"Meaning yourself?"

He nodded carelessly. I did not share his confidence. "He's not a
saddler in any sense," said I. "We keep him for the farms."

"Oh, I say, my friend," he rejoined--"my name's Orme, Gordon Orme--I'm
just stopping here at the inn for a time, and I'm deucedly bored. I've
not had leg over a decent mount since I've been here, and if I might
ride this beggar, I'd be awfully obliged."

My jaw may have dropped at his words; I am not sure. It was not that he
called our little tavern an "inn." It was the name he gave me which
caused me to start.

"Orme," said I, "Mr. Gordon Orme? That was the name of the speaker the
other evening here at the church of the Methodists."

He nodded, smiling. "Don't let that trouble you," said he.

None the less it did trouble me; for the truth was that word had gone
about to the effect that a new minister from some place not stated had
spoken from the pulpit on that evening upon no less a topic than the
ever present one of Southern slavery. Now, I could not clear it to my
mind how a minister of the gospel might take so keen and swift an
interest in a stranger in the street, and that stranger's horse. I
expressed to him something of my surprise.

"It's of no importance," said he again. "What seems to me of most
importance just at present is that here's a son of old Klingwalla, and
that I want to ride him."