afterwards appeared, never suspected but that the horse had been
placed there to meet them by the precaution of the guide or some of his
friends.

The lad, however, who was thus hastily dispossessed of his charge, began
to stare hard, and scratch his head, as if seized with some qualms of
conscience for delivering up the animal on such brief explanation. "I
be right zure thou be'st the party," said he, muttering to himself, "but
thou shouldst ha zaid BEANS, thou knawest."

"Ay, ay," said Wayland, speaking at a venture; "and thou BACON, thou
knowest."

"Noa, noa," said the lad; "bide ye--bide ye--it was PEAS a should ha
said."

"Well, well," answered Wayland, "Peas be it, a God's name! though Bacon
were the better password."

And being by this time mounted on his own horse, he caught the rein of
the palfrey from the uncertain hold of the hesitating young boor, flung
him a small piece of money, and made amends for lost time by riding
briskly off without further parley. The lad was still visible from the
hill up which they were riding, and Wayland, as he looked back, beheld
him standing with his fingers in his hair as immovable as a guide-post,
and his head turned in the direction in which they were escaping from
him. At length, just as they topped the hill, he saw the clown stoop to
lift up the silver groat which his benevolence had imparted. "Now this
is what I call a Godsend," said Wayland; "this is a bonny, well-ridden
bit of a going thing, and it will carry us so far till we get you as
well mounted, and then we will send it back time enough to satisfy the
Hue and Cry."

But he was deceived in his expectations; and fate, which seemed at first
to promise so fairly, soon threatened to turn the incident which he thus
gloried in into the cause of their utter ruin.

They had not ridden a short mile from the place where they left the
lad before they heard a man's voice shouting on the wind behind them,
"Robbery! robbery!--Stop thief!" and similar exclamations, which
Wayland's conscience readily assured him must arise out of the
transaction to which he had been just accessory.

"I had better have gone barefoot all my life," he said; "it is the Hue
and Cry, and I am a lost man. Ah! Wayland, Wayland, many a time thy
father said horse-flesh would be the death of thee. Were I once safe
among the horse-coursers in Smithfield, or Turnbull Street, they should
have leave to hang me as high as St. Paul's if I e'er meddled