"I can see you are an out-and-out Yankee lad, Robert. Well, I cannot blame you. I agree that our life at home is good enough for anybody."
Presently Robert started the team again, and they bowled along the edge of the cliff at a rapid gait.
To one side was a mass of rocks and shrubbery, while to the other was a valley or gorge forty or fifty feet deep, at the bottom of which flowed a tiny brook on its way to the River Thames.
The team was a fresh one, and the drive along the river had just warmed them up. They went along at a spanking pace, and Robert had his hands full holding them in. But it was a pleasant task.
"I love a good team," he said, as they sped along. "No old slow-pokes for me."
"You are certain you can control them?" asked Mrs. Vernon, as the horses stepped out livelier than ever.
"Oh, yes, they are all right," he answered.
A quarter of a mile more was covered, when they reached a point where the cliff road wound around a sharp bend.
Mrs. Vernon had just called Robert's attention to a pretty scene in the valley far below, when of a sudden somebody leaped out in the road in front of the horses.
It was a man wrapped in a white sheet and with a pistol in his hand.