occasional recurrences to the young man's figure.

"What have we here?" said he, breaking his speech into little dry
fragments. " 'Left the house of the subscriber, bounden servant,
Hezekiah Mudge,--had on, when he went away, gray coat, leather
breeches, master's third-best hat. One pound currency reward to
whosoever shall lodge him in any jail of the providence.' Better
trudge, boy; better trudge!"

Robin had begun to draw his hand towards the lighter end of the
oak cudgel, but a strange hostility in every countenance induced
him to relinquish his purpose of breaking the courteous
innkeeper's head. As he turned to leave the room, he encountered
a sneering glance from the bold-featured personage whom he had
before noticed; and no sooner was he beyond the door, than he
heard a general laugh, in which the innkeeper's voice might be
distinguished, like the dropping of small stones into a kettle.

"Now, is it not strange," thought Robin, with his usual
shrewdness, "is it not strange that the confession of an empty
pocket should outweigh the name of my kinsman, Major Molineux?
Oh, if I had one of those grinning rascals in the woods, where I
and my oak sapling grew up together, I would teach him that my
arm is heavy though my purse be light!"

On turning the corner of the narrow lane, Robin found himself in
a spacious street, with an unbroken line of lofty houses on each
side, and a steepled building at the upper end, whence the
ringing of a bell announced the hour of nine. The light of the
moon, and the lamps from the numerous shop-windows, discovered