Dick Cludde was still at
college, though I never heard that he did any good there, and in
the vacations he and Cyrus consorted much together, and became in
fact the ringleaders of a wild set whose doings were a scandal in
Shrewsbury for many a day. Cludde, it seemed, had made a jaunt to
London with other young bloods at the end of the term in the
December of this year 1694, to see the great pageant of Queen
Mary's funeral.

The adventure did him no good, for when he returned to Shrewsbury
he formed, with Vetch and others of his kidney, a gang in imitation
of the Mohocks, as they were called--the band of dissolute young
ruffians who then infested London, wrenching off knockers,
molesting women in the streets, pinking sober citizens, and
tumbling the old watchmen into the gutters. Our streets at night
became the scene of riotous exploits of this kind, and our watch,
being old and feeble men, were quite unable to cope with the
rioters, so that decent folk began to be afraid to stir abroad
after dark. Though they disguised themselves for these forays, it
was shrewdly suspected who they were; but they escaped actual
detection, and indeed, they were held in such terror by the
townsfolk that no one durst move against them openly, for fear of
what might come of it.

Things grew to such a height that one Saturday the mayor, with half
a dozen aldermen, walked out to the little cottage on the Wem Road,
and besought Captain Galsworthy's aid. The captain and I chanced to
be in the thick of an encounter with the foils, and neither of us
heard the rap on the door which announced the visitors. A gust of
air when the door was opened apprised us that we had onlookers at
our sport; but the captain's eyes never left mine until with a
dexterous turn of the wrist, which I had long envied and sought in
vain to copy, he sent my foil flying to the end of the room.

"Capital, capital!" cried he, removing his mask and wiping his
heated brow.

"Good morning, Mr. Mayor," he added; "we have kept you waiting, I
fear; but we were just approaching the critical moment: the issue
was doubtful, and there is little satisfaction in a drawn battle.

"Your looks are portentous, gentlemen: is this a visit of state,
may I ask?"

Whereupon the mayor, an honest little draper, made a speech which I
am sure he had diligently conned over beforehand. He passed from a
recital of the woes under which Shrewsbury suffered to a most
flattering eulogium of the c