d, provided your lordship fired straight
upon it."

"I do not doubt you," said Mauleverer; "light the lanterns, and tell the
postboys to drive on."

It was a frosty and tolerably clear night. The dusk of the twilight had
melted away beneath the moon which had just risen, and the hoary rime
glittered from the bushes and the sward, breaking into a thousand
diamonds as it caught the rays of the stars. On went the horses briskly,
their breath steaming against the fresh air, and their hoofs sounding
cheerily on the hard ground. The rapid motion of the carriage, the
bracing coolness of the night, and the excitement occasioned by anxiety
and the forethought of danger, all conspired to stir the languid blood
of Lord Mauleverer into a vigorous and exhilarated sensation, natural
in youth to his character, but utterly contrary to the nature he had
imbibed from the customs of his manhood.

He felt his pistols, and his hands trembled a little as he did so,--not
the least from fear, but from that restlessness and eagerness peculiar
to nervous persons placed in a new situation.

"In this country," said he to himself, "I have been only once robbed in
the course of my life. It was then a little my fault; for before I took
to my pistols, I should have been certain they were loaded. To-night
I shall be sure to avoid a similar blunder; and my pistols have an
eloquence in their barrels which is exceedingly moving. Humph,
another milestone! These fellows drive well; but we are entering a
pretty-looking spot for Messieurs the disciples of Robin Hood!"

It was, indeed, a picturesque spot by which the carriage was now rapidly
whirling. A few miles from Maidenhead, on the Henley Road, our readers
will probably remember a small tract of forest-like land, lying on
either side of the road. To the left the green waste bears away among
the trees and bushes; and one skilled in the country may pass from
that spot, through a landscape as little tenanted as green Sherwood
was formerly, into the chains of wild common and deep beech-woods which
border a certain portion of Oxfordshire, and contrast so beautifully the
general characteristics of that county.

At the time we speak of, the country was even far wilder than it is now;
and just on that point where the Henley and the Reading roads unite was
a spot (communicating then with the waste land we have described), than
which, perhaps, few places could be more adapted to the purposes of such
true men