Passing the door at which I had first seen them, I noticed that where the knocker should have been there was nothing but a few bent nails and a splintered panel.  After former experiences my suspicion scarce needed this confirmation:  without doubt these were our Shrewsbury Mohocks, out for a night’s frolic.  I had never before seen them at their diversions, my patrolling of the streets with Captain Galsworthy having been a mere parade, as I have related, and now I was in no mood to encounter them, having the trouble of my father’s illness on my mind.  But I perceived that they were engaged in wreaking their knavery upon the sign board of Nelly Hind, and my blood waxed hot at the thought of the poor woman’s distress, and my fingers itched to strike a blow on her behalf.

Strong as I was, I knew ’twould be mere folly to attempt single-handed to engage half a dozen, and I was thinking of running quickly to some of the members of the Captain’s disbanded force and enlisting their help when the situation was changed by the arrival of old Ben Ivimey, the feeblest of the ancient watchmen to whom the peace of Shrewsbury was confided.  He was past sixty and stone deaf, and his bent old figure, with a lantern in one hand and a staff in the other, came round the corner all unsuspecting what was in store for him.

The Mohocks, intent upon their mischief, did not observe the coming of the watchman.  He was a little man, but must have been of some mettle in his day, for, perceiving what is afoot, he toddles up in his odd headlong gait, and laying his hand on the arm of one of the roisterers, formally arrests him in the name of the mayor.

The fellow swings round at the touch, and bursts into a roar of laughter.  He was masked, as were all his companions; but I knew him by his make to be Cyrus Vetch.  Well, he laughs, and shakes off the watchman’s feeble grasp, and springing back, draws his sword; and in another instant there was old Ben, the center of the group, skipping this way and that to avoid their sword points, protesting, threatening, appealing, escaping one merely to run upon another.

I will say this for them, that they intended to do him no harm; their lunges were sportive and not in earnest; but diverting as the sport was to them, it was the very contrary to the old man, whose cries proclaimed that he thought his last hour was come.

All this happened in the space of a few moments.  I was unwilling to leave old Ben to the mercy of his tormentors while I ran for assistance, as I was intending; yet it was clear I could do nothing alone.

“John Kynaston,” thinks I, “lives only a couple of hundred yards away:  he and I together might account for the ruffians.”