-augh!"

"You have not answered my question yet?"

"Beg pardon, your honour. Yes, certain sure the man's the same; phiz not
to be mistaken."

"It is strange," said Walter, musing, "that Aram should know a man, who,
if not a highwayman as we suspected, is at least of rugged manner and
disreputable appearance; it is strange too, that Aram always avoided
recurring to the acquaintance, though he confessed it." With this he
broke into a trot, and the Corporal into an oath.

They arrived by noon, at the little town specified by Sir Peter, and in
their way to the inn (for Walter resolved to rest there), passed by the
saddler's house. It so chanced that Master Holwell was an adept in his
craft, and that a newly-invented hunting-saddle at the window caught
Walter's notice. The artful saddler persuaded the young traveller to
dismount and look at "the most convenientest and handsomest saddle what
ever was seed;" and the Corporal having lost no time in getting rid of
his encumbrance, Walter dismissed him to the inn with the horses, and
after purchasing the saddle, in exchange for his own, he sauntered into
the shop to look at a new snaffle. A gentleman's servant was in the
shop at the time, bargaining for a riding whip; and the shopboy, among
others, shewed him a large old-fashioned one, with a tarnished silver
handle. Grooms have no taste for antiquity, and in spite of the
silverhandle, the servant pushed it aside with some contempt. Some jest
he uttered at the time, chanced to attract Walter's notice to the whip;
he took it up carelessly, and perceived with great surprise that it
bore his own crest, a bittern, on the handle. He examined it now with
attention, and underneath the crest were the letters G. L., his father's
initials.

"How long have you had this whip?" said he to the saddler, concealing
the emotion, which this token of his lost parent naturally excited.

"Oh, a nation long time, Sir," replied Mr. Holwell; "it is a queer old
thing, but really is not amiss, if the silver was scrubbed up a bit,
and a new lash put on; you may have it a bargain, Sir, if so be you have
taken a fancy to it."

"Can you at all recollect how you came by it," said Walter, earnestly;
"the fact is that I see by the crest and initials, that it belonged to a
person whom I have some interest in discovering."

"Why let me see," said the saddler, scratching the tip of his right ear,
"'tis so long ago sin I had it, I quite forgets how I came b