"Well," I said,--for as I could trust my agricultural friend with the more practical measures that were likely to follow I thought it only fair that I should do the talking,--"we want first the five-pound note which that young gentleman, whom you have just knocked down, intrusted to your care, and then the fifty pounds you have lost to him." He called Heaven to witness that he had never made a bet in his life with any young gentleman, but that, having been molested, he believed by a footpad, as he was returning home to his family, he had been compelled to defend himself.
"I heard you make the bet and saw you take the money," I remarked, with confidence.
"That's good enough," said the farmer. "Now if you don't shell out that money this instant, I'll have you back in the ring in a brace of shakes and tell them what has happened. Last year they tore a welsher pretty nigh to pieces, and this year, if you don't 'part,' they'll do it quite." The book-maker turned livid,--I never saw a man in such a funk in my life,--and produced a greasy pocket-book, out of which he took Richard's bank-note, and ten quite new ones; and I noticed there were more left, so that poverty was not his excuse for fraud.
"Let me look at 'em against the sun," said the farmer, "to see as the water-mark is all right." This was a precaution I should never have thought of, and it gave me for the first time a sense of the great intelligence of my father's parishioner.
"Yes, they're all correct. And now you may go; but if ever you show your face again on Southick (Southwick) race-course it will be the worst for you." He slunk away, and we returned to Richard, who was sitting on the ground, looking at his nose, which was bleeding and had attained vast dimensions.
"Did you get the money?" were his first words, which I thought very characteristic.
"Yes, there it is, squire--ten fivers and your own note."
