She was better than her word; and in a few seconds, attired in strange garments to protect her from the chilly night-air, she was standing beside Lee, assisting him to prepare Stars and Garters for her journey, before the good mare had well got her wits together. As, however, she felt Mistress Sheppard's own plump hands tightening the saddle-girths round her sleek body, she roused up, and uttered a loud neigh of pleasure. "Pretty dear!" murmured Mistress Sheppard. "Hark how eager she is to be upon the road, bless her! 'Tis more, I'll warrant, than some Christians'd care about; bein wakened up out o' their beauty sleep. Sheppard, now, he'd been as growly as a bear with a sore head. Now, then, up with you, Master Lee. Here's your pistols," she added, thrusting a pair into the holsters. "You can tell me the tale when you come back. There's some o't won't be so mighty fresh to me, I'm thinkin'. So off with you, and good luck be your servant." With a hurried wave of the hand Lee clattered out of the stable, and clearing the low garden fence by a bound, horse and rider started "thorough bush, thorough brier," across the fields, till they attained the high-road, winding on by the low open country to the fenny Cambridgeshire wastes, old England's least beautiful part, so lovers of nature say. [Sidenote: The King's highway.] For another class of folks, however, it possessed in those days immense attraction; inasmuch as it formed the highway from London to the town of Newmarket, which Charles the Second had made the most important and fashionable horse-racing place in the kingdom. He was accustomed to visit it some five or six times in the year; establishing his quarters at an old mansion situated in the middle of the High Street, which he had purchased from its owner, the Earl of Ormond, and had caused to be altered and enlarged, to accommodate himself and his retinue. Thither, as may be imagined, like wasps after honey, swarmed all sorts and conditions of men, and of women too; from my lord and my lady in their velvet gowns, to the ragged and jagged beggar, and worse than these, the footpads, and "gentlemen of the road," as it was the fashion to call these thieves on horseback, who infested the great highways all over the country. It need hardly be said that this one and particular half hundred miles of road, stretching between London and Newmarket, was very carefully attended to by these gentry; and Lee, as he cantered on, did not forget to keep one hand near the holsters.