“A likelier spot for us, Father,” said Eustace, punning.  “The old Romans knew what they were about when they put their legions up aloft here to overlook land and sea for miles away; and we may thank them some day for their leavings.  The banks are all sound; there is plenty of good water inside; and” (added he in Latin), “in case our Spanish friends—­you understand?”

“Pauca verba, my son!” said Campian:  but as he spoke, up from the ditch close beside him, as if rising out of the earth, burst through the furze-bushes an armed cavalier.

“Pardon, gentlemen!” shouted he, as the Jesuit and his horse recoiled against the groom.  “Stand, for your lives!”

“Mater caelorum!” moaned Campian; while Parsons, who, as all the world knows, was a blustering bully enough (at least with his tongue), asked:  What a murrain right had he to stop honest folks on the queen’s highway? confirming the same with a mighty oath, which he set down as peccatum veniale, on account of the sudden necessity; nay, indeed fraus pia, as proper to support the character of that valiant gentleman of Wales, Mr. Evan Morgans.  But the horseman, taking no notice of his hint, dashed across the nose of Eustace Leigh’s horse, with a “Hillo, old lad! where ridest so early?” and peering down for a moment into the ruts of the narrow track-way, struck spurs into his horse, shouting, “A fresh slot! right away for Hartland!  Forward, gentlemen all! follow, follow, follow!”

“Who is this roysterer?” asked Parsons, loftily.

“Will Cary, of Clovelly; an awful heretic:  and here come more behind.”

And as he spoke four or five more mounted gallants plunged in and out of the great dikes, and thundered on behind the party; whose horses, quite understanding what game was up, burst into full gallop, neighing and squealing; and in another minute the hapless Jesuits were hurling along over moor and moss after a “hart of grease.”

Parsons, who, though a vulgar bully, was no coward, supported the character of Mr. Evan Morgans well enough; and he would have really enjoyed himself, had he not been in agonies of fear lest those precious saddle-bags in front of him should break from their lashings, and rolling to the earth, expose to the hoofs of heretic horses, perhaps to the gaze of heretic eyes, such a cargo of bulls, dispensations, secret correspondences, seditious tracts, and so forth, that at the very thought of their being seen, his head felt loose upon his shoulders.  But the future martyr behind him, Mr. Morgan Evans, gave himself up at once to abject despair, and as he bumped and rolled along, sought vainly for comfort in professional ejaculations in the Latin tongue.

“Mater intemerata!  Eripe me e—­Ugh!  I am down!  Adhaesit pavimento venter!—­No!  I am not!  El dilectum tuum e potestate canis—­Ah!  Audisti me inter cornua unicornium!  Put this, too, down in—­ugh!—­thy account in favor of my poor—­oh, sharpness of this saddle!  Oh, whither, barbarous islanders!”