That evening at supper my father was even more quiet than his wont.  Mistress Pennyquick told me afterwards that he had been to see his sister Lady Cludde and her husband at Cludde Court, and given them a piece of his mind.  What passed between them I know not, but I do know that my father never set foot in Cludde Court again, nor did his sister come any more to the farm, even when her brother lay a-dying.  His visit had this good effect, however, that I suffered no more bullying at the hands of Dick Cludde or Cyrus Vetch.  Dick eyed me with a malignant scowl whenever he met me, and as for Cyrus, who did not come back to school for a good ten days, he looked over my head as though I did not exist, which gave me no discomfort, you may be sure.  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.  Whether it was due to my constant exercise under Captain Galsworthy’s tuition, I know not, but certainly, from that very summer, I grew at an amazing rate, shooting up until I was as tall as boys three or four years older, yet hardening at the same time.  Twice a week regularly I betook myself to the captain’s little cottage on the Wem road, and spent an hour with him in mastering the principles and practice of what he called the noble arts of self defense.  He was pleased to say that I was quick of eye and nimble of body, and, being on my side very eager to learn, I was speedily in his good books, and he seemed to take a special pleasure in teaching me.

At first I found our bouts at fisticuffs a severe tax.  The captain, though well on in years, was still hale and active, and, being tall and spare, he had a great advantage of me.  With the long reach of his arms he could pummel me without giving me the least chance of reprisal, and many’s the day I crawled home after our encounters bruised and sore, provoking indignant remonstrances from Mistress Pennyquick.  But I refused to let her coddle me, and as my appetite never failed, and I throve amazingly, the good woman at last ceased to lament, and, as I discovered, was wont behind my back to vaunt my growing manliness.

By the time I was fifteen I was as tall as the captain himself, and then my share of bruises ceased to be so disproportionate.  In skill, whether with the fists or the foils, he was always vastly my superior; indeed, to this day I have never met his equal.  But I had youth on my side, and sometimes the old man at the end of a particularly arduous bout would sigh, and wish he were younger by a score of years.

No one could have been more generous in encouragement and praise.  It would have amused an onlooker, I am sure, to see him, when I had had the good fortune to tap claret, mopping the injured feature and all the time maintaining a flow of complimentary remarks.