see his seemingly sorry jade take a
spring which cleared both hedge and ditch, and then to observe him
cantering along the field at a rate which would have distanced many
horses at a gallop.

"He is a strange person," thought Jack, "but he seems good-natured and
well-intentioned. I cannot make him out, but as to doing what he
advises, I must take time to consider about that."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

ATTACKED BY CATTLE-LIFTERS.

Jack, drawing up by the side of the road, waited till Brinsmead again
overtook him, and then jogged on as before quietly by his side.

"Well, Master Deane, I hope you have not been engaged in any idle
conversation with the varlets you have fallen in with along the road,"
said the old man. "There are some good men and true among them, but not
a few rogues too, depend on that. For my part, I think it's generally
wiser to keep myself to myself, unless one meets a godly man who can
discourse discreetly on spiritual matters."

Jack was afraid that his good old friend was about to commence one of
his long discourses. He therefore, to put a stop to it, and feeling
that it was right to do so, mentioned his encounter with the stranger,
though he was compelled by his promise not to say he had met him before,
or to repeat the main subject of his conversation. He could not help
remarking the contrast between the expression of honest Brinsmead's
countenance, as he jogged along on his steady old grey horse, and that
of Master Pearson: the one free and open, with a kind smile generally
playing over it, and the other strongly marked and coarse, with a
cunning look in the eyes, and a constant tendency to a sneer on the
lips.

"After all, I had better not trust that man," he said to himself. "His
words are seemingly fair, but I don't altogether like him."

Brinsmead and Jack continued along the road for some way, with high
banks and thick-set hedges on either side, till they reached a flat at
the bottom of a dip, extending for a considerable distance, along which
the water lay pretty deep, having long overflowed its proper banks, and
wandered lazily for miles over meadows on either side of the road. Here
they were stopped by a cart greatly overloaded with wood, the two heavy
wheels of one side having sunk deep in the mud. An old man in
smock-frock, and five or six other carters in the same dress were
working hard, apparently to extricate the waggon.

"Why don't the fellows unload the cart?" exclaim