durance. His vigor was her heritage. Her dam, who
upon the velvet sod was of almost unapproachable swiftness, and who had
often brought her owner golden assurances of her worth, could scarce
have kept pace with her, and would have sunk under a third of her
fatigue. But Bess was a paragon. We ne'er shall look upon her like
again, unless we can prevail upon some Bedouin chief to present us with
a brood mare, and then the racing world shall see what a breed we will
introduce into this country. Eclipse, Childers, or Hambletonian, shall
be nothing to our colts, and even the railroad slow travelling, compared
with the speed of our new nags!

But to return to Bess, or rather to go along with her, for there is no
halting now; we are going at the rate of twenty knots an hour--sailing
before the wind; and the reader must either keep pace with us, or drop
astern. Bess is now in her speed, and Dick happy. Happy! he is
enraptured--maddened--furious--intoxicated as with wine. Pshaw! wine
could never throw him into such a burning delirium. Its choicest juices
have no inspiration like this. Its fumes are slow and heady. This is
ethereal, transporting. His blood spins through his veins; winds round
his heart; mounts to his brain. Away! away! He is wild with joy. Hall,
cot, tree, tower, glade, mead, waste, or woodland, are seen, passed,
left behind, and vanish as in a dream. Motion is scarcely
perceptible--it is impetus! volition! The horse and her rider are driven
forward, as it were, by self-accelerated speed. A hamlet is visible in
the moonlight. It is scarcely discovered ere the flints sparkle beneath
the mare's hoofs. A moment's clatter upon the stones, and it is left
behind. Again it is the silent, smiling country. Now they are buried in
the darkness of woods; now sweeping along on the wide plain; now
clearing the unopened toll-bar; now trampling over the hollow-sounding
bridge, their shadows momently reflected in the placid mirror of the
stream; now scaling the hill-side a thought more slowly; now plunging,
as the horses of Ph[oe]bus into the ocean, down its precipitous sides.

The limits of two shires are already past. They are within the confines
of a third. They have entered the merry county of Huntingdon; they have
surmounted the gentle hill that slips into Godmanchester. They are by
the banks of the rapid Ouse. The bridge is past; and as Turpin rode
through the deserted streets of Huntingdon, he heard the eleventh hour
given