Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/43

 I could hear the horses snorting and the heavy carriage creaking, as it strained slowly to the top.

“Ryder,” said the Bishop, after a pause, and looking at me quizzically, “I am like to eat worse dinners than to-night’s, and to meet much poorer entertainment.”

At that moment the heads of the horses came popping over the rise. “Why, as for entertainment,” says I jovially, for the Devil, somehow, took me all in a second, “’tis not all at an end, neither, I can promise you.” For the fancy caught me up of a sudden, and rapt me off in the maddest of whimsies; and as the carriage rolled out into the moonlight I beckoned the Bishop forward and rode up in his company. I was not two minutes over the business. There was the postilion imploring mercy on his knees, the woman shrieking, the gentleman himself swearing a stream of oaths, and my pistol through the window—the whole rare picture in a flash!

“Why, what is this?” stammered the Bishop in amazement. “What—why” And his