few honest
fellows that bring the old women of England a drop of brandy, and let
these ragamuffins smuggle in as much papistry and--Hark!--was that
a whistle? No, it's only a plover. You, Jem Collier, keep a look-out
ahead--we'll meet them at the High Whins, or Brotthole bottom, or
nowhere. Go a furlong ahead, I say, and look sharp.--These Misses
Arthurets feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and such-like
acts--which my poor father used to say were filthy rags, but he dressed
himself out with as many of them as most folk.--D--n that stumbling
horse! Father Crackenthorp should be d--d himself for putting an honest
fellow's neck in such jeopardy.'

Thus, and with much more to the same purpose, Nanty ran on, increasing,
by his well-intended annoyance, the agony of Alan Fairford, who,
tormented by a racking pain along the back and loins, which made the
rough trot of the horse torture to him, had his aching head still
further rended and split by the hoarse voice of the sailor, close to
his ear. Perfectly passive, however, he did not even essay to give
any answer; and indeed his own bodily distress was now so great and
engrossing, that to think of his situation was impossible, even if he
could have mended it by doing so.

Their course was inland; but in what direction, Alan had no means of
ascertaining. They passed at first over heaths and sandy downs; they
crossed more than one brook, or beck, as they are called in that
country--some of them of considerable depth--and at length reached
a cultivated country, divided, according to the English fashion of
agriculture, into very small fields or closes, by high banks, overgrown
with underwood, and surmounted by hedge-row trees, amongst which winded
a number of impracticable and complicated lanes, where the boughs
projecting from the embankments on each side, intercepted the light of
the moon, and endangered the safety of the horsemen. But through this
labyrinth the experience of the guides conducted them without a blunder,
and without even the slackening of their pace. In many places, however,
it was impossible for three men to ride abreast; and therefore the
burden of supporting Alan Fairford fell alternately to old Jephson
and to Nanty; and it was with much difficulty that they could keep him
upright in his saddle.

At length, when his powers of sufferance were quite worn out, and he was
about to implore them to leave him to his fate in the first cottage or
shed--or unde