172 Cranborne Chase. 



" Something, however, made him hesitate — I don't know what — 

 and he ran forward again, right down through the entrenchment. 



(t I was gaining on him — I felt it — my blood was up, I would 

 have him, and was already within ten yards of him by dint of sheer 

 struggling. A few minutes more and I should have come to close 

 quarters. Suddenly he stopped and faced me, his body motionless, 

 the gun pointed at my head, and his eye looking along the barrel. 



« By said he, and he repeated the oath, if you advance 



another step I will blow your head off. 



" I saw his determined eye, I heard his threat, I knew his piece 

 was on full cock, and his finger on the trigger, and the muzzle 

 pointed towards me, and yet I did not hesitate to advance. I 

 suppose, Sir, that, having run a long way, and being in kind of 

 excited state, I did not think of the danger I ran in bearing down 

 upon him, for I continued to move on with my eyes fixed upon him. 



" Perhaps he feared to fire lest he should be seen. I noticed that 

 he turned his face once in the direction of Thorny Down public- 

 house, which was about two hundred yards off, when immediately 

 afterwards I was upon him, and knocking up the gun with one 

 hand, I placed the other upon his neckhandkerchief. No words 

 were spoken; it became then a matter of strength. Without any 

 boasting I may say I was a strong man, and it used to be said of 

 me that if I once gripped a man he could not get free, and the 

 only way to master me was to knock me down before he got within 

 reach of my arm. Thomas Amy, the man I had just gripped, was 

 a powerful man in his way, and a noted wrestler. He was accus- 

 tomed to wear iron kicking- plates which projected from the tips of 

 his boots, and were filed up sharp. With these on his feet he used 

 to wrestle with and beat off the keepers. With these he kicked my 

 legs, and the bone was cut in notches— ( took out in chips/ just as 

 if you had cut it with a hook. I managed to get him quiet at last, 

 and to take his gun in my left hand while I held him with the 

 other, and tried to make him walk with me to Thorny Down public- 

 house, where I could rest awhile before I returned home. I had a 

 job with him. He would not walk. I had to drag him the whole 

 way. Before we had proceeded far he ( rebelled/ and I was forced to 



