Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/28

20 person, at some place of hospitable reception; nor, indeed, was it till he was within a stage of Reading, and the twilight had entirely closed in, that he troubled his head much on the matter. But while the horses were putting to, he summoned the postboys to him, and, after regarding their countenances with the eye of a man accustomed to read physiognomies, he thus eloquently addressed them:—

"Gentlemen,—I am informed that there is some danger of being robbed between this town and Salthill. Now, I beg to inform you, that I think it next to impossible for four horses properly directed, to be stopped by less than four men. To that number I shall probably yield; to a less number I shall most assuredly give nothing but bullets.—You understand me?"

The postboys grinned, touched their hats, and Mauleverer slowly continued—

"If, therefore,—mark me,—one, two, or three men stop your horses, and I find that the use of your whips and spurs are ineffectual in releasing the animals from the hold of the robbers, I intend with these pistols—you observe them—to