'The man's worth knowing, master, who travels a road he don't know,
mounted on a jaded horse, and leaves good quarters to do it on such a
night as this.'

'You have sharp eyes and a sharp tongue, I find.'

'Both I hope by nature, but the last grows rusty sometimes for want of
using.'

'Use the first less too, and keep their sharpness for your sweethearts,
boy,' said the man.

So saying he shook his hand from the bridle, struck him roughly on the
head with the butt end of his whip, and galloped away; dashing through
the mud and darkness with a headlong speed, which few badly mounted
horsemen would have cared to venture, even had they been thoroughly
acquainted with the country; and which, to one who knew nothing of the
way he rode, was attended at every step with great hazard and danger.

The roads, even within twelve miles of London, were at that time
ill paved, seldom repaired, and very badly made. The way this rider
traversed had been ploughed up by the wheels of heavy waggons, and
rendered rotten by the frosts and thaws of the preceding winter, or
possibly of many winters. Great holes and gaps had been worn into the
soil, which, being now filled with water from the late rains, were not
easily distinguishable even by day; and a plunge into any one of them
might have brought down a surer-footed horse than the poor beast now
urged forward to the utmost extent of his powers. Sharp flints and
stones rolled from under his hoofs continually; the rider could scarcely