FOR CHILDREN 199

The youth did ride, and soon did meet
John coming back amain,!

Whom in a trice he tried to stop,
By catching at his rein;

But not performing what he meant,
And gladly would have done ;

The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went postboy at his heels,

The postboy’s horse right glad to miss
The rumbling of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,

With postboy scampering in the rear,
They raised the hue-and-cry :-—*

Stop thief! stop thief!”— a highwayman ‘”
Not one of them was mute ;
And all and each that passed that way
Did join in the pursuit.
And now the turnpike gates again
Flew open in short space ; >
The toll-men thinking as before,
That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did, and won it too,
For he got first to town;

Nor stopped till where he had got up
He did again get down.

1 Amain—with vehemence, vigorously.

2 Hue-and-ery—properly, the term used in law to express
the prrsuit of a thief, or other delinquent.