and
hueless cheek of his opponent, and seeing blood trickling from Randal's
lip, was seized with an instantaneous and generous remorse. "It was
not fair," he thought, "to fight one whom he could beat so easily." So,
retreating still farther, and letting his arms fall to his side, he said
mildly, "There, let's have no more of it; but go home and be good."

Randal Leslie had no remarkable degree of that constitutional quality
called physical courage; but he had some of those moral qualities
which supply its place. He was proud, he was vindictive, he had high
self-esteem, he had the destructive organ more than the combative,--what
had once provoked his wrath it became his instinct to sweep away.
Therefore, though all his nerves were quivering, and hot tears were in
his eyes, he approached Lenny with the sternness of a gladiator, and
said between his teeth, which he set hard, choking back the sob of rage
and pain,--

"You have struck me--and you shall not stir from this ground till I have
made you repent it. Put up your hands,--defend yourself."

Lenny mechanically obeyed; and he had good need of the admonition; for
if before he had had the advantage, now that Randal had recovered the
surprise to his nerves, the battle was not to the strong.

Though Leslie had not been a fighting boy at Eton, still his temper had
involved him in some conflicts when he was in the lower forms, and
he had learned something of the art as well as the practice in
pugilism,--an excellent thing too, I am barbarous enough to believe, and
which I hope will never quite die out of our public schools. Ah, many a
young duke has been a better fellow for life from a fair set-to with a
trader's son; and many a trader's son has learned to look a lord more
manfully in the face on the hustings, from the recollection of the sound
thrashing he once gave to some little Lord Leopold Dawdle.

So Randal now brought his experience and art to bear; put aside
those heavy roundabout blows, and darted in his own, quick and sharp,
supplying to the natural feebleness of his arm the due momentum of
pugilistic mechanics. Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer so feeble; for
strange is the strength that comes from passion and pluck!

Poor Lenny, who had never fought before, was bewildered; his sensations
grew so entangled that he could never recall them distinctly; he had a
dim reminiscence of some breathless impotent rush, of a sudden blindness
followed by quick flashes o