“Lud! I had forgot. You have your adieux to make to the lady. Pray do not let me hurry you,” he said urbanely, as he picked his way daintily through the mud.
When he had gone I turned to the girl.
“You shall be quit of him,” I told her. “You may rely on my friends if—if the worst happens. They will take you to Montagu Grange, and my brother Charles will push on with you to Scotland. In this country you would not be safe from him while he lives.”
Her face was like the snow.
“Iss there no other way whatever?” she cried. “Must you be fighting with this man for me, and you only a boy? Oh, I could be wishing for my brother Malcolm or some of the good claymores on the braes of Raasay!”
The vanity in me was stung by her words.
“I’m not such a boy neither, and Angelo judged me a good pupil. You might find a worse champion.”
“Oh, it iss the good friend you are to me, and I am loving you for it, but I think of what may happen to you.”
My pulse leaped and my eyes burned, but I answered lightly,
“For a change think of what may happen to him, and maybe to pass the time you might put up a bit prayer for me.”
“Believe me, I will be doing that same,” she cried with shining eyes, and before I divined her intent had stooped to kiss my hand that rested on the coach door.
My heart lilted as I crossed the heath to where the others were waiting for me beyond the dip of the hillock.
“Faith, I began to think you had forgotten me and gone off with the lady yourself,” laughed Volney.
I flung off my cloak and my inner coat, for though the night was chill I knew I should be warm enough when once we got to work. Then, strangely enough, an unaccountable reluctance to engage came over me, and I stood tracing figures on the heath with the point of my small sword.
“Are you ready?” asked the baronet.
I broke out impetuously. “Sir Robert, you have ruined many. Your victims are to be counted by the score. I myself am one. But this girl shall not be added to the list. I have sworn it; so have my friends. There is still time for you to leave unhurt if you desire it, but if we once cross swords one of us must die.”
“And, prithee, Mr. Montagu, why came we here?”
“Yet even now if you will desist——”
His caustic insolent laugh rang out gaily as he mouthed the speech of Tybalt in actor fashion.
“‘What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagus, and thee;
Have at thee, coward.’”
I drew back from his playful lunge.
“Very well. Have it your own way. But you must have some one to act for you. Perhaps Captain Mac—er—the gentleman on your right—will second you.”
Donald Roy drew himself up haughtily. “Feint a bit of it! I’m on the other side of the dyke. Man, Montagu! I’m wondering at you, and him wronging a Hieland lassie. Gin he waits till I stand back of him he’ll go wantin’, ye may lippen (trust) to that.”
“Then it’ll have to be you, Tony,” I said, turning to Creagh. “Guard, Sir Robert!”
“’Sdeath! You’re getting in a hurry, Mr. Montagu. I see you’re keen after that ‘Hic Jacet’ I promised you. Lard! I vow you shall have it.”
Under the shifting moonlight we fell to work on the dripping heath. We were not unevenly matched considering the time and the circumstances. I had in my favour youth, an active life, and a wrist of steel. At least I was a strong swordsman, even though I could not pretend to anything like the mastery of the weapon which he possessed. To some extent his superior skill was neutralized by the dim light. He had been used to win his fights as much with his head as with his hand, to read his opponent’s intention in advance from the eyes while he concealed his own; but the darkness, combined with my wooden face, made this impossible now. Every turn and trick of the game he knew, but the shifting shine and shadow disconcerted him. More than once I heard him curse softly when at a critical moment the scudding clouds drifted across the moon in time to save me.
He had the better of me throughout, but somehow I blundered through without letting him find the chance for which he looked. I kept my head, and parried by sheer luck his brilliant lunges. I broke ground and won free—if but barely—from his incessant attack. More than once he pricked me. A high thrust which I diverted too late with the parade of tierce drew blood freely. He fleshed me again on the riposte by a one-two feint in tierce and a thrust in carte.
“‘L’art de donner et de ne pas recevoir,’” he quoted, as he parried my counter-thrust with debonair ease.
Try as I would I could not get behind that wonderful guard of his. It was easy, graceful, careless almost, but it was sure. His point was a gleaming flash of light, but it never wavered from my body line.
A darker cloud obscured the moon, and by common consent we rested.
“Three minutes for good-byes,” said Volney, suggestively.
“Oh, my friends need not order the hearse yet—at least for me. Of course, if it would be any convenience——”
He laughed. “Faith, you improve on acquaintance, Mr. Montagu, like good wine or—to stick to the same colour—the taste of the lady’s lips.”
I looked blackly at him. “Do you pretend——?”
“Oh, I pretend nothing. Kiss and never tell, egad! Too bad they’re not for you too, Montagu.”
“I see that Sir Robert Volney has added another accomplishment to his vices.”
“And that is——?”
“He can couple a woman’s name with the hint of a slanderous lie.”
Sir Robert turned to Creagh and waved a hand at me, shaking his head sorrowfully. “The country boor in evidence again. Curious how it will crop out. Ah, Mr. Montagu! The moon shines bright again. Shall we have the pleasure of renewing our little debate?”
I nodded curtly. He stopped a moment to say:
“You have a strong wrist and a prodigious good fence, Mr. Montagu, but if you will pardon a word of criticism I think your guard too high.”
“Y’are not here to instruct me, Sir Robert, but——”
“To kill you. Quite so!” he interrupted jauntily. “Still, a friendly word of caution—and the guard is overhigh! ’Tis the same fault my third had. I ran under it, and——” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Was that the boy you killed for defending his sister?” I asked insolently.
Apparently my hit did not pierce the skin. “No. I’ve forgot the nomination of the gentleman. What matter? He has long been food for worms. Pardon me, I see blood trickling down your sword arm. Allow me to offer my kerchief.”
“Thanks! ’Twill do as it is. Art ready?”
“Lard, yes! And guard lower, an you love me. The high guard is the one fault— Well parried, Montagu!—I find in Angelo’s pupils. Correcting that, you would have made a rare swordsman in time.”
His use of the subjunctive did not escape me. “I’m not dead yet,” I panted.
I parried a feint une-deux, in carte, with the parade in semicircle, and he came over my blade, thrusting low in carte. His laugh rang out clear as a boy’s, and the great eyes of the man blazed with the joy of fight.
“Gad, you’re quick to take my meaning! Ah! You nearly began the long journey that