You may smile at such ambitions in a youngster; but
can you truly say you have not dreamed such dreams yourself?
'Twas with a full heart I set off in the dusk of evening to ride
back to Shrewsbury. I rode slowly, my mind being filled with
forebodings, and I was only roused from my preoccupation by the
sudden appearance of a horseman at the turning of a byroad leading
from Bridgenorth. He was riding rapidly, and we both reined up at
the same moment to avoid a collision. And at that moment my heart
leapt with furious exultation as, in the fading light, I recognized
my old enemy, and my friends', Cyrus Vetch.
"Hold, you villain!" I cried, pulling my horse against his and
drawing my sword. "I have you now, and you will come into
Shrewsbury with me."
Fear struggled with anger in his face. He was in no mind to show
himself in Shrewsbury, where there was that matter of his uncle's
cash box to answer for, to say nothing of a matter more nearly
concerning me. But he could not pass me, and seeing that there was
no other way out of it he whips out his sword and deals a savage
cut at me. I easily parried the stroke, and not being disposed to
spare him, I ran my own weapon under his guard (he having no skill
in sword play), and through the fleshy part of his right arm, so
that he cried out with the pain, his sword dropping to the ground.
"Now, sirrah," says I, "you will ride before me into Shrewsbury, to
which you have been overlong a stranger.
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