ogether, and I think both dropped--I am
sure I did, but recovered in a minute, with a damaged arm and a
scratch on the temple--it was the last which stunned me--so much for
double-loaded pistols.--My friend was invisible, and I had nothing
for it but to walk to the Spa, bleeding all the way like a calf, and
tell a raw-head-and-bloody-bone story about a footpad, which, but
for my earldom, and my gory locks, no living soul would have
believed.

"Shortly after, when I had been installed in a sick room, I had the
mortification to learn, that my own impatience had brought all this
mischief upon me, at a moment when I had every chance of getting rid
of my friend without trouble, had I but let him go on his own
errand; for it seems he had an appointment that morning with a booby
Baronet, who is said to be a bullet-slitter, and would perhaps have
rid me of Saint Francis without any trouble or risk on my part.
Meantime, his non-appearance at this rendezvous has placed Master
Francis Tyrrel, as he chooses to call himself, in the worst odour
possible with the gentry at the Spring, who have denounced him as a
coward and no gentleman.--What to think of the business myself, I
know not; and I much want your assistance to see what can have
become of this fellow, who, like a spectre of ill omen, has so often
thwarted and baffled my best plans. My own confinement renders me
inactive, though my wound is fast healing. Dead he cannot be; for,
had he been mortally wounded, we should have heard of him somewhere
or other--he could not have vanished from the earth like a bubble of
the elements. Well and sound he cannot be; for, besides that I am
sure I saw him stagger and drop, firing his pistol as he fell, I
know him well enough to swear, that, had he not been severely
wounded, he would have first pestered me with his accursed presence
and assistance, and then walked forward with his usual composure to
settle matters with Sir Bingo Binks. No--no--Saint Francis is none
of those who leave such jobs half finished--it is but doing him
justice to say, he has the devil's courage to back his own
deliberate impertinence. But then, if wounded severely, he must be
still in this neighbourhood, and probably in concealment--this is
what I must discover, and I want your assistance in my enquiries
among the natives.-