The contest would not have been so unequal, even then, as it might have seemed, for Henry was a far more powerful man than either of his assailants; but one of the others, who had been engaged with the pedlar, left his companion to hold the wandering merchant down, and hastened to join the affray which was going on a few steps farther forward. It still took the whole of their united efforts to master a man of great natural strength, rendered available in a moment by the habit of robust exercises; but he was at length brought to the ground by a tremendous blow of a stick, and for a moment or two lay unconscious of all that was passing around. When Henry Hayley revived to a sense of what was going on about him, he found his head supported on somebody's knee, and a pair of hands at his throat, busily untying his black handkerchief. Nature has an instinctive abhorrence of being meddled with in places whence the road to the life-blood is short, and especially about the throat; so that Henry's first impulse was to raise himself as well as he could, and thrust away the busy hands. "It's all right," said the voice of the pedlar; "he's coming to. Thank you, James--thank you. If you had not taken it into your head to follow us, the blackguards would have done for us, that's clear enough. I feel the squeeze of that fellow's knee upon my breastbone now. But who is the other man who came with you, and who's gone to look after them?" "It is John Wirling, one of Mr. Graves's men," said a voice which Henry remembered. And then it added, addressing him, "Well sir, how are you getting on now? You have spoiled one of the rogues anyhow, for he ran as if he could hardly get along. I should not wonder if John caught him." "I hope he won't try," said the pedlar, "though they've got my pack; but they'll turn on him, to a certainty. No, no--here he comes." With a giddy and aching head Henry Hayley now raised himself from the ground, and all that had happened after he was stunned was explained to him in a few moments. Seeing some men walking rapidly after the travellers, and knowing that two others had gone on before, the younger of the two tinkers whom he had seen in the sandpit had followed as fast as possible, getting the assistance of a labouring man as he went. They had come up just as the villains were rifling Henry's pockets, and had scared them from their work before it was completed. As the man who took upon himself the task of explanation concluded, Henry suddenly put his hand into his pocket, with an exclamation of alarm. The next moment he withdrew it, saying-- "They have stolen my pocket-book, full of valuable papers. I will give a hundred guineas to any one who recovers it. I would rather that they had taken all I have in the world than that." "That is unlucky indeed, sir," exclaimed the pedlar; "but if it has got nothing but papers in it, perhaps we may get it back."