"That's Tom Puckinharn's voice, I could swear to un," said a tall, well-built man, as he paused on the pavement without. He was talking to himself and evidently referred to one voice louder than the others, leading the chorus. A frown swept over his rugged features. "Here I be following 'im all the evening from tavern to tavern and just missin' 'im at every place, and he a-spending his 'ard-earned money in drink and his poor wife, Susy, at home a-crying her eyes out. If it wadn't that I had promised Susy to fetch 'im home I'd wash my 'ands and disown 'im." His thoughts were interrupted by the overturning of a table, the upsetting of chairs, the crash of falling tankards and voices in angry altercation within. The stimulating effect of the ale he had imbibed had increased Tommy's natural proclivity to wit and repartee in the earlier part of the evening, and some of his shafts of ridicule had been directed at two young Scottish Highlanders, soldiers of Castle Pendennis on leave of absence. The petticoat men, as he had called them, had remembered him, and in the drinking chorus they took umbrage at the trifling mentioning of King George's name. There were angry words and then the ringing of steel. The sounds stirred the man without to action. Pushing aside the swinging doors, a sight met his vision that tinged his spirit with righteous indignation. Chairs and tables were overturned; tankards were on the floor, with their spilt contents trickling away in sundry streams; Tommy's friends were huddled in fear in one corner, while unfortunate Tommy, in the grasp of the two half-intoxicated Highlanders, was forced to his knees. They had jerked him over the table and, with irate mien and with murder in their bloodshot eyes, had their sword points close to his breast. With a quick bound and a blow the stranger sent the one Highlander reeling to the floor, and, with a Cornish side-kick on the ankle and a blow of his other fist, Highlander number two fell with a crash among the overturned chairs and spilt liquor. "Ah! ye call yourselves sodjers and braave men, but thee'rt bubble-'eaded cowards for two of 'ee with swords to attack one unarmed man! Ah! ye drunken buccas! see if I don't report 'ee to your governor." The two fallen Highlanders were either too inebriated with liquor, or dazed by the sudden attack, or dismayed by the threat of informing the governor of Pendennis Castle, to arise at once, and the stranger, casting a look of supreme contempt on them, grasped Tommy by the collar, jerked him to his feet and led him from the place. As they were going he could not but hear the admiring comments of two or three of the spectators. "Ah! Dear!--Dear!--Man alive!--Did 'ee see un? 'Ow he knacked the sodjers down! 'Tez Tom Glaze, the Carnish champion!"