Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/138

130 ruddy,)—and who had hitherto been riding close by the post-horses, and talking to the officers on the box, suddenly threw himself from his steed, and in the same instant that he arrested the horses of the chaise, struck the postilion to the ground, with a short heavy bludgeon which he drew from his frock. A whistle was heard and answered, as if by a signal: three fellows armed with bludgeons leapt from the hedge; and in the interim, the pretended farmer, dismounting, flung open the door of the chaise, and seizing Mr. Nabbem by the collar, swung him to the ground with a celerity that became the circular rotundity of the policeman's figure, rather than the deliberate gravity of his dignified office.

Rapid and instantaneous as had been this work, it was not without a check. Although the policemen had not dreamt of a rescue in the very face of the day, and on the high-road, their profession was not that which suffered them easily to be surprised. The two guardians of the dicky leapt nimbly to the ground; but before they had time to use their fire-arms, two of the new aggressors, who had appeared from the hedge, closed upon