blue suit with orange facings, in a pair of huge jack-boots unconscious of blacking, with a mighty basket-hilted sword by his side, and a little shabby beaver cocked over a large tow-periwig, ride out from the inn of the "Three Rooks" on his mission to Hayes's paternal village.
It was eighteen miles distant from Worcester; but Mr.Macshane performed the distance in safety, and in sobriety moreover (for such had been his instructions), and had no difficulty in discovering the house of old Hayes: towards which, indeed, John's horse trotted incontinently.

Mrs.
Hayes, who was knitting at the house-door, was not a little surprised at the appearance of the well-known grey gelding, and of the stranger mounted upon it.
Flinging himself off the steed with much agility, Mr.Macshane, as soon as his feet reached the ground, brought them rapidly together, in order to make a profound and elegant bow to Mrs.Hayes; and slapping his greasy beaver against his heart, and poking his periwig almost into the nose of the old lady, demanded whether he had the "shooprame honour of adthressing Misthriss Hees ?" Having been answered in the affirmative, he then proceeded to ask whether there was a blackguard boy in the house who would take "the horse to the steeble;" whether "he could have a dthrink of small-beer or buthermilk, being, faith, uncommon dthry;" and whether, finally, "he could be feevored with a few minutes' private conversation with her and Mr.Hees, on a matther of consitherable impartance." All these preliminaries were to be complied with before Mr.Macshane would enter at all into the subject of his visit.