“I don’t know the name,” says he, “but I have lively recollections of what took place there. This fellow that was riding at my side suddenly whips out a pistol and presents it at my face. ‘Give me that packet!’ says he. ‘If you value your life, give it to me on the instant!’ Now I then knew what I was dealing with, so I made a rapid movement with my horse and suddenly knocked the pistol out of the fellow’s hand, and had drawn my own ere he could get at his sword. ‘Softly, good sir,’ says I, and lets him see that I meant to shoot him at the least sign of resistance. ‘What is your meaning?’ I says. But he began to scowl and swear, whereupon I relieved him of his weapons and secured them to my own saddle bow. ‘I perceive,’ says I, ‘that this packet bears some news for Master Richard Coope which you have no mind for him to receive.’ ‘Now,’ I says, ‘I don’t know where Master Coope is, or if he be dead or alive, but if the latter I’ll see that this letter reaches him.’ And with that I left him--‘and here,’ he says, handing me the packet, ‘is your worshipful uncle’s epistle, Master Richard--and faith! I think you’ll acknowledge that I had some slight adventures in carrying it safe to you.’” And with that he went out of the tent ere I could thank him for his kindness. IV. “Here’s a pretty puzzle!” says I to myself, staring at my uncle’s letter, and full of wonder as to its contents. “What on earth is that fellow Anthony up to now that he should try to shoot a man who happens to be carrying me a packet from Sir Nicholas? Faith!” says I, cutting the strings, “there seems to be something queer in all this--let’s see what the good old knight has been minded to write to me.” Now Sir Nicholas’s letter ran thus--I transcribe it from the original, which is strictly preserved with my other family papers:-- “NEPHEW RICHARD, “As Providence will have it there is put into my power to-day the chance of holding some communication with you, and I hasten to avail myself of the same, and to take my pen in hand to write to you, though indeed I have no certain knowledge as to whether you be alive or dead. However, if you be alive I trust these may reach you, so that haply you may repent of your exceeding naughtiness upon hearing my admonition thereon, and be turned once more to better ways. Thou art my only brother’s only child, and ’tis a sore vexing of the spirit to me that thou shouldst so strangely depart from those paths of virtue in which I strove to make thee walk. But let me address myself to the immediate purpose with which I write to you. It must be done in few words, for the messenger is in sore haste to be gone on his evil errand. God forgive me for lending assistance to an enemy of the king!--’Swounds, I would not have done it, but that he appealed to me as a Christian, and that I thought there might be some chance of communicating through him with thee, Dick.