Col. To be thrown from a horse after my experience—
Gray. Oh, the best man may be thrown, and the best horse throw too; but come, you have no bones broken. Had any man but myself, Ned Grayling, shoed your horse, I should have said something had been amiss with his irons—but that couldn’t be.
Col. No matter, I can now make my way homeward: but, hark’ye, not a word about this accident, not a syllable, or I shall never be able to sit in a saddle again, without first hearing a lecture from my wife and Lucy.
Gray. Lucy—aye, master Collins, she has a tender heart I warrant—I could work at my forge all day in the hottest June, so that Lucy would but smile, when—
Col. There must be no more of this. You know I have told you more than a hundred times that Lucy cannot love you.
Gray. How do you know that?
Col. She has said so, and do you suppose she would speak any thing but truth?
Gray. Why, perhaps she would, and perhaps she wouldn’t. I tell you, master Collins, my heart’s set upon the girl—if she refuse me—why I know the end on’t.—Ned Grayling, once the sober and industrious smith, will become an outcast and a vagabond.
Col. This is all folly—a stout able fellow turning whimperer.
Gray. Stout, able,—yes, I was, and might be so again; but thoughts will sometimes come across me, and I feel—I tell you once more, master Collins, my heart is set upon the girl.