"And why not, Mr. Trask? Once upon a time you killed me."
He turned his grey horse impatiently. "I whipped ye," was his parting shot. "If 'twarn't too late, I'd take pleasure to whip ye again!"
Chapter IV.
THE BRIDEGROOM.
Mr. Trask had not concluded the bargain for his winter fodder. Just a week later he rode over from Port Nassau, to clinch it, and had almost reached the foot of the descent to the river meadows when a better mounted rider overtook him.
"Ah!" said the stranger, checking his horse's stride as he passed.
"Good-morning, Mr. Trask! But possibly you do not remember me?"
"I remember you perfectly," answered Mr. Trask. "You are Sir Oliver
Vyell."
"Whom, once on a time, you sentenced to the stocks. You recall our last conversation? Well, I bear you no malice; and, to prove it, will ask leave to ride to the ferry with you. You will oblige me? I like companionship, and my one fellow-traveller—a poor horseman—I have left some way behind on the road."
"I have no wish to ride with you, Sir Oliver," said Mr. Trask stiffly. "Forbye that I consider ye a son of Belial, I have a particular quarrel with you. At the time you condescend to mention, I took it upon me to give you some honest advice—not wholly for your own sake. You flouted it, and 'that's nothing to me' you'll say; but every step we take worsens that very sin against which I warned ye, and therefore I want none of your company."
"Honest Mr. Trask," Sir Oliver answered with a laugh. "I put it to you that, having fallen in together thus agreeably, we shall make ourselves but a pair of fools if one rides ahead of the other in dudgeon. Add to this that the ferry-man, spying us, will wait to tide us over together; and add also, if you will, that I have the better mount and it lies in my will that you shall neither lag behind nor outstrip me. Moreover, you are mistaken."