The mind of Lennard Sherbrooke, however, was far too busy about other things to think of dangers on the King’s Highway.  His purse was certainly well armoured against robbery; and the defence was on the inside and not on the out; so that—­had he thought on the matter at all, which he did not do—­he might very probably have thought, in his light recklessness, he wished he might meet with a highwayman, in order to try whether he could not rob better than be robbed.

However, as I have said, he thought not of the subject at all.  His own situation, and that of the boy Wilton, occupied him entirely; and it was not till the noise of a horse’s feet coming rapidly behind him sounded close at his shoulder, that he turned to see by whom he had been overtaken.

All that Sherbrooke could perceive was, that it was a man mounted on a remarkably fine horse, riding with ease and grace, and bearing altogether the appearance of a gentleman.

“Pray, sir,” said the stranger, “can you tell me how far I am from the inn called the Buck’s Horns, and whether this is the direct road thither?”

“The inn is about two miles on,” replied Sherbrooke, “on the left-hand side of the way, and you cannot miss it, for there is no other house for five miles.”

“Only two miles!” said the stranger; “then there is no use of my riding so fast, risking to break my neck, and my horse’s knees.”

Sherbrooke said nothing, but rode on quietly, while the stranger, still reining in his horse, pursued the high road by the traveller’s side.

“It is a very dark night,” said the stranger, after a minute or two’s silence.

“A very dark night, indeed!” replied Sherbrooke, and the conversation again ended there.

“Well,” said the stranger, after two or three minutes more had passed, “as my conversation seems disagreeable to you, sir, I shall ride on.”

“Goodnight, sir,” replied Sherbrooke, and the other appeared to put spurs to his horse.  At the first step, however, he seized the traveller’s rein, uttering a whistle:  two more horsemen instantly darted out from one side of the road, and in an instant the well-known words, “Stand and deliver!” were audibly pronounced in the ears of the traveller.

Now it is a very different thing, and a much more difficult thing, to deal in such a sort with three gentlemen of the road, than with one; but nevertheless, as we have before shown, Lennard Sherbrooke was a stout man, nor was he at all a faint-hearted one.  A pistol was instantly out of one of the holsters, pointed, and fired, and one of his assailants rolled over upon the ground, horse and man together.  His heavy sword was free from the sheath the moment after; and exclaiming, “Now there’s but two of you, I can manage you,” he pushed on his horse against the man who had seized his bridle, aiming a very unpleasant sort of oblique cut at the worthy personage’s head, which, had it taken effect, would probably have left him with a considerable portion less of skull than that with which he entered into the conflict.