"Your obedient humble servant."

With light step and elated crest, the wanderer, thus transformed,
sprang from the wood into the dusty thoroughfare. He had travelled on
for about an hour, meeting but few other passengers, when he heard to
the right a loud shrill young voice, "Help! help! I will not go; I
tell you, I will not!" Just before him stood, by a high five-barred
gate, a pensive gray cob attached to a neat-looking gig. The bridle
was loose on the cob's neck. The animal was evidently accustomed to
stand quietly when ordered to do so, and glad of the opportunity.

The cries, "Help, help!" were renewed, mingled with louder tones in a
rougher voice, tones of wrath and menace. Evidently these sounds did
not come from the cob. Kenelm looked over the gate, and saw a few
yards distant in a grass field a well-dressed boy struggling violently
against a stout middle-aged man who was rudely hauling him along by
the arm.

The chivalry natural to a namesake of the valiant Sir Kenelm Digby was
instantly aroused. He vaulted over the gate, seized the man by the
collar, and exclaimed, "For shame! what are you doing to that poor
boy? let him go!"

"Why the devil do you interfere?" cried the stout man, his eyes
glaring and his lips foaming with rage. "Ah, are you the villain?
yes, no doubt of it. I'll give it to you, jackanapes," and still
grasping the boy with one hand, with the other the stout man darted a
blow at Kenelm, from which nothing less than the practised pugilistic
skill and natural alertness of the youth thus suddenly assaulted could
have saved his eyes and nose. As it was, the stout man had the worst