"Why should he follow the coach, I wonder? He may belong to someone inside."
"Mebbe, mebbe not; 'tis curious anyways."
"Well, the fellow is clearly dogging the coach; if your curiosity troubles you, suppose you slip off a mile before we reach the next post-house and try to get a nearer look at him as he passes? You can catch up the coach while they change horses."
"Ay, I will, sure. We be nigh the river now; over the bridge and we come to Hounslow heath, a fearsome place for highwaymen. We change at the Bull and Gate, then run straight into Lun'on: oh, I know the road."
It was late in the afternoon by the time the coach reached the inn where the last change of the journey was made. Ten minutes before, Sherebiah nimbly slipped down, crept through a gap in the hedge, and waited for the pursuer to appear. Presently he heard the clatter of hoofs; the sound grew louder, but all at once began to diminish. Scrambling back into the road, he was just in time to see the horseman strike off at full speed along a by-road to his left, which led, as Sherebiah knew, to London by a course only a mile or two longer than the main highway. The man must evidently have changed his horse somewhere on the road, and could only have taken the detour in a desire to arrive in London ahead of the coach.
Sherebiah stared long and earnestly at the retreating figure. He frowned and looked puzzled as he set off to overtake the coach. The driver was mounting the box as he came up.
"Well, what do you make of it?" asked Harry.
"He be gone off by a side road," replied Sherebiah.
"So your curiosity is not to be satisfied after all?"
"Well, he rid away hard to the left, wi' his back towards me, an' 'tis growen duskish, an' nowt but a owl could see clear."