I had gone just that bit too far for which no recantation
would win pardon.

"What sort of way are you ready?" he asked politely. "You would fight
me with your pistols, but you haven't got them, and this is no a matter
that will wait. I could spit you in a jiffy with my sword, but it
wouldna be fair. It strikes me that you and me are ill matched. We're
like a shark and a wolf that cannot meet to fight in the same element."

Then he ran his finger down the buttons of his coat, and his eyes were
smiling. "We'll try the old way that laddies use on the village green.
Man, Andrew, I'm going to skelp you, as your mother skelped you when
you were a breechless bairn," And he tossed his coat on the grass.

I could only follow suit, though I was black ashamed at the whole
business. I felt the disgrace of my conduct, and most bitterly the
disgrace of the penalty.

My arm was too short to make a fighter of me, and I could only strive
to close, that I might get the use of my weight and my great strength
of neck and shoulder. Ringan danced round me, tapping me lightly on
nose and cheek, but hard enough to make the blood flow, I defended
myself as best I could, while my temper rose rapidly and made me
forget my penitence. Time and again I looked for a chance to slip in,
but he was as wary as a fox, and was a yard off before I could get my
arm round him.

At last in extreme vexation, I lowered my head and rushed blindly for
his chest. Something like the sails of a windmill smote me on the jaw,
and I felt myself falling into a pit of great darkness where little
lights twinkled.

The next I knew I was sitting propped against the tent-pole with a cold
bandage round my forehead, and Ringan with a napkin bathing my face.

"Cheer up, man," he cried; "you've got off light, for there's no a
scratch on your lily-white cheek, and the blood-letting from the nose
will clear out the dregs of Moro's hocus."

I blinked a little, and tried to recall what had happened. All my
ill-humour had gone, and I was now in a hurry to set myself right with
my conscience. He heard my apology with an embarrassed face.

"Say no more, Andrew. I was as muckle to blame as you, and I've been
giving myself some ill names for that last trick. It was ower hard,
but, man, the temptation was sore."

He elbowed me to the open air.

"Now for the questions you've a right to ask. We of the Brethren have
not precisely a chief, as you call it, but there are not many