The road was, like all the cross-roads of the period, narrow and rugged, and in many parts overgrown with grass, or traversed by deep ruts, that rendered any kind of progress a matter of labour and difficulty. It was bounded on either side by the fence of the neighbouring fields--the common quickset, or field-hedge, which now had attained its full growth, and displayed all the luxuriance of maturity. Behind the hedge ran a row of elms, in irregular rank, and at no certain or fixed intervals, the boughs of which overhung the road, and frequently met about its centre. Indeed, the road was not unlike the avenue to a gentleman’s house, only that its extreme ruggedness, joined to the fence of quickset aforementioned, and its occasional patches of vegetation, somewhat impaired the similarity, and were features that such a locality could not be expected to exhibit. At length our horseman came to an angle in the road, about a quarter of a mile from the highway, which, turning sharply round, opened to view a scene that inspired him with the deepest interest. A few yards in his front stood one of the heavy carriages of the period, with its broad side-doors forced open, and its four horses brought to an abrupt halt. On the ground, at the side of the road, bleeding profusely from a cut on the forehead, lay a groaning postilion, who appeared to be on the eve of a longer journey than he had probably looked for. The corpse of another man-servant was stretched on the opposite side of the road, and his unsheathed rapier showed that, like the postilion, he had fallen unresisting. Startling as these particulars were, they hardly obtained from our horseman, after he had quite turned the angle, the ordinary notice of a glance. A group of five persons on the left of the arrested carriage immediately engaged his whole attention. Two of these were, to judge from their appearance, cavaliers of the road, or, in other words, highwaymen, and had probably just dismounted from two stout steeds hard by, which were quietly cropping the grass, or waste land, at the side of the road. A third was an elderly personage--perhaps (for his appearance bespoke him a man of rank) the proprietor of the adjacent carriage--who was combating the taller of these ruffians with his rapier. In this contest he was assisted by another person, apparently one of his domestics; but they were but indifferent swordsmen, and were hardly able to defend themselves, much less act offensively, against the experienced arm of the robber. This seemed to be clear to the accomplice of the latter; for, instead of affording him any succour, he was entirely engaged with the fifth, and, in the eyes of our horseman, most interesting person of the party--a young and beautiful female. His superior strength had already rendered her almost powerless, when he thrust his hand under the collar of her bodice, in search of some trinket, or, perhaps--for it was out of sight--some more precious valuable, which was suspended