er of the inquiry which, with Henry Gow to
back him, he would probably have thought most fitting for the occasion.

The stranger replied to it, modified as it was, with a most inauspicious
grin, which the scars of his visage made appear still more repulsive.
"You want to know my name? My name is the Devil's Dick of Hellgarth,
well known in Annandale for a gentle Johnstone. I follow the stout Laird
of Wamphray, who rides with his kinsman the redoubted Lord of Johnstone,
who is banded with the doughty Earl of Douglas; and the earl and the
lord, and the laird and I, the esquire, fly our hawks where we find our
game, and ask no man whose ground we ride over."

"I will do your message, sir," replied Oliver Proudfute, meekly enough;
for he began to be very desirous to get free of the embassy which he had
so rashly undertaken, and was in the act of turning his horse's head,
when the Annandale man added:

"And take you this to boot, to keep you in mind that you met the Devil's
Dick, and to teach you another time to beware how you spoil the sport of
any one who wears the flying spur on his shoulder."

With these words he applied two or three smart blows of his riding rod
upon the luckless bonnet maker's head and person. Some of them lighted
upon Jezabel, who, turning sharply round, laid her rider upon the moor,
and galloped back towards the party of citizens.

Proudfute, thus overthrown, began to cry for assistance in no very
manly voice, and almost in the same breath to whimper for mercy; for his
antagonist, dismounting almost as soon as he fell, offered a whinger,
or large wood knife, to his throat, while he rifled the pockets of the
unlucky citizen, and even examined his hawking bag, swearing two or
three grisly oaths, that he would have what it contained, since the
wearer had interrupted his sport. He pulled the belt rudely off,
terrifying the prostrate bonnet maker still more by the regardless
violence which he used, as, instead of taking the pains to unbuckle the
strap, he drew till the fastening gave way. But apparently it contained
nothing to his mind. He threw it carelessly from him, and at the
same time suffered the dismounted cavalier to rise, while he himself
remounted his hobbler, and looked towards the rest of Oliver's party,
who were now advancing.

When they had seen their delegate overthrown, there was some laughter;
so much had the vaunting humor of the bonnet maker prepared his friends
to rejoice when, a