me, or should know at
least. But, if you know not the young fellow himself you should
certainly not be at a loss to know the creature he rides; for it is not
long since your heart was greatly taken with him. He is the youth we set
upon at the Catcheta pass, where your backwardness and my forwardness
got me this badge--it has not yet ceased to bleed--the marks of which
promise fairly to last me to my grave."

As he spoke he raised the handkerchief which bound his cheeks, and
exposed to view a deep gash, not of a serious character indeed, but
which, as the speaker asserted, would most probably result in a mark
which would last him his life. The exposure of the face confirms the
first and unfavorable impression which we have already received from his
appearance, and all that we have any occasion now to add in this respect
will be simply, that, though not beyond the prime of life, there were
ages of guilt, of vexed and vexatious strife, unregulated pride, without
aim or elevation, a lurking malignity, and hopeless discontent--all
embodied in the fiendish and fierce expression which that single glimpse
developed to the spectator. He went on--

"Had it been your lot to be in my place, I should not now have to tell
you who he is; nor should we have had any apprehensions of his crossing
our path again. But so it is. You are always the last to your
place;--had you kept your appointment, we should have had no difficulty,
and I should have escaped the mortification of being foiled by a mere
stripling, and almost stricken to death by the heel of his horse."

"And all your own fault and folly, Guy. What business had you to advance
upon the fellow, as you did, before everything was ready, and when we
could have brought him, without any risk whatever; into the snare, from
which nothing could have got him out? But no! You must be at your old
tricks of the law--you must make speeches before you cut purses, as was
your practice when I first knew you at Gwinnett county-court; a practice
which you seem not able to get over. You have got into such a trick of
making fun of people, that, for the life of me, I can't be sorry that
the lad has turned the tables so handsomely upon you."

"You would no doubt have enjoyed the scene with far more satisfaction,
had the fellow's shot taken its full effect on my skull--since, besides
the failure of our object, you have such cause of merriment in what has
been done. If I did go something too much ahe