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Updated: May 8, 2025
And being then of the age when romantic ideas get some hold upon a boy's mind, I flattered myself also that by staying on at the Hall I became in some sort a defender of fair Lucy Cludde, who was far too good, I vowed, for that pudding-headed lubber Dick. After this Roger and I became faster friends than ever.
And when in answer to this I told her what Joe Punchard had done to Cyrus Vetch, and the terrible things I had heard the alderman threaten against him, she laughed and said I was too tender hearted for a boy, and Joe Punchard would be none the worse for a basting, and a deal more to the same tune, which almost broke through my determination to say nothing of what had caused the mischief; for, after all, Dick Cludde and Cyrus Vetch were my schoolfellows, and, in my day; for one boy to tell on another was the unpardonable sin.
The dog had doubtless accompanied his mistress on her morning ride; he could only have been wounded in defending her; she must have been waylaid, and, thought linking itself with thought, I guessed that Sir Richard Cludde had taken this means of asserting his claim to her guardianship, and the man I had seen in the coppice a few days before was an emissary of his.
Bidding Punchard and the negroes ride on, I flung myself from the back of my sweating steed, ran into the wood, and soon returned with the saddle horses. Within three minutes of our halt Cludde and I were galloping on, at a pace which soon outstripped our more heavily mounted companions.
He roared himself purple, threatening me with imprisonment for contempt of court and what not, but I laughed in his face, and told him that Lucy was a Cludde already, and would change her name for a better one when the time came. That hit him on the raw, Humphrey my boy; he went away fuming, and I don't think he will drive over to see me again."
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.
The veranda being clear of the enemy, the half-battered door was thrown open, and to my amazement Dick Cludde came towards me with Mr. McTavish, three overseers, Uncle Moses, and Noah, all with smoking muskets in their hands.
"Fresh, with a wholesome sting," I replied, and then, giving me a friendly nod, he went on to his bath. Here was strange news, I thought, as I returned to the house. I could have no doubt that the obnoxious visitors were Dick Cludde and his friends: for it was hardly possible that three other king's officers should have ridden out of Shrewsbury in this direction on the same day.
At the end of that year they were both taken from school, Cludde going to Cambridge, and Vetch to assist his father, who was a grain merchant in a substantial way, as all Shrewsbury supposed. It would be a tedious matter were I to tell all the little happenings of the next few years.
Keeping in shadow, we saw that she lay some little way out in a narrow bay overhung by cliffs, the seaward end appearing closed, owing to a bend in the shore. The tide was fast coming in; the wind, which at the foot of the cliffs had seemed but a light breeze, was blowing strong at our altitude. "Cludde," I said, "I am going to cut the cables."
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