ey
were asking after a chaise and pair."

"No!" said Nabbem, "there be no gentlemen as belongs to our party!" So
saying, he tipped a knowing wink at the farmer, and glanced over his
shoulder at the prisoners.

"What! you are going all alone?" said the farmer.

"Ay, to be sure," answered Nabbem; "not much danger, I think, in the
daytime, with the sun out as big as a sixpence, which is as big as ever
I see'd him in this country!"

At that moment the shorter stranger, whose appearance had attracted the
praise of Mr. Nabbem (that personage was himself very short and ruddy),
and who had hitherto been riding close to the post-horses, and talking
to the officers on the box, suddenly threw himself from his steed, and
in the same instant that he arrested the horses of the chaise, struck
the postilion to the ground with a short heavy bludgeon which he drew
from his frock. A whistle was heard and answered, as if by a signal:
three fellows, armed with bludgeons, leaped from the hedge; and in the
interim the pretended farmer, dismounting, flung open the door of the
chaise, and seizing Mr. Nabbem by the collar, swung him to the ground
with a celerity that became the circular rotundity of the policeman's
figure rather than the deliberate gravity of his dignified office.

Rapid and instantaneous as had been this work, it was not without a
check. Although the policemen had not dreamed of a rescue in the very
face of the day and on the high-road, their profession was not that
which suffered them easily to be surprised. The two guardians of the
dicky leaped nimbly to the ground; but before they had time to use their
firearms, two of the new aggressors, who had appeared from the hedge,
closed upon them, and bore them to the ground. While this scuffle took
place, the farmer had disarmed the prostrate Nabbem, and giving him
in charge to the remaining confederate, extricated Tomlinson and his
comrade from the chaise.

"Hist!" said he in a whisper, "beware my name; my disguise hides me at
present. Lean on me,--only through the hedge; a cart waits there, and
you are safe!"

With these broken words he assisted the robbers as well as he could, in
spite of their manacles, through the same part of the hedge from
which the three allies had sprung. They were already through the
barrier,--only the long legs of Ned Pepper lingered behind,--when at
the far end of the road, which was perfectly straight, a gentleman's
carriage became visible. A s