"If I didn't know every foot of the road here," said John to himself, as he turned down the lane which led to his home, "I'd be a-losing myself in the darkness. I wish I'd done as my mother bade, and taken my father's good oaken stick; one doesn't think, when setting out fresh and hearty in broad daylight, how glad one may be of a staff before the journey is done." John was to have need of that staff in more ways than one. Scarcely had the thought passed through his mind, when he was suddenly startled by a violent blow on the back of his head, which knocked off his cap, and stretched him on the road. Up the young lion sprang in a moment, facing the cowardly assailant who had attacked him from behind, and receiving as he did so, another heavy blow, which made him stagger backwards, while the blood gushed from his wound. John was bold and strong, and not one to be easily mastered in a struggle, but he had been taken by surprise, he was weary, and had no weapon but his own bare fists. In vain John tried to close with his assailant, another blow laid him prostrate again, and the highwayman kicked him with his heavy boot, when attempting again to rise. Lights seemed flashing in the young man's eyes, there was a rushing sound in his ears, he had a confused sense of pain and of a struggle for life, and then all consciousness left him—John Carey lay senseless and bleeding. While Sam Soames, stooping over him, rifled him of the pocket-book, which the ruffian expected to find full of money obtained by cashing the cheque. Soames made off at once with his booty, without attempting to take anything else, or to ascertain whether his victim yet breathed. It was not long before the guilty Soames discovered that he had hazarded soul and body for that of which he could make no use. But had the pocket-book, instead of an unsigned cheque, contained hundreds of bank-notes, worse than worthless had been that which bore on it the stain of blood, and carried with it a curse like that which rested upon Cain, a fugitive and vagabond upon the face of the earth. John Carey lay for some time apparently lifeless, perhaps it was the drizzling rain which awoke him at last; he opened his eyes on the darkness, but was utterly unable to move from the damp ground on which he was lying. He could scarcely collect his senses sufficiently to remember anything that had happened, or to imagine how he came to be stretched there, helpless upon the road.