Two other passengers,besides the one,were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheek-bones and over the ears,and wore jack-boots.Not one of the three could have said,from anything he saw,what either of the other two was like;and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind,as from the eyes of the body,of his two companions.In those days,travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice,for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers.As to the latter,when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in'the Captain's'pay,ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable nonde,it was the likeliest thing upon the cards.So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself,that Friday night in November,one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five,lumbering up Shooter's Hill,as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail,beating his feet,and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-->>
