“There he is again,” exclaimed Armitage, wrathfully. “Well, we got down into the drift and soon we heard the horse’s feet, and old Garthorpe came mooning along, concocting some sermon or other for the next day, which was Sunday. The moon had just risen, but was not bright enough to betray our identity. We jumped out of the bush. Johnson collared the bridle, and the other two of us drew up in line across the path. What does the old chap do, but quick as lightning pull out a revolver and poke it into Johnson’s face. He dropped the bridle like a hot potato and skipped into the bush, and then old Garthorpe levels it dead at us. We looked sharp to follow Johnson’s example, and then the old chap rode quietly on, chuckling to himself. Gough swears he heard him say ‘somethinged scoundrels,’ but that may have been part of the sermon he was concocting. Anyhow, he turned the tables on us most completely.”
“Probably the revolver wasn’t loaded,” suggested Claverton.
“Revolver! Sorra a bit. It was a pipe-case. We three skedaddled for our lives before a preaching old humbug at the fag-end of an old pipe-case.”
A roar went up from his auditors at the picture.
“Fact,” repeated Armitage. “Tell you what, though; that thing looked plaguey like a pistol in the moonlight. Besides, it’s just the sort of thing a fellow would bring out, you know, under the circumstances. Old Garthorpe went bragging about it all over the shop, and very soon the joke got wind. But this is all very well. How about our bet, Claverton?”
“Oh, all right, I’ll take you. Two to one in half-crowns there won’t be a cloud in the sky by two o’clock.”
“Done,” said Armitage. “Any one else game?”
But no one was. “We are not going to encourage anything so disreputable as that betting mania of yours,” said Ethel.
“Well, good people,” called out Jim’s jovial tones, as he swung himself out of his dripping mackintosh, and stamped and scraped to rid his boots of the mud before entering, “how about a start this morning? Not much chance of it, is there, unless you are ready to swim for it.”
“Well, we must,” said Naylor; “I must be home to-day. I’m expecting Smith round my way about those slaughter-oxen this afternoon, and if I’m not there, away goes a good bargain.”