How comes it that a stripling like you are out alone in this lone place?
Is it a hardy courage or stern necessity ?" "I know not that it is one or the other," answered Cuthbert.

"But I have not far to go this night, and I have not much to lose, though as that little is my all I shall make a fight ere I part with it.
But by what I hear there is little danger of molestation till one reaches Hammerton Heath.

And I propose to halt on the edge of that place, and sleep at the hostelry there." "If you follow my counsel, my young friend," said the stranger as he paced along beside Cuthbert, "you will not adventure yourself in that den of thieves.

Not long ago it was a safe place for a traveller, but now it is more perilous to enter those doors than to spend the darkest night upon the road.

The new landlord is in league with the worst of the rogues and foot pads who frequent the heath, and no traveller who dares to ask a night's shelter there is allowed to depart without suffering injury either in person or pocket.