road, I saw four or five horsemen, riding full speed, some a good way before the other, and hurrying on, as people in a full pursuit.

It immediately struck me; Ha! brother Jack, says I, get off the horse this moment, and ask why afterwards; so he jumps off: What is the matter? says he: The matter, says I, look yonder, it is well we have lost our way; do you see how they ride? they are pursuing us, you may depend upon it; either, says I, you are pursued from the last village for the two shirts, or from Puckeridge for the horse. He had so much presence of mind, that without my mentioning it to him, he puts back the horse behind a great white thorn-bush, which grew just by him; so they could by no means see the horse, which, we being just at the top of the hill, they might otherwise have done, and so have pursued that way at

a venture.

But as it was impossible for them to see the horse, so was it as impossible for them to see us at that distance, who sat down on the ground to look at them the more securely.

The road winding about, we saw them a great way, and they rode as fast as they could make their horses go. When we found they were gone quite out of sight, we mounted, and made the best of our way also; and indeed, though we were two upon one horse, yet we abated no speed where the way would admit of it, not inquiring of anybody the way to anywhere, till, after about two hours' riding, we came to a town, which, upon inquiry, they called Chesterford; and here we stopped, and asked not our way to any place, but whither that road went, and were told it was the coach road to Cambridge; also that it was the way to Newmarket, to St. Edmund's-bury, to Norwich and Yarmouth, to Lynn, and to Ely, and the like.

We stayed here a good while, believing ourselves secure; and afterwards, towards evening, went forward to a place called Bournbridge, where the road to Cambridge turns away out of the road to Newmarket, and where there are but two houses only, both of them being inns. Here the captain says to me, Hark ye, you see we are pursued towards Cambridge, and shall be stopped if we go thither; now Newmarket is but ten miles off, and there we may be safe, and perhaps get an opportunity to do some business.

Look ye, Jack, said I, talk no more of doing business, for

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I will not join with you in anything of that kind; I would fain get you to Scotland, before you get a halter about your neck; I will not have you hanged in England, if I can help it, and therefore I won't go to Newmarket, unless you will promise me to take no false steps there. Well, says he, if I must not, then I won't; but I hope you will let us get another horse, won't you, that we may travel faster? No, says I, I won't agree to that; but if you will let me send this horse back fairly, I will tell you how we shall hire horses afterwards, for one stage, or two, and then take them as far as we please it is only sending a letter to the owner to send for him, and then, if we are stopped, it can do us but little hurt.

You are a wary, politic gentleman, says the captain, but I say we are better as we are; for we are out of all danger of being stopped on the way, after we are gone from this place.

We had not parleyed thus long, but, though in the dead of the night, came a man to the other inn door; for, as I said above, there are two inns at that place, and called for a pot of beer, but the people were all in bed, and would not rise; he asked them if they had seen two fellows come that way upon one horse. The man said he had, that they went by in the afternoon, and asked the way to Cambridge, but did not stop only to drink one mug. O! says he, are they gone to Cambridge? Then I'll be with them quickly. I was awake in a little garret of the next inn, where we lodged; and hearing the fellow call at the door, got up, and went to the window, having some uneasiness at every noise I heard; and by that means heard the whole story. Now, the case is plain, our hour was not come, our fate had determined other things for us, and we were to be reserved for it; the matter was thus: when we first came to Bournbridge, we called at the first house, and asked the way to Cambridge, drank a mug of beer, and went on, and they might see us turn off to go the way they directed; but, night coming on, and we being very weary, we thought we should i not find the way; and we came back in the dusk of the evening, and went into the other house, being the first as we came back, as that, where we called before, was the first as we went forward.

You may be sure I was alarmed now, as indeed I had reason to be. The captain was in bed, and fast asleep, but I wakened him, and roused him with a noise that frighted

him enough; Rise, Jack, said I, we are both ruined, they are come after us hither. Indeed, I was wrong to terrify him at that rate; for he started, and jumped out of bed, and run directly to the window, not knowing where he was, and, not quite awake, was just going to jump out of the window, but I laid hold of him; What are you going to do? says I; I won't be taken, says he; let me alone, where are they?

This was all confusion; and he was so out of himself with the fright, and being overcome with sleep, that I had much to do to prevent his jumping out of the window. However, I held him fast, and thoroughly wakened him, and then all was well again, and he was presently composed.

Then I told him the story, and we sat together upon the bed-side, considering what we should do; upon the whole, as the fellow that called was apparently gone to Cambridge, we had nothing to fear, but to be quiet till daybreak, and then to mount and be gone.

Accordingly, as soon as day peeped we were up; and having happily informed ourselves of the road at the other house, and being told that the road to Cambridge turned off on the left hand, and that the road to Newmarket lay straight forward; I say, having learnt this, the captain told me he would walk away on foot towards Newmarket; and so, when I came to go out, I should appear as a single traveller; and accordingly he went out immediately, and away he walked, and he travelled so hard, that when I came to follow, I thought once that he had dropped me, for, though I rode hard, I got no sight of him for an hour. At length, having passed the great bank, called the devil's ditch, I found him, and took him up behind me, and we rode double till we came almost to the end of Newmarket town. Just at the hither house in the town stood a horse at a door, just as it was at Puckeridge. Now, says Jack, if the horse was at the other end of the town, I would have him, as sure as we had the other at Puckeridge; but it would not do; so he got down, and walked through the town on the right hand side of the way.

He had not got half through the town, but the horse, having some how or other got loose, came trotting gently on by himself, and nobody following him. The captain, an old soldier at such work, as soon as the horse was got a pretty way before him, and that he saw nobody followed,

STEAL ANOTHER HORSE AT NEWMARKET.

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sets up a run after the horse, and the horse hearing him follow, ran the faster; then the captain calls out, "Stop the horse!" and by this time the horse was got almost to the farther end of the town; the people of the house where he stood not missing him all the while.

Upon his calling out "Stop the horse!" the poor people of the town, such as were next at hand, ran from both sides the way, and stopped the horse for him, as readily as could be, and held him for him till he came up; he very gravely comes up to the horse, hits him a blow or two, and calls him dog for running away; gives the man twopence that catched him for him, mounts, and away he comes after me.

This was the oddest adventure that could have happened, for the horse stole the captain, the captain did not steal the horse. When he came up to me, Now, Colonel Jack, says he, what say you to good luck? would you have had me refused the horse, when he came so civilly to ask me to ride? No, no, said I, you have got this horse by your wit, not by design; and you may go on now I think; you are in a safer condition than I am, if we are taken.

The next question was, what road we should take? here were four ways before us, and we were alike strangers to them all; first, on the right hand, and at a little mile from the town, a great road went off to St. Edmund's-bury; straight on, but inclining afterwards to the right, lay the great road to Barton Mills, and Thetford, and so to Norwich; and full before us lay a great road also to Brandon and Lynn, and on the left, lay a less road to the city of Ely, and into the fens.

In short, as we knew not which road to take, nor which way to get into the great north road, which we had left, so we, by mere unguided chance took the way to Brandon, and so to Lynn. At Brand, or Brandon, we were told, that, passing over at a place called Downham-bridge, we might cross the fen country to Wisbeach; and from thence go along the bank of the river Nyne to Peterborough, and from thence to Stamford where we were in the northern road again; and likewise, that at Lynn we might go by the washes into Lincolnshire, and so might travel north. But, upon the whole, this was my rule, that, when we inquired the way to any particular place, to be sure we never took the road, but some other, which the accidental discourse we might have

should bring in; and thus we did here; for, having chiefly asked our way into the northern road, we resolved to go directly for Lynn.

CHAPTER VII.

FURTHER ADVENTURES-THERE IS NO PREVENTING MY COMRADE FROM EXERCISING HIS TRADE OF A THIEF-WE WITNESS A WHIPPING IN EDINBURGH-THE CAPTAIN TAKES FRENCH LEAVE-I RETURN MY HORSE TO THE PERSON FROM WHOM IT WAS STOLEN-LEARN TO READ AND WRITE-I AM HIRED AND CHEATED BY A SCOTTISH MASTER-MEET WITH THE CAPTAIN AGAIN-I ENLIST FOR A SOLDIER-WE DESERT-ADVENTURES THEREUPON.

WE arrived here very easy and safe, and while we were considering of what way we should travel next, we found we were got to a point, and that there was no way now left, but that by the washes into Lincolnshire, and that was represented as very dangerous; so an opportunity offering of a man that was travelling over the fens, we took him for our guide, and went with him to Spalding, and from thence to a town called Deeping, and so to Stamford in Lincolnshire.

This is a large populous town, and it was market-day when we came to it; so we put in at a little house at the hither end of the town, and walked into the town.

Here it was not possible to restrain my captain from playing his feats of art, and my heart ached for him; I told him I would not go with him, for he would not promise to leave off, and I was so terribly concerned at the apprehensions of his venturous humour, that I would not so much as stir out of my lodging; but it was in vain to persuade him. He went into the market, and found a mountebank there, which was what he wanted. How he picked two pockets there in one quarter of an hour, and brought to our quarters a piece of new holland of eight or nine ells, a piece of stuff, and played three or four pranks more in less than two hours; and how afterward he robbed a doctor of physic, and yet came off clear in them; all this, I say, as above, belongs to his story, not mine.

I scolded heartily at him when he came back, and told him he would certainly ruin himself, and me too, before he left