His face brightened; the coast was clear; it was the very morning to play toreador.

In a breath he was through the hedge, and on the way to the village.

He approached it after the manner of a red Indian, only pausing to cut a switch from a hedge.

He had a score to settle with Josiah Wilby, a boy whose talebearing had procured him his last, well-earned whacking.

Fortune favoured him: he spied his prey playing in careless security with two other boys on the village green; crept between two cottages; and was out on him or ever he was aware of the coming of an avenger.