Let go the bridle--let it go!" Still, Fletcher, striving hard to keep his calm, clung to the reins.

"Let it go, you damned, thieving Scot!" screamed Dare in a fury, and struck Fletcher with his whip.
It was unfortunate for them both that he should have had that switch in his hand at such a time, but more unfortunate still was it that Fletcher should have had a pistol in his belt.

The Scot dropped the bridle at last; dropped it to pluck forth the weapon.
"Hi! I did not..." began Dare, who had stood appalled by what he had done in the second or two that had passed since he had delivered the blow.

The rest of his sentence was drowned in the report of Fletcher's pistol, and Dare dropped dead on the rough cobbles of the yard.
Ferguson has left it on record--and, presumably, he had Fletcher's word for it--that it was no part of the Scot's intent to do Mr.Dare a mischief.

He had but drawn the pistol to intimidate him into better manners, but in his haste he accidentally pulled the trigger.
However that may be, there was Dare as dead as the stones on which he lay, and Fletcher with a smoking pistol in his hand.
After that all was confusion.