The High Toby / Being further chapters in the life and fortunes of Dick Ryder, otherwise Galloping Dick, sometime gentleman of the road

The cover image was restored by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Galloping Dick Captain Fortune Skirts of Happy Chance The Adventurers Twisted Eglantine
BUT, BEING BY THE DOOR, HE SWEPT IT OPEN WITH A MOVEMENT, AND BACKED INTO THE PASSAGE
First Published in 1906
To J. M. BARRIE
My Dear Barrie,—It is all but twenty years since we were first acquainted, for if we live till the spring of 1908, our friendship will have reached its majority. Of those far-off days I cherish, as I believe you do, a grateful memory. How many problems had we to discuss, how many ideals had we to satisfy, and how much ambition had we to fulfil! I think you, at least, have gone far to fulfil all yours, who have written your name indelibly in the literature of our generation. That name I am, after the long lapse of years, prefixing to this book of stories, in the hope that they will interest you, and as a testimony to the enduring quality of our friendship.
Yours always,
H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON.
January 1906


I ever had the name of one that kept to himself, nor was bedfellow to none upon the high toby. 'Tis true enough that I have mixed in one or two affairs with others of my kidney, but these were mainly in my heady youth and when I was raw upon the pad, and the issues for the more part were against me. For one, there was that business with Creech about the King's treasure chests, the which came near to hanging of us all through that toad, Timothy Grubbe. Indeed, I have never cared to participate in any act that was not of my own devising, and there was none on the road that I would ha' pinned my faith on—no, not even old Jeremy Starbottle, that was hanged afore my time. For this reason it was that I was used to avoid the Portsmouth Road, which, being so greatly traversed, and so set with wastes and wilds, was pretty much in favour with our gentry. I was often in the West, where my chief quarry lay, or the North Road was that on which I beat; but, Lord! there was no point nor parcel of these shires that knew me not at one time or another, and I warrant I kept the officers all over the country a-jigging. Yet I was once took for an affair near Petersfield, and swore not to touch that road again, but to leave it to the scurvy tiddlers that hold it. I came back, however, once after, and that was upon a late December night, and when the moon was shining and the sky alight and glistening.