And cut it they did, breaking through the bushes and disappearing quite as quickly as they had appeared. Jack was so busy watching the punishment the two rogues were receiving that he did not notice him with the bludgeon sneaking away. When he turned, the fellow was just making off across the field behind them towards some old barns standing amongst the trees. Jack remembered his watch. ‘Oh sir, please!’ he cried to the soldier, ‘that fellow is going off with my watch, the last gift of my dead father!’ ‘Follow me,’ said the soldier curtly, and he swung himself on to his horse, which during the struggle had stood quietly by on the very spot where his master had dismounted. The soldier put his horse at the hedge, which he took at a leap, and Jack forced his way through the same gap that the tramp had. This fellow could be seen scurrying away across the field; but the soldier, touching his horse with his spurs, soon passed him. Then wheeling round his horse so as to get the man between himself and Jack, he cried out, ‘Stop, you rogue, and give up that watch, or I’ll leather your hide for you.’ The fellow turned round with a snarl; then raising his bludgeon he hurled it with all his might at the soldier’s horse, evidently in the hope of making it rear and throw its rider. The stick caught the horse on the side of its head and did make it rear in a way that would have unseated a less skilful rider than the soldier; but he kept his seat with ease. Then, whipping his glittering sword from its scabbard, in three bounds he placed his horse beside the tramp. ‘You scum! you jail-bird!’ he cried in angry tones, ‘I’ve a good mind to cut you down or trample you under my horse’s hoofs.’ ‘Please, sir--please, Mr Soldier, pity!’ cried the now thoroughly frightened wretch. ‘Give up the watch,’ said the soldier, still threatening the tramp with the point of his sword. ‘Yes, sir--yes, sir; there it is,’ and the man produced it from a capacious pocket, Jack running forward and taking it from him. ‘Now, cut it!’ cried the soldier; and as the man turned to obey he gave him half-a-dozen across the head and shoulders with the flat of his sword, laying on so lustily that the rogue howled again with pain. ‘Now, lad, let’s get back,’ said the soldier kindly to Jack; and they returned to the place where the scuffle had taken place and where Jack’s portmanteau still lay. The other two men had completely disappeared, which the soldier said was a good thing, for it was a tedious job giving people into custody, and, besides, he had no time to go dancing attendance at police-courts. ‘A good horse-whipping in many cases would do more good than three months’ hard,’ he said, ‘and it’s less trouble.’ He then dismounted to examine his horse’s head and see whether it had been hurt at all by the tramp’s bludgeon, and as he did so Jack took the opportunity of closely examining him.