Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/248

 be rumpadded there, almost within the precincts of London, and upon a night of stark moonlight, and with a score of people within call, could not have been greatly to his taste. But his fuming served him little, for I relieved him of what he had, which, to say the truth, was not very much. I cared not a doit for that, but the distemper with which he took his predicament, together with my own giddy head, set me in a roar, and there I stood in the road, watching the carriage roll away, with my hands to my hips, cackling out of mere levity.

And with that, quite suddenly, a voice says by my side, “Faith, ’twas a very neat piece of horsemanship; and I’ve no wish to see a better.”

You may guess that I started about sharp enough, and there in the moonlight, but his face obscured in the shadow, was a man astride of a big Flanders mare, coolly contemplating the vanishing coach.

“Who the devil may you be?” says I, very much set aback by this apparition, and fingering my pistol uneasily.