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