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 CHAPTER II.

THE REBEL APPEARS.

We continued to talk with aimless propriety, until the Captain fetched suddenly so huge a sigh out of the recesses of his waistcoat that it called for an heroic repression of myself to wear a proper gravity of countenance.

"Sir, you are not unwell, I hope," says I, with perturbation.

He saw at once the chance provided for him, and laying his hand profoundly on his heart, was on the point, I do not doubt, of making one more declaration of his undying passion, when the entrance of my aunt curtailed the scene abruptly, and robbed me of the entertainment I had planned.

My aunt conducted the Captain to the Earl, and an hour later that officer went forth to his commander with the permission of my father to lodge the soldiers at Cleeby for a night. It was in the evening at seven o'clock that the prisoner was brought. I did not witness his arrival, as I happened to be dressing at that time, yet none the less I felt an interest in it, for, to say the least, a real live rebel savours of adventures, and those are what