_'twas_ you, I wouldn't have insulted you by denying it.'

'That was why you didn't challenge me, then?'

'That was it! I wouldn't for the world have hurt your nice sense of
honour by letting 'ee go unchallenged, if I had known! And now, you see,
unfortunately I can't mend the mistake. So long a time has passed since
it happened that the heat of my temper is gone off. I couldn't oblige
'ee, try how I might, for I am not a man, trumpet-major, that can butcher
in cold blood--no, not I, nor you neither, from what I know of 'ee. So,
willy-nilly, we must fain let it pass, eh?'

'We must, I suppose,' said John, smiling grimly. 'Who did you think I
was, then, that night when I boxed you all round?'

'No, don't press me,' replied the yeoman. 'I can't reveal; it would be
disgracing myself to show how very wide of the truth the mockery of wine
was able to lead my senses. We will let it be buried in eternal mixens
of forgetfulness.'

'As you wish,' said the trumpet-major loftily. 'But if you ever _should_
think you knew it was me, why, you know where to find me?' And Loveday
walked away.

The instant that he was gone Festus shook his fist at the evening star,
which happened to lie in the same direction as that taken by the dragoon.

'Now for my revenge! Duels? Lifelong disgrace to me if ever I fight
with a man of blood below my own! There are other remedies for upper-
class souls!. . . Matilda--that's my way.'

Festus strode along till he reached the Hall, where Cripplestraw appeared
gazing at him from under the arch of the porter's lodge. Derriman dashed
open the entrance-hurdle with such violence that the whole row of them
fell flat in the mud.

'Mercy, Maister Festus!' said Cripplestraw. '"Surely," I says to myself
when I see ye a-coming, "surely Maister Festus is fuming like that
because there's no chance of the enemy coming this year after all."'

'Cr-r-ripplestraw! I have been wounded to the heart,' replied Derriman,
with a lurid brow.

'And the man yet lives, and you wants yer horse-pistols instantly?
Certainly, Maister F---'

'No, Cripplestraw, not my pistols, but my new-cut clothes, my heavy gold
seals, my silver-topped cane, and my buckles that cost more money than he
ever saw! Yes, I must tell somebody, and I'll tell you, because there's
no other fool near. He loves her heart and soul. He's poor; she's tip-
top genteel, and not rich. I am rich, by comparison. I'll court the
pretty pla