it seemed, was one of those encounters which were the spice of his
journeyings.

"You will pardon me," continued the stranger with a great assumption
of heartiness, "but I am curious, sir, curious as Socrates, though
I thank God I am no heathen. Here is Christmas, when a sensible
gentleman, as upon my word I take you to be, sits to his table and
drinks more than is good for him in honour of the season. Yet here are
you upon the roads to Suffolk which have nothing to recommend them. I
wonder at it, sir."

"You may do that," replied Mitchelbourne, "though to be sure, there
are two of us in the like case."

"Oh, as for me," said his companion shrugging his shoulders, "I am on
my way to be married. My name is Lance," and he blurted it out with
a suddenness as though to catch Mitchelbourne off his guard.
Mitchelbourne bowed politely.

"And my name is Mitchelbourne, and I travel for my pleasure, though my
pleasure is mere gipsying, and has nothing to do with marriage. I
take comfort from thinking that I have no friend from one rim of
this country to the other, and that my closest intimates have not an
inkling of my whereabouts."

Mr. Lance received the explanation with undisguised suspicion, and at
supper, which the two men took together, he would be forever laying
traps. Now he slipped some outlandish name or oath unexpectedly into
his talk, and watched with a forward bend of his body to mark whether
the word struck home; or again he mentioned some person with whom