"Sure! I saw him change horses; I was in the stable-yard at the time.
He got out for half an hour, to eat, I fancy. Be sure that I played him
a trick in the mean while."

"What for?" asked Ned.

"Self and servant."

"The post-boys?"

"Ay, I forgot them. Never mind, you, must frighten them."

"Forwards!" cried Ned; and his horse sprang from his armed heel.

"One moment," said Lovett; "I must put on my mask. Soho, Robin, soho!
Now for it,--forwards!"

As the trees rapidly disappeared behind them, the riders entered, at a
hand gallop, on a broad tract of waste land interspersed with dikes and
occasionally fences of hurdles, over which their horses bounded like
quadrupeds well accustomed to such exploits.

Certainly at that moment, what with the fresh air, the fitful moonlight
now breaking broadly out, now lost in a rolling cloud, the exciting
exercise, and that racy and dancing stir of the blood, which all action,
whether evil or noble in its nature, raises in our veins; what with all
this, we cannot but allow the fascination of that lawless life,--
a fascination so great that one of the most noted gentlemen highwaymen
of the day, one too who had received an excellent education and mixed in