Sir Harry West's good servant was an old soldier, as we have said, and had many of the qualities of his class. He recognised his fellow-traveller immediately; but, seeing either that the other did not remember him, or affected not to do so, he gave not the slightest indication of having himself a better memory. He applied himself, on the contrary, diligently to his ale; and, though it must be confessed that he listened with all his ears, from a curious sort of mistrust or dislike which he felt towards the whole party, yet he heard nothing but the last words of their conversation, which were, "Find out!" The moment these two monosyllables were pronounced by the Baron de Mardyke, the last-comer quitted the room. After being absent for about five minutes, he returned, and again spoke to the other two in as low a voice as before. Matthew Lakyn, however, thought that he caught the words, "Going on immediately;" and he said to himself, "If they are talking of me, they speak the truth. Neither shall I lose any time upon the road." Thus thinking, he rose, quitted the room, paid his score, and, having tightened his horse's girths, and replaced the bit in his mouth, he rode on upon his way, at a more rapid pace than he had heretofore employed during his journey. He was now just entering Rutlandshire; and in those days a great quantity of common land, waste and dreary enough, lay between Stamford and Grantham, especially about Witham, where a large extent of dreary ground, some four miles across, according to the course of the high road, and spreading to five or six miles on either hand, presented not a single house, cottage, or hut, as far as the eye could reach. After riding on for about an hour and a half, Lakyn saw this wide heath extending before him, with nothing to relieve its bare monotony but a clump of tall trees, about two miles in advance. Now, he was anything but a man of a faint heart; but still so many charges had been given him regarding the letter which he bore, that he had conceived that document to be of much greater importance than it really was; and, as the bearer thereof, he had risen to considerable importance in his own eyes. Those were somewhat lawless times, it must be remembered, when, notwithstanding the wisdom with which Elizabeth had ruled, the comparative thinness of the population, and the general state of society, left many opportunities for violent acts, of which there were not wanting persons to take advantage. Why or wherefore good Matthew Lakyn had taken a strong dislike to the party he had just left, we shall not attempt to explain to the reader, as, in truth, the good man could not explain it to himself; but certainly he had thought of them more than once as he rode along the highway; and, when he reached the edge of the common which we have mentioned, he turned in the saddle and gave a look behind him.