"What do you mean, Sherry?"

"Wind yourself about and look down the road behind."

"Well, I see nothing—stay, there's a horseman just topping the hill, a good mile behind us: what of that?"

"Why, 'tis like this. He always is a mile behind: that's where 'tis. I seed him afore we come to Basingstoke; but he didn't come to the inn to eat his vittles, not he. I seed him again when we was a mile this side o' Basingstoke; what had he been doen, then, while we eat and drank? We stop, he falls behind; when we trot, he trots; 'tis as if he were a bob at th' end of a line, never nearer never vurther."

"You think we are being followed?"

"That's what I do think, sure enough."

"A highwayman?"

"Mebbe, mebbe not; most like not, for 'tis not dark enough, and he's always in sight."

"Perhaps he thinks he can't be seen."

"Not reckonen on the height of the coach roof? But I seed him, I did, two hours an' more agoo."