daytime, with the sun out as big as a sixpence, which is as big as ever I
see'd him in this country!"

At that moment the shorter stranger, whose appearance had attracted the
praise of Mr. Nabbem (that personage was himself very short and ruddy),
and who had hitherto been riding close to the post-horses, and talking to
the officers on the box, suddenly threw himself from his steed, and in
the same instant that he arrested the horses of the chaise, struck the
postilion to the ground with a short heavy bludgeon which he drew from
his frock. A whistle was heard and answered, as if by a signal: three
fellows, armed with bludgeons, leaped from the hedge; and in the interim
the pretended farmer, dismounting, flung open the door of the chaise, and
seizing Mr. Nabbem by the collar, swung him to the ground with a celerity
that became the circular rotundity of the policeman's figure rather than
the deliberate gravity of his dignified office.

Rapid and instantaneous as had been this work, it was not without a
check. Although the policemen had not dreamed of a rescue in the very
face of the day and on the high-road, their profession was not that which
suffered them easily to be surprised. The two guardians of the dicky
leaped nimbly to the ground; but before they had time to use their
firearms, two of the new aggressors, who had appeared from the hedge,
closed upon them, and bore them to the ground. While this scuffle took
place, the farmer had disarmed the prostrate Nabbem, and giving him in
charge to the remaining confederate, extricated Tomlinson and his comrade
from the chaise.

"Hist!" said he in a whisper, "beware my name; my disguise hides me at
present. Lean on me,--only through the hedge; a cart waits there, and
you are safe!"