him into the snare, and pushed gayly on through Dorchester, Quincy, and Weymouth, reaching Hingham in good time for supper at the hospitable parsonage, where the aged widow of Peter Hobart received his mother's message with that pathetic gratitude for remembrance one finds sometimes in very old persons.
The next morning, soon after breakfast, Cheeseboro was again in the saddle, and passing through Scituate and Marshfield reached the confines of Duxbury just about as the sun told him that it was nearing midday.
"They'll have eaten dinner at Master Alden's, and I shall put them about if I go there fasting," muttered he, drawing rein at the top of a long, sandy hill, and looking about him in search of some house where he might apply for a dinner to be duly paid for.
No house was in sight, but as he gazed behind him another horseman suddenly appeared, rapidly riding along the road he had just covered.
"Mayhap he'll know," murmured Samuel; and turning Lightfoot across the road he saluted the stranger on his approach with, "Good-morrow, friend! Can you tell me of e'er a house nigh hand where a man might find a crust and a cup?"
"Oh, ay surely why not why not ride with me so far as my brother's, just past that little wood? They'll be gay and glad to give you all you want," stammered the stranger, who was in fact none other than he who had accompanied our hero
