eyes have caused, shall
fall gracefully upon his sword, and so end the woes of this our lovelorn
generation. Placetne Domini? as they used to ask in the Senate at
Oxford."

"Really," said Cary, "this is too bad."

"So is, pardon me, your fighting Mr. Coffin with anything longer than a
bodkin."

"Bodkins are too short for such fierce Bobadils," said Amyas; "they
would close in so near, that we should have them falling to fisticuffs
after the first bout."

"Then let them fight with squirts across the market-place; for by heaven
and the queen's laws, they shall fight with nothing else."

"My dear Mr. Cary," went on Frank, suddenly changing his bantering tone
to one of the most winning sweetness, "do not fancy that I cannot feel
for you, or that I, as well as you, have not known the stings of love
and the bitterer stings of jealousy. But oh, Mr. Cary, does it not seem
to you an awful thing to waste selfishly upon your own quarrel that
divine wrath which, as Plato says, is the very root of all virtues, and
which has been given you, like all else which you have, that you may
spend it in the service of her whom all bad souls fear, and all virtuous
souls adore,--our peerless queen? Who dares, while she rules England,
call his sword or his courage his own, or any one's but hers? Are there
no Spaniards to conquer, no wild Irish to deliver from their oppressors,
that two gentlemen of Devon can find no better place to flesh their
blades than in each other's valiant and honorable hearts?"

"By heaven!" cried Amyas, "Frank speaks like a book; and for me, I do
think that Christian gentlemen may leave love quarrels to bulls and
rams."

"And that the heir of Clovelly," said Frank, smiling, "may find more
noble examples to copy than the stags in his own deer-park."

"Well," said Will, penitently, "you are a great scholar, Mr. Frank, and
you speak like one; but gentlemen must fight sometimes, or where would
be their honor?"

"I speak," said Frank, a little proudly, "not merely as a scholar,
but as a gentleman, and one who has fought ere now, and to whom it has
happened, Mr. Cary, to kill his man (on whose soul may God have mercy);
but it is my pride to remember that I have never yet fought in my own
quarrel, and my trust in God that I never shall. For as there is nothing
more noble and blessed than to fight in behalf of those whom we love,
so to fight in our own private behalf is a thing not to be allowed to a
Christian man,