“Now, sirrah,” says I, “you will ride before me into Shrewsbury, to which you have been overlong a stranger.”

“I will not,” he cries, with a scream of rage. “’Who are you to order my goings?”

“No matter as to that:  we will see where the right lies when we get to the town.  And since I have no wish to cheat the hangman, I will tie my kerchief round your arm.”

He raged and swore at me as I made the bandage, but was helpless, and soon I had him riding at a foot pace in front of me, he knowing very well that he could not escape, wounded as he was, without risk of being thrown from his horse.

I had a comfortable sense of satisfaction as I rode behind him, my eyes fixed on his back.  He had much to answer for, and any one of his crimes would send him to the plantations.  Then I remembered that he was Lawyer Vetch’s nephew, and thought of the good old man’s grief when he should see his flesh and blood in the felon’s dock.  And the idea came to me that by merely holding over him the threat of punishment for his undoubted villainies we might draw from him a confession of what we only suspected—­his theft of my father’s will.  I did not reflect for the moment that Mr. Allardyce would have something to say in that matter, and already saw myself reinstated in my father’s property (though I meant to cleave to my new profession), when suddenly I noticed that Vetch was swaying in the saddle.  Thinking him overcome with faintness from his wound, I cantered up to assist him, but just as I reached him he suddenly pulled his horse across the road, and I saw a pistol in his left hand.  While I was ruminating he had quickly unbuttoned the holsters, which I had stupidly neglected to examine.

Immediately I wrenched my horse aside.  The sudden pull caused it to rear, and the poor beast received the shot intended for me, and fell to the ground.  I was up in an instant, but Vetch was already galloping madly away, leaving me by the side of Mr. Allardyce’s dying horse.

To pursue the fellow afoot would be but a fool’s errand.  The spot at which this mischance happened being about a mile from Oldbury, my best plan seemed to be to ride thither and hire a horse at the inn and then ride back to the Hall and acquaint Mr. Allardyce with what had befallen me.  This I did, and found my friend much less vexed at the loss of his horse (though ’twas a noble animal) than at the escape of Vetch.  He sent off a man at once to Bridgenorth to ask his lawyer to raise a hue and cry after the fugitive, and promised to take like measures in Shrewsbury.  I spoke of it to the town authorities and to Captain Galsworthy, and since I was leaving on the morrow, he agreed to enlist some of his old pupils in the business, who would ride here and there about the neighborhood and try to track Vetch down.  And thus, having done all I could, I set off next day once more for Bristowe, to take ship for Portsmouth.

Chapter 21:  I Meet Dick Cludde.