stone-wall or other place of strength?"

"If I may presume to advise," said the squire, "you, as being most valiant
and experienced, should ride forward, lance in hand (your long staff
serving for a lance), while I annoy the enemy from afar."

"Like Teucer behind the shield of Ajax," interrupted Dr. Melmoth, "or
David with his stone and sling. No, no, young man! I have left unfinished
in my study a learned treatise, important not only to the present age, but
to posterity, for whose sakes I must take heed to my safety.--But, lo! who
ride yonder?" he exclaimed, in manifest alarm, pointing to some horsemen
upon the brow of a hill at a short distance before them.

"Fear not, gallant leader," said Edward Walcott, who had already
discovered the objects of the doctor's terror. "They are men of peace, as
we shall shortly see. The foremost is somewhere near your own years, and
rides like a grave, substantial citizen,--though what he does here, I know
not. Behind come two servants, men likewise of sober age and pacific
appearance."

"Truly your eyes are better than mine own. Of a verity, you are in the
right," acquiesced Dr. Melmoth, recovering his usual quantum of
intrepidity. "We will ride forward courageously, as those who, in a just
cause, fear neither death nor bonds."

The reverend knight-errant and his squire, at the time of discovering the
three horsemen, were within a very short distance of the town, which was,
however, concealed from their view by the hill that the strangers were
descending. The road from Harley College, through almost its whole extent,
had been rough and wild, and the country thin of population; but now,