All at once, it occurred to him that the highwayman had not touched his person. There was not only some loose silver in his pockets, but Mark Deane's money-belt was still around his waist. So much, at least, was rescued, and he began to pluck up a little courage. Should he continue his journey to Chester, explain the misfortune to the holder of his mortgage, and give notice to the County Sheriff of this new act of robbery? Then the thought came into his mind that in that case he might be detained a day or two, in order to make depositions, or comply with some unknown legal form. In the mean time the news would spread over the country, no doubt with many exaggerations, and might possibly reach Kennett--even the ears of his mother. That reflection decided his course. She must first hear the truth from his mouth; he would try to give her cheer and encouragement, though he felt none himself; then, calling his friends together, he would hunt Sandy Flash like a wild beast until they had tracked him to his lair. “Unlucky weather for ye, it seems?” remarked the curious landlord, who, seated in a corner of the fireplace, had for full ten minutes been watching Gilbert's knitted brows, gloomy, brooding eyes, and compressed lips. “Weather?” he exclaimed, bitterly. “It's not the weather. Landlord, will you have a chance of sending to Chester to-morrow?” “I'm going, if it clears up,” said one of the drovers. “Then, my friend,” Gilbert continued, “will you take a letter from me to the Sheriff?” “If it's nothing out of the way,” the man replied. “It's in the proper course of law--if there is any law to protect us. Not a mile and a half from here, landlord, I have been waylaid and robbed on the public road!” There was a general exclamation of surprise, and Gilbert's story, which he had suddenly decided to relate, in order that the people of the neighborhood might be put upon their guard, was listened to with an interest only less than the terror which it inspired. The landlady rushed into the bar-room, followed by the red-faced kitchen wench, and both interrupted the recital with cries of “Dear, dear!” and “Lord save us!” The landlord, meanwhile, had prepared another tumbler of hot and hot, and brought it forward, saying,-- “You need it, the Lord knows, and it shall cost you nothing.” “What I most need now,” Gilbert said, “is pen, ink, and paper, to write out my account. Then I suppose you can get me up a cold check, [Footnote: A local term, in use at the time, signifying a “lunch.”] for I must start homewards soon.” “Not 'a cold check' after all that drenching and mishandling!” the landlord exclaimed. “We'll have a hot supper in half an hour, and you shall stay, and welcome. Wife, bring down one of Liddy's pens, the schoolmaster made for her, and put a little vinegar into th' ink-bottle; it's most dried up!”