"Quite true."
"An' what," gleefully nodded Sheppard, "what's your notions over Flatfoot?"
"Oh! safe to win."
"The king's own horse, an't he?"
The traveller nodded.
"Maybe as you've a score on her yourself?" said Sheppard with a knowing wink.
"Rather a heavy one. Yes," replied the traveller, suppressing a faint sigh.
"Well, well," consolingly said Sheppard. "An' you'll make a potful, depend upon't. Trust Old Rowley for tellin' good horseflesh from carrion."
"Ay. As he's able to tell honest subjects from crop-eared knaves," laughed the stranger, drawing close up to the table, and pouring out a bumper of ruby red wine from the tall silver-lipped flagon which Mistress Sheppard had just brought in, and placed at his elbow. "Shall we drink his health, friend?" he added, brimming another glass, and pushing it toward Sheppard.
A more agonizing expression than the one breaking on Sheppard's face at this challenge, it would be impossible to conceive. Half-way his trembling fingers carried the goblet to his lips that quivered with strange contortions; then as his oblique stolen glances crossed those of the silent smoker, uplifted towards the shadows cast by the ivy half covering the lattice, his cheeks turned white as his apron, and he set down the glass untasted.