Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/166

 young rogue.” Creech muttered, but let fall his hand, and I pinioned Zacchary with my arms. “By Gad,” I said, “but I’ve a mind to open that ugly sconce of yours. The Bedlamite I was to have bestowed a kindness on a numskull that does not know how to behave before his betters! And this your first job of any account, too!” That seemed to sober him, for he stopped struggling and swearing filthy oaths, and sat sullen in his chair.

When we took the toby, hard upon nine o’clock, the pair were still very surly. But Zacchary’s spirits rose presently, for he was but a raw hand with the temper of a boy, and the prospect of the fight scattered his ill-humour. He said little, but whistled busily, forging ahead of us, as though impatient to be over the hill. Creech too was pretty mute, save now and then for an oath which he spat at his nag when it stumbled in a rabbit-hole. But when he had got to the crest of the hill, and looked down upon the open stretch of land beyond, he pulled in, and says he, with another oath, “There’s a moon out.”