His jovial face, twinkling, for all the cold, with perspiration, seemed to belie his assertion. It was broad, and flat of surface, with the features in low relief; and its mouth was so wide that, when distended in a smile, all above appeared detachable, like the lid of a comic tobacco-jar. By the tokens of his greasy jasey, with the little soiled round hat on top, and the clerical cut of his coat, he might have been a damaged parson, who had taken the wrong turning and missed his way to paradise.
The other conned him speculatively.
“What made you ride on the grass?” said he.
“Why, I feared to alarm ye,” answered the newcomer, “and so miss the chance of a way-fellow.”
“Gad-so!” exclaimed the traveller. “And whither, by your leave, may your road lead you over this same wicked heath?”
“Sir,” said the stranger, “if the question is scarce pertinent, the candour of my cloth responds. I am riding to seek preferment of the Queen’s own Majesty at Windsor. Is the confidence to be reciprocal?”
“I am escaping from my creditors,” said the small man. “Shall I turn out my pockets, that you may witness to their emptiness?”
The stranger endeavoured to look grave.
“This suspicion,” he said, “is unworthy.”
“Of whom?”