was but
slight and hasty. His eyes were fixed upon the scene before him,
feeling, rather than understanding, its beauties, while he commented in
his mind, after his own peculiar fashion. I need not trace the
procession of thought through his brain. It ended, however, with the
half uttered words,

"Strange, that such a land should have produced so many scoundrels,
tyrants, and knaves!"

He then slowly urged his horse forward, down the side of the hill, soon
reached some tall trees, where the inclosures and hedgerows commenced,
and was approaching the point at which the road he was travelling,
crossed the bridle-path, when he heard some loud, and as it seemed to
him, angry words, between two persons he could not see.

"I will soon teach you that;" cried a loud, coarse tongue, adding an
exceedingly blasphemous oath, which I will spare the reader.

"My good friend," replied another milder voice, "I neither desire to be
taught any thing, just now, nor would you be the teacher I should chose,
if I did, though perchance, in case of need, I might give you a lesson,
which would be of some service to you."

Sir Philip rode on, and the next words he heard were spoken by the first
voice, to the following effect; "Curse me, if I would not try that, only
my man might get off in the mean time; and I have other business in hand
than yours. Otherwise I would give you such a licking in two minutes,
you would be puzzled to find a white spot on your skin for the next
month."

"Two minutes would not detain you long," replied the calmer voice, "and,
as I have never had such a beating, I should like to see, first, whether
you could give it, and secondly, what it would be like."

"Upon my soul, you are cool!" exclaimed the first speaker with another
oath.

"Perfectly," replied the second; and, at the same moment, Sir Philip
Hastings emerged from among the trees, at the point where the two roads
crossed, and where the two speakers were face to face before his eyes.

The one, who was in truth the sauntering traveller whom he has seen
wending along the bridle-path, was a tall, good-looking young man, of
three or four and twenty years of age. In the other, the Baronet had no
difficulty in recognizing at once, Tom Cutter, the notorious poacher and
bruiser, whom he had more than once had the satisfaction of committing
to jail. To see him mounted on a very fine powerful horse, was a matter
of no slight surprise to Sir Philip; but, natural