"Bother!" said he, and dropped his pistol, as the other stranger followed his ill-favoured comrade.
"You see we are too strong for them!" cried Sir Peter, gaily; "evidently highwaymen! How very fortunate that I should have fallen in with you!"
A shower of rain now began to fall. Sir Peter looked serious—he halted abruptly—unbuckled his cloak, which had been strapped before his saddle- -wrapped himself up in it—buried his face in the collar—muffled his chin with a red handkerchief, which he took out of his pocket, and then turning to Walter, he said to him, "What! no cloak, Sir? no wrapper even? Upon my soul I am very sorry I have not another handkerchief to lend you!"
"Man of the world—baugh!" grunted the Corporal, and his heart quite warmed to the stranger he had at first taken for a robber.
"And now, Sir," said Sir Peter, patting his nag, and pulling up his cloak-collar still higher, "let us go gently; there is no occasion for hurry. Why distress our horses?—"
"Really, Sir," said Walter, smiling, "though I have a great regard for my horse, I have some for myself; and I should rather like to be out of this rain as soon as possible."
"Oh, ah! you have no cloak. I forgot that; to be sure—to be sure, let us trot on, gently—though—gently. Well, Sir, as I was saying, horses are not so swift as they were. The breed is bought up by the French! I remember once, Johnny Courtland and I, after dining at my house, till the champagne had played the dancing-master to our brains, mounted our horses, and rode twenty miles for a cool thousand the winner. I lost it, Sir, by a hair's breadth; but I lost it on purpose; it would have half ruined Johnny Courtland to have paid me, and he had that delicacy, Sir,— he had that delicacy, that he would not have suffered me to refuse taking his money,—so what could I do, but lose on purpose? You see I had no alternative!"
"Pray, Sir," said Walter, charmed and astonished at so rare an instance of the generosity of human friendships—"Pray, Sir, did I not hear you called Sir Peter, by the landlord of the little inn? can it be, since you speak so familiarly of Mr. Courtland, that I have the honour to address Sir Peter Hales?"
"Indeed that is my name," replied the gentleman, with some surprise in his voice. "But I have never had the honour of seeing you before."
"Perhaps my name is not unfamiliar to you," said Walter. "And among my papers I have a letter addressed to you from my uncle Rowland Lester.