od beds; neat wines; excellent entertainment
for man and beast; private rooms for large and small parties; dinners
dressed upon the shortest notice; choice stabling, and a lock-up
coach-house; and, in short, to run over such recommendatory scraps of
language as were painted up on various portions of the building, and
which in the course of some forty years he had learnt to repeat with
tolerable correctness. He was considering whether it was at all possible
to insert any novel sentences to the same purpose, when the gentleman
who had spoken first, turning to him of the long wind, exclaimed, 'What
say you, Gashford? Shall we tarry at this house he speaks of, or press
forward? You shall decide.'

'I would submit, my lord, then,' returned the person he appealed to,
in a silky tone, 'that your health and spirits--so important, under
Providence, to our great cause, our pure and truthful cause'--here his
lordship pulled off his hat again, though it was raining hard--'require
refreshment and repose.'

'Go on before, landlord, and show the way,' said Lord George Gordon; 'we
will follow at a footpace.'

'If you'll give me leave, my lord,' said John Grueby, in a low voice,
'I'll change my proper place, and ride before you. The looks of the
landlord's friend are not over honest, and it may be as well to be
cautious with him.'

'John Grueby is quite right,' interposed Mr Gashford, falling back
hastily. 'My lord, a life so precious as yours must not be put in peril.
Go forward, John, by all means. If you have any reason to suspect the
fellow, blow his brains out.'

John made no answer, but looking straight before him, as his custom
seemed to be when the secretary spoke, bade Hugh push on, and followed
close behind him. Then came his lordship, with Mr Willet at his bridle
rein; and, last of all, his lordship's secretary--for that, it seemed,
was Gashford's office.

Hugh strode briskly on, often looking back at the servant, whose horse
was close upon his heels, and glancing with a leer at his bolster
case of pistols, by which he seemed to set great store. He was a
square-built, strong-made, bull-necked fellow, of the true English
breed; and as Hugh measured him with his eye, he measured Hugh,
regarding him meanwhile with a look of bluff disdain. He was much older
than the Maypole man, being to all appearance five-and-forty; but was
one of those self-possessed, hard-headed, imperturbable fellows, who, if
they are ever beaten at