"I can't do that," he replied, shaking his head.
"But why not?" said I impatiently.
"Because this is a dangerous road, and I don't intend to be left unarmed on a dangerous road; I never have been and I never will, and there's an end of it, d'ye see!"
"Then do you mean to say that you refuse your aid to a fellow-traveler—that you will sit there and let the rogue get away with all the money I possess in the world—"
"Oh, no; not on no account; just you get up here beside me and we'll drive to 'The White Hart.' I'm well known at 'The White Hart;' we'll get a few honest fellows at our heels and have this thieving, rascally villain in the twinkling of an—" He stopped suddenly, made a frantic clutch at his blunderbuss, and sat staring. Turning short round, I saw the man in the beaver hat standing within a yard of us, fingering his long pistol and with the same twisted smile upon his lips.
"I've a mind," said he, nodding his head at the Bagman, "I've a great mind to blow your face off."
The blunderbuss fell to the roadway, with a clatter.
"Thievin', rascally villain—was it? Damme! I think I will blow your face off."
"No—don't do—that," said the Bagman, in a strange, jerky voice, "what 'ud be—the good?"
"Why, that there poor animal wouldn't have to drag that fat carkiss of yours up and down hills, for one thing."