"By no means," returned the stranger, "there are few families of any fashion in this country, who have not, at some period or other, been favoured with a call; and I myself was once honoured by his company at supper."
I stared at the man; but he bore my scrutiny without flinching.
"Had you a party to meet his Satanic Majesty?" I inquired, with a smile.
"Not a soul," replied he. "We supped tête-à-tête; and a pleasanter fellow never stretched his legs beneath a man's mahogany."
"You certainly have excited my curiosity not a little," said I.
"If I have," returned the fox-headed stranger, "I shall most willingly give you a full account of our interview.
"It was the first Friday after the winter fair of Boyle. I was returning home in bad spirits; for, though I sold my bullocks well, I had been regularly cleaned out at loo, and hit uncommonly hard in a handicap. For three nights I scarcely won a pool, and that was bad enough; but to lose the best weight-carrier that was ever lapped in leather, for a paltry ten-pound note, and a daisy-cutter with a fired leg and feathered eye, would make a saint swear, and a Quaker kick his mother.
"Night had closed in, as I passed the cross-roads of Kilmactigue, about two miles from home; and I pulled up into a walk, to bring my bad bargain cool to the stable. Just then I heard a horse behind me, coming on in a slapping trot; and, before you could say Jack Robinson, a strange horseman was beside me.
"'Morra,[60] Mistre Dixon,' says he.
"'Morra to ye, sir,' says I, turning sharp about to see if I could know him. He looked in the dim light a 'top-sawyer,' and, as far as I could judge, the best-mounted man I had met for a month of Sundays. He appeared to be dressed in black; his horse was the same colour as his coat, and I began to tax my memory, hard, to recollect the place where he and I had met before.