"I sold the bay mare at Smithfield yesterday. I might ha' got more, but the nabs were about; so I wopt her off for ten. Old Snacks, at the Bone here, got his 'centage. I crabbed the old chap as well as I could; but he's up to snuff. You wouldn't ha' known old Peggy again. We blacked her white legs and popt a white face on to her, gave her a rat's tail, filed her teeth, and burnt her mark, and wop me if I mightent ha' sold her for a six-year old, if I hadn't been in a hurry. But she's off, they tell me, to serve in a foreign country. She's a right good un, though an old'n. All's honour bright, Jack! "I say, old boy, we talked o' the brown nag; can ye send him up to Chelmsford? or if to the Dog and Bone, direct to your old chum, "Bob Bush, "Sam Snacks, "Dog and Bone, Lambeth. "To John Cook, "Marquis Cornwallis, "Ipswich, Suffolk." This letter, which was found some days later at the inn, and delivered up to the constable of the parish of St. Margaret's, may serve to show the connexion which this fellow had with a gang of horse-stealers, who, at this time, infested the counties of Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk. The brown nag here mentioned was one which had been turned off in the pastures of St. Margaret's, belonging to John Cobbold, Esq. He was a high-spirited little horse, and aged. The eyes of this rogue had been upon him, and a most diabolical project now entered his brain, of making Margaret Catchpole, whose early feats of riding were not unknown to him, the minister of this theft. "I shall make something out of her now," said the fellow, "if I can only play upon her feelings. How shall I do it?" A thought struck him that he would tear off the half of the letter containing the post-mark, and paste one which he would invent, on that half, and sign it for Will Laud. Margaret knew little or nothing of Will's handwriting, so that she could easily be deceived in this respect; and if she knew that it was not his, the fellow was ready enough to swear that he had hurt his hand by the falling of a spar, and so got a friend to write it for him. He put his wits to work, and concocted an epistle as nearly pertinent to what he had made out Laud's case to be, as he could. He dated it from the same place from whence he received his own, and intended to write to Bob Bush to take the horse off Margaret's hands, if he could get her on to it. He wrote thus:-- "Dog and Bone, Lambeth, May 9th, 1797. "Dear Jack,