n society complain, when prostituting herself and depriving
me of my rights, that I resisted her usurpation and denied her
authority? Shall she, doing wrong herself in the first instance,
undertake to punish? Surely not. My rights were admitted--my superior
capacity: but the people were rotten to the core; they had not even the
virtue of truth to themselves. They made their own governors of the
vilest and the worst. They willingly became slaves, and are punished in
more ways than one. They first create the tyrants--for tyrants are the
creatures of the people they sway, and never make themselves; they next
drive into banishment their more legitimate rulers; and the consequence,
in the third place, is, that they make enemies of those whom they exile.
Such is the case with me, and such--but hark! That surely is the tread
of a horse. Do you hear it? there is no mistake now--" and as he spoke,
the measured trampings were heard resounding at some distance, seemingly
in advance of them.

"We must now use the spur, Munro; your horses have had indulgence enough
for the last hour, and we may tax them a little now."

"Well, push on as you please; but do you know anything of this route,
and what course will you pursue in doing him up?"

"Leave all that to me. As for the route, it is an old acquaintance; and
the blaze on this tree reminds me that we can here have a short cut
which will carry us at a good sweep round this hill, bringing us upon
the main trace about two miles farther down. We must take this course,
and spur on, that we may get ahead of him, and be quietly stationed when
he comes. We shall gain it, I am confident, before our man, who seems to
be taking it easily. He will have three miles at the least to go, and
over a road that will keep him in a walk half the way. We shall be there
in time."

They reached the point proposed in due season. Their victim had not yet
made his appearance, and they had sufficient time for all their
arrangements. The place was one well calculated for the successful
accomplishment of a deed of darkness. The road at the foot of the hill
narrowed into a path scarcely wide enough for the passage of a single
horseman. The shrubbery and copse on either side overhung it, and in
many places were so thickly interwoven, that when, as at intervals of
the night, the moon shone out among the thick and broken clouds which
hung upon and mostly obscured her course, her scattered rays scarcely
penetrated