“Oho!” cried the thief, “you do! But you shall never be evidence against me in this world, you dog!” and so saying, he drew a pistol and fired at the unfortunate shaver, who fell flat on the ground, without a word. He then turned upon Roderick, but the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard, and a party of travellers galloped up, leaving the highwayman barely time to ride off. One of them was the captain who had been robbed the day before. He was not, as may already have been gathered, a valiant man. He turned pale at the sight of Strap. “Gentlemen,” said he, “here’s murder committed; let us alight.” The others were for pursuing the highwayman, and the captain only escaped accompanying them by making his horse rear and snort, and pretending the animal was frightened. Fortunately, Strap “had received no other wound than what his fear had inflicted”; and after having been bled at an inn half a mile away, they were about to resume their journey, when a shouting crowd came down the road, with the highwayman in the midst, riding horseback with his hands tied behind him. He was being escorted to the nearest Justice of the Peace. Halting a while for refreshment, they dismounted Mr. Rifle and mounted guard, a circle of peasants armed with pitchforks round him. When they at length reached the magistrate’s house, they found he was away for the night, and so locked their prisoner in a garret, from which, of course, he escaped. Roderick and Strap were now free from being detained as evidence. For two days they walked on, staying on the second night in a public-house of a very sorry appearance in a small village. At their entrance, the landlord, who seemed a venerable old man, with long grey hair, rose from a table placed by a large fire in a neat paved kitchen, and, with a cheerful countenance, accosted them with the words: “_Salvete_, _pueri_; _ingredimini_.” It was astonishing to hear a rustic landlord talking Latin, but Roderick, concealing his amazement, replied, “_Dissolve frigus_, _ligna super foco large reponens_.” He had no sooner pronounced the words than the innkeeper, running towards him, shook him by the hands, crying, “_Fili mi dilectissime_! _unde venis_?—_a superis_, _ni fallor_.” In short, finding them both read in the classics, he did not know how to testify his regard sufficiently; but ordered his daughter, a jolly, rosy-checked damsel, who was his sole domestic, to bring a bottle of his _quadrimum_; repeating at the same time from Horace, “_Deprome quadrimum Sabinâ_, _O Thaliarche_, _merum diota_.” This was excellent ale of his own brewing, of which he told them he had always an _amphora_, four years old, for the use of himself and friends.