The King's Highway

Berwick, could never be above a certain length. Measured by a string probably such would have been the case; but if the reader considers how much more

ver hour the traveller might set out upon his way, he was not likely to reach t

y four stout horses wended slowly on the King's Highway, not very far from the spot where

nd leather of the dignity of the person within. He, for his own part, though a graceful and very courtly personage, full of high talent, policy, and wit, had nothing about him at all of the pomposity of his vehicle; and at the moment

ation; but there are few occasions that we can conceive, on which such an event is more disagreea

o what was passing round, than the door of the carriage was opened, and a man of gentlemanly appearance, with a pistol in his right hand, and his horse's bridle over the left arm, presented himself to the eyes of the peer. At the same t

erefore asked the pistol-bearing gentleman, much in the same tone that one would ask one's way across

I do it for the purpose of requesting, that you would disburden yourself of a part of your baggage, which you can very well spare, and which we cannot. I

thing. Then as to jewellery, my watch, seals, and these trinkets are at your disposal. Farther than these I have but this ring, for which I have a very great regard; and I wish that some way could be pointed out by which I might be able to redeem it at a future time it may

lied the highwayman; "you have given eno

"I beg your pardon; but your manner, language, and behaviour, are so different from all that might be expected unde

a poor gentleman, of a house as noble as your own, but have

retire; but the Earl o

sir, especially about t

pertinent questions, I

o i

ing to recollect himself, with a sudden start, he approached neare

ner?" demand

plied the highwayman: "time is wanting, and, doubtl

ten miles hence, which, as you know me, you probably know also, I will hear all you h

to my own chamber." [Footnote: It may be interesting to the reader to know that the whole of this scene,

signal to his companions to withdraw from the heads of the horses

ded the man who was at the other door of the carriage:

tents are, I know not-a watch, a chain, and three

pon doing it yourself, and would let no other

thing were to be done, and I standing by, I might as well do it as see you d

or rather, I should say, a traitor to his king, to his native-born pr

Sherbrooke, "for all that-as long, and

been done to-night; and I would bet a guinea to a shilling, that if you ask any priest in all the land, he will tell you, that

lection, which, in spite of all that they assumed, was not a pleasant companion to any of the four. It very often happens that the exhilaration of success occupies so entirely the portion of time during which remorse for doing a bad action is most ready to strike us, that we are ready to commit the same error again, before the last murmurs of conscience have time to make themselves heard. Those who wish to drow

mitted; but the postilions of those days, and eke the keepers of inns, were wise people in their generation, and discreet withal. They talked loudly of the horror, the infamy, and the shamefulness, of making