In this melancholy and silent mood, they proceeded onward till the shades began to deepen; and by the light of the first stars Walter beheld a small, spare gentleman riding before him on an ambling nag, with cropped ears and mane. The rider, as he now came up to him, seemed to have passed the grand climacteric, but looked hale and vigorous; and there was a certain air of staid and sober aristocracy about him, which involuntarily begat your respect. He looked hard at Walter as the latter approached, and still more hard at the Corporal. He seemed satisfied with the survey. “Sir,” said he, slightly touching his hat to Walter, and with an agreeable though rather sharp intonation of voice, “I am very glad to see a gentleman of your appearance travelling my road. Might I request the honour of being allowed to join you so far as you go? To say the truth, I am a little afraid of encountering those industrious gentlemen who have been lately somewhat notorious in these parts; and it may be better for all of us to ride in as strong a party as possible.” “Sir,” replied Walter, eyeing in his turn the speaker, and in his turn also feeling satisfied with the scrutiny, “I am going to--, where I shall pass the night on my way to town; and shall be very happy in your company.” The Corporal uttered a loud hem; that penetrating man of the world was not too well pleased with the advances of a stranger. “What fools them boys be!” thought he, very discontentedly; “howsomever, the man does seem like a decent country gentleman, and we are two to one: besides, he’s old, little, and--augh, baugh--I dare say, we are safe enough, for all he can do.” The Stranger possessed a polished and well-bred demeanour; he talked freely and copiously, and his conversation was that of a shrewd and cultivated man. He informed Walter that, not only the roads had been infested by those more daring riders common at that day, and to whose merits we ourselves have endeavoured to do justice in a former work of blessed memory, but that several houses had been lately attempted, and two absolutely plundered. “For myself,” he added, “I have no money, to signify, about my person: my watch is only valuable to me for the time it has been in my possession; and if the rogues robbed one civilly, I should not so much mind encountering them; but they are a desperate set, and use violence when there is nothing to be got by it. Have you travelled far to-day, Sir?” “Some six or seven-and-twenty miles,” replied Walter. “I am proceeding to London, and not willing to distress my horses by too rapid a journey.” “Very right, very good; and horses, Sir, are not now what they used to be when I was a young man. Ah, what wagers I used to win then! Horses galloped, Sir, when I was twenty; they trotted when I was thirty-five; but they only amble now. Sir, if it does not tax your patience too severely, let us give our nags some hay and water at the half-way house yonder.”