Do you really think I am mad ?" "I may say as how I have looked your honour in the mouth; and a sorry dog should I be, if I did not know your humours as well as I know e'er a beast in the steable at Greavesbury Hall." "Since you are so well acquainted with my madness," said the knight, "what opinion have you of yourself, who serve and follow a lunatic ?" "I hope I han't served your honour for nothing, but I shall inherit some of your cast vagaries--when your honour is pleased to be mad, I should be very sorry to be found right in my senses.

Timothy Crabshaw will never eat the bread of unthankfulness--it shall never be said of him, that he was wiser than his measter.

As for the matter of following a madman, we may see your honour's face is made of a fiddle; every one that looks on you, loves you." This compliment the knight returned, by saying, "If my face is a fiddle, Crabshaw, your tongue is a fiddlestick that plays upon it--yet your music is very disagreeable--you don't keep time." "Nor you neither, measter," cried Timothy, "or we shouldn't be here wandering about under a cloud of night, like sheep-stealers, or evil spirits with troubled consciences." Here the discourse was interrupted by a sudden disaster; in consequence of which, the squire uttered an inarticulate roar, that startled the knight himself, who was very little subject to the sensation of fear.
But his surprise was changed into vexation, when he perceived Gilbert without a rider passing by, and kicking his heels with great agility.

He forthwith turned his steed, and riding back a few paces, found Crabshaw rising from the ground.

When he asked what was become of his horse, he answered in a whimpering tone, "Horse! would I could once see him fairly carrion for the hounds--for my part, I believe as how 't is no horse, but a devil incarnate; and yet I've been worse mounted, that I have--I'd like to have rid a horse that was foaled of an acorn." This accident happened in a hollow way, overshadowed with trees, one of which the storm had blown down, so that it lay over the road, and one of its boughs projecting horizontally, encountered the squire as he trotted along in the dark.