oving on, when, at the distance of about six yards
before him, he saw a fellow coming straight towards him. Bagg says that
he stopped short, as suddenly as if he had heard the word halt, when
marching at double-quick time. It was quite a surprise, he says, and he
can't imagine how the fellow was so close upon him before he was aware.
He was an immense tall fellow--Bagg thinks at least two inches taller
than himself--very well dressed in a blue coat and buff breeches, for all
the world like a squire when going out hunting. Bagg, however, saw at
once that he had a roguish air, and he was on his guard in a moment.
'Good evening to ye, sodger,' says the fellow, stepping close up to Bagg,
and staring him in the face. 'Good evening to you, sir! I hope you are
well,' says Bagg. 'You are looking after some one?' says the fellow.
'Just so, sir,' says Bagg, and forthwith seized him by the collar; the
man laughed, Bagg says it was such a strange awkward laugh. 'Do you know
whom you have got hold of, sodger?' said he. 'I believe I do, sir,' said
Bagg, 'and in that belief will hold you fast in the name of King George,
and the quarter sessions;' the next moment he was sprawling with his
heels in the air. Bagg says there was nothing remarkable in that; he was
only flung by a kind of wrestling trick, which he could easily have
baffled, had he been aware of it. 'You will not do that again, sir,'
said he, as he got up and put himself on his guard. The fellow laughed
again more strangely and awkwardly than before; then, bending his body
and moving his head from one side to the other as a cat does before she
springs, and crying out, 'Here's for ye, sodger!' he made a dart at Bagg,
rushing in with his head foremost. 'That will do, sir,' says Bagg, and
drawing himself back he put in a left-handed blow with all the force of
his body and arm, just over the fellow's right eye--Bagg is a left-handed
hitter, you must know--and it was a blow of that kind which won him his
famous battle at Edinburgh with the big Highland sergeant. Bagg says
that he was quite satisfied with the blow, more especially when he saw
the fellow reel, fling out his arms, and fall to the ground. 'And now,
sir,' said he, 'I'll make bold to hand you over to the quarter sessions,
and, if there is a hundred pounds for taking you, who has more right to
it than myself?' So he went forward, but ere he could lay hold of his
man the other was again on his legs, and was p