"Life, your ladyship," says I, very sententious, "is full of reverses, best forgot; and the most excellent intentions are fraught with the most woeful issues."
"Oh!" she broke in coldly, "if you are come to recount your failure, your time is ill spent. In truth, I had not remembered your face till this good gentleman spoke, and I had never a thought for your errand."
But if I was in any doubt about my business, it was that ungracious speech disposed of it; and, saying no more, I drew the casket from my pocket, and, bowing low to the saddle with a great air of ceremony, passed it to her.
"If I am remembered in your ladyship's sneers," I says, "I beg it shall be along of those young gentlemen of blood you talk of." But here I glanced along the road, and there was the noise of hoofs coming over the hill. "And I pray," said I, turning again to her, "that you will now, as always, accept the accidents of fortune with better submission."
I saw that the fat merchant had been eager to speak for some time, and now he jumped up and opened his mouth wide. But I laughed, and, sweeping my hat to the saddle, pulled off the mare and left 'em, with the lady staring in an amaze at the casket on her knee.
"Drive on," says I to the coachman; and, slapping the leaders with the flat of my sword as I passed, I spurred Calypso across their noses and out upon the furze-grown common. As I did so, there was Creech and Blake clattering up on their blown nags. Crack goes the coachman's whip, and the horses plunged forward; but by that I was out of sight behind a clump of trees upon the heath, where, pausing, I looked back. The noise of a great commotion reached me; and there, as I guessed, stood Creech with t'others about the coach. I reckon that the passengers would have short shrift with that angry party. I watched 'em for a while, with my sides a-shaking for laughter, and then put the nag to a trot across the common. Dan, I vow, must have been astonished. But 'twas a pretty even division after all; for I kept the goldfinches and Creech resumed his jewels, whereas Hoity-toity had the privilege to take a lesson in manners.