So the foot-pad, apparently amused, fired again, and Twm leapt and laughed as before, exclaiming, “That was another nople pounce, look!” He now ran to the bush, and snatching up his coat, put it on, seemingly as delighted with its perforations as a warrior of his vaunted scars. “Now, one pounce more through my hat, look you, and all will be right!” added he, appealingly.
“Why, as to that!” replied the robber, commencing to break open the parcel with great eagerness, “I have no more pounces, as you call them, to give you.”
“But I have!” thundered our hero, holding a pistol in each hand to the robber’s breast, “return the packet and garnish!” continued he, “or I will pounce your rascal prains apout the road, look you—and that wass not goot for your health, look you, this fine morning.”
The robber was no bad judge of circumstances, so immediately returned the packet. “Garnish!” roared Twm, laughing, and holding the pistols nearer to his head; “I must have a new suit for the one you pounced for me, look you now!” The robber handed him a heavy purse, with a couple of splendid watches, exclaiming “the devil’s luck to you with them!” on which Twm snatched off his false beard, as he laughingly said, “So much for a shallow knave whose length of beard is greater than his brains!” No sooner was the beard removed, than Twm saw a deep scar on his left jaw, which cleared all doubt as to the identity of his antagonist.
“Never was Tom Dorbell so humbugged before!” cried the baffled ruffian, as he tore his hair up by the roots in resentment against Fortune, that allowed such an inauspicious day to dawn on him.
“What! Tom Dorbell, the Gallant Glover?” queried Twm, with amazement. “The same,” growled the knight of the road, “till my luck turned; but now I am nobody.”
“By that blushing witness on your jaw-bone, I perceive we once met before,” quoth Twm, jeeringly; “I think, on the other side of Reading. I think, too, that, in token of friendship, we exchanged horses on that occasion, a Welsh pony for a gallant grey; and, I think, also, but perhaps I am mistaken, that I threw thee a long purse full of something that uncle Timothy gave I to market for him at Reading.”
By the well mimicked simplicity of the latter words, the freebooter knew him at once, and laughing in his turn, vowing that he was now satisfied that he was outdone by no common ’un, “but a d—ned clever fellow, whoever thee bee’st” Quick as the fox who hears the hounds and hunters long before the sound can reach indifferent ears, Tom Dorbell started—gave a hasty farewell, dashed through the hedge, over a field, and was soon out of sight.
The Gallant Glover’s well-trained ears had heard the sound of horses’ feet, and, taking all things into consideration, he had thought it best to decline any fresh interview with travelling humanity until he had recovered his serenity of mind, and was in a position to enforce any demands it might please him to make.
As the approaching horse and rider neared him, Twm perceived the latter to be a wounded man, evidently so much disabled as to be scarcely capable of sitting on his horse. With courteous but hurried accents, the stranger addressed our hero, lifting his hat as he spoke.