anger
followed his ill-favoured comrade.

"You see we are too strong for them!" cried Sir Peter, gaily; "evidently
highwaymen! How very fortunate that I should have fallen in with you!"

A shower of rain now began to fall. Sir Peter looked serious--he halted
abruptly--unbuckled his cloak, which had been strapped before his
saddle--wrapped himself up in it--buried his face in the collar--muffled
his chin with a red handkerchief, which he took out of his pocket, and
then turning to Walter, he said to him, "What! no cloak, Sir? no wrapper
even? Upon my soul I am very sorry I have not another handkerchief to
lend you!"

"Man of the world--baugh!" grunted the Corporal, and his heart quite
warmed to the stranger he had at first taken for a robber.

"And now, Sir," said Sir Peter, patting his nag, and pulling up his
cloak-collar still higher, "let us go gently; there is no occasion for
hurry. Why distress our horses?--"

"Really, Sir," said Walter, smiling, "though I have a great regard for
my horse, I have some for myself; and I should rather like to be out of
this rain as soon as possible."

"Oh, ah! you have no cloak. I forgot that; to be sure--to be sure, let
us trot on, gently--though--gently. Well, Sir, as I was saying, horses
are not so swift as they were. The breed is bought up by the French! I
remember once, Johnny Courtland and I, after dining at my house, till
the champagne had played the dancing-master to our brains, mounted our
horses, and rode twenty miles for a cool thousand the winner. I lost it,
Sir, by a hair's breadth; but I lost it on purpose; it would have half
ruined Johnny Courtland to have paid me, and he had that delicacy,
Sir,--he had that delicacy, that he would not have suffered me to refuse
taking his money,--so what could I do, but lose on purpose? You see I
had no alternative!"

"Pray, Sir," said Walter, charmed and astonished at so rare an instance
of the generosity of human friendships--"Pray, Sir, did I not hear you
called Sir Peter, by the landlord of the little inn? can it be, since
you speak so familiarly of Mr. Courtland, that I have the honour to
address Sir Peter Hales?"

"Indeed that is my name," replied the gentleman, with some surprise in
his voice. "But I have never had the honour of seeing you before."

"Perhaps my name is not unfamiliar to you," said Walter. "And among my
papers I have a letter addressed to you from my uncle Rowland Lester.

"God bless me!" cried Sir Pe