Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/250

 moved, but then, with another gentle laugh to himself, he pulled round his mare, and backed into the moonlight, where he remained, regarding me with a catching smile. He was a man of good presence, somewhere about fifty, as I conjectured, with a big nether lip, and a swarthy face, harsh-featured, yet moulded in good humour. I liked the fancy of him, and seeing that I was in a merry mood myself, was for hob-a-nobbing with him at once, an’ he would. But ere I could speak he interposed on my observation of him.

“I trust,” says he demurely, “that you will keep me no longer under old Oliver’s scrutiny than may serve your need, for, to say the truth, I hold something of a traditional antipathy to the name.”

“Zooks!” I said laughing, “and so do I—a scurvy, ranting Anabaptist—a coystril as knew nothing of good liquor and good women.”

“You express the feelings of my family to daintiness,” he returned with his smile, “and I would that my poor father were alive to hear you.”

“You speak well,” says I, “and there’s many