e had no chance
against a steady practised Swordsman and Forest Blood, as Captain Night
was. We all thought he would make short work of the Soldier-officer. He
had him in a corner, and the Chaplain, a-top of whom was a Grenadier
trying to throttle or capture him, or both, exclaims, "Give him the
grace-blow, my dear; give it him under the fifth rib!" when Captain
Night cries, "Go home to your mother, Milksop!" and he catches his own
sword by the hilt, hits his Enemy a blow on the right wrist enough to
numb it for a month, twists his fingers in his cravat, flings him on one
side, and right into the middle of a punch-bowl, and then, upon my word,
he himself jumps out of Window, shouting out, "Follow me, little Jack
Dangerous!"

I wished for nothing better, and had already my leg on the sill, when
two great hulking Grenadiers seized hold of me. 'Twas then, for the
first time, that I earned a just claim and title to the name of
Dangerous; for a little dirk I was armed with being wrested from me by
Soldier number one, who eggs on his comrade to collar the young Fox-cub,
as he calls me, I seize a heavy Stone Demijohn fall of brandy, and smash
it goes on the head of Soldier number two. He falls with a dismal groan,
the blood and brandy running in equal measure from his head, and the
first Soldier runs his bayonet through me.

Luckily, 'twas but a flesh-wound in the flank, and no vital part was
touched. It was enough for me, however, poor Urchin,--enough to make me
tumble down in a dead faint; and when I came to myself, I found that I
had been removed to the bar-room down-stairs, where I made one of
nineteen Blacks, all prisoners to the King for stealing his Deer, and
all bound hand and foot with Ropes.

"Never mind their hurting your wrists, young Hempseed," chuckled one of
the scaldpated constable rogues who was guarding us. "You'll have enough
to tighten your gullet after 'Sizes, as sure as eggs is eggs."

"Nay, brother Grimstock, the elf's too young to be hanged," puts in
another constable, with somewhat of a charitable visage.

"Too young!" echoes he addressed as Grimstock. "'Twas bred in the bone
in him, the varmint, and the Gallows Fever will come out in the flesh.
Too young! he was weaned on rue, and rode between his Father's legs
(that swung) i' the cart to Tyburn, and never sailed a cockboat but in
Execution Dock. My tobacco-box to a tester an' he dance not on nothing
if he comes to holding up his hand before Judg