"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.