The Broad Highway

rough which a watery moon had peeped at fitful intervals) seemed to presage a wild night. It needed but this to make my misery the more com

and began to strain my eyes for it. Presently I spied it, sure enough, its grim, gaunt outline loom

it and slouched into the road to meet me. I stopped there

id a voice, and I reco

ag

oing-and there

towards the gibbet, "I ain't afeard o' none as ever drawed brea

do you wan

g is my name, an' craggy's my natur', but I know when I'm beat. I knowed ye as soon as I laid my 'peepers' on ye, an' if I said as it were a foul, why, when a man's in 'is cups,

id I, "and, for that matte

iskers, my lord-leastways

as that got to do wit

Trent, in Wych Street, accordin' to your orders, my lord, the Prince give me word to 'clear out'-cut an' run for it,

ow small-put up your hands; if not, get out of my road." The craggy one stepped aside, somewhat hastily,

" said he, "but I never see so rumm

ugh some rift in the rolling clouds, and, looking back, I saw him standing where I had left

rce was he out of my sight but I forgot him altogether; for, what with my weariness, the long, dark road before and behind me, and my empty pockets, I became a prey to gr

tly as ever I did between the snowy sheets." Saying which, I rose and began to look about for some likely nook in the hedge, where I might pass the night. I was thus engaged when I heard the creak of wheels, and the pleasant rhythmic jingle of harness on the dark hill above, and, in a little while,

d, strident tone of one rudely aw

will you give a tired f

-be you a ta

think so,

t' other day, I did-took 'im up t' other side o' Sevenoaks, an' 'e talked me up 'ill an' down 'ill, 'e did-dang me!

said I; "besides, I am too tired an

tening to the creak of the wheels, the deliberate hoof-strokes of the horses, muffled in the thick dust of the road, and the gentle snore of the driver who had promptly fallen asleep again. On we went as in borne on air, so soft was my bed, now beneath the far-flung branches of trees, sometimes so low that I could have touched them with my hand, now, beneath a