66 Why, sir, if you think that you have any particular title to fight me because I have happened to have some disagreement with your cousin, that is well enough in its way, and I sha'nt be the man to baulk you-but not here, nor thus, if you please. I must have my boy, sir, first; and, secondly, I must place him in hands that I happen to approve of—that's my fancy, sir ;—and then, Mr Wald, if you have no very particular objection, I rather prefer going through such things in the most received fashion-in short, I choose among my own friends, ere I pick among your blades—that also is my fancy." "Friends!-Friends to see us !-Seconds, for sooth !" "Ay, sir, seconds;' tis the rule, and I have no passion for singularities, whatever may be your taste." "Come, come-when you next fall out with some fop about a pointer, or a dancer, my lordsome pirouetting dancer-this puppy legislation will do finely. I thought we were serious." "Serious! partly so, partly not, Mr Wald. I consider, (but I won't baulk you, though,) I con sider this as rather a laughable hurry of yours, Mr Wald." "Laughable? ha!-was that your word ?" 66 Ay, laughable-extremely laughable-quite hors des regles." "The regles!-Madam Francoise has taught you that pretty word, too.-Come, come, do you wish me to spit on you—to kick you—to crush you to hew you down like a calf ?" "Sir, you are a ruffian: but give me your swords How beautifully we went through all the parade!-how calmly we proved the distance!—how exactly we took our attitudes! You would have sworn we were two professed fencers—and yet for me—I knew almost nothing of it—I had never tried the naked sword before but once; and you know how But after the first minute of ceremony, what a joke was all this !-I rushed upon him, sir, as if I had been some horned brute. I had no more thought of guards and passes than if I had been a bison. He stabbed me thrice-thrice through the arm-clean through the arm-that was my guard—but what signified this? I felt his blade as if it had been a gnat, a nothing. At last my turn came-I spitted him through the heart-I rushed on till the hilt stopped me.--I did not draw my steel out of him.-I spurned him off it with my foot. "Lie there, rot there, beast-!" a single groan, and his eye fixed. The Stagyrite says you cannot hate the dead : -He never hated.I dipped my shoe in his blood. I rushed home as if I had had wings; but my courage forsook me at the threshold. I entered the room where Katharine was-(she was still seated there, her child on her knee, waiting for me)-I entered it with my cloak wrapped about me. I sat down at some little distance from them-and in silence. "Matthew," said she, "where have you been? -what have you been about?-your looks were strange before- but now. I drew my cloak closer about me. "Oh! Matthew-your eyes!-will compose yourself ?” "Never, Kate." you never "But now you were softening.-Come hither, Matthew.-Oh! try if you can weep.” I drew out my sword from below the cloak-I held out the red blade before me-the drops had not all baked yet-one or two fell upon the floor. Speak, Matthew! what is this ?-Speak !— Ha! God of Mercy! there is blood upon that sword." 66 66 66 more. Ay, blood, my cousin-blood." My husband! my Lascelyne !"-I heard no this down! One shriek-one-just one! Fainted ?-swooned ?-Dead! oh! dead.-I remember no more. CHAPTER XXXII. I KNOW, I feel, that your kindness would willingly spare me, if it could. I know that you would fain have me preserve secrets, dark, for the most part, as those of death and the grave, even from you. At this moment, however, it so happens, that nothing can give me any additional uneasi ness. Here am I sitting in my own comfortable easychair, in my own snug library ;-a bright fire is blazing at my side; - everything is light and warmth about me. Old I am, yet I feel strength in every fibre. My perceptions are as clear as ever they were in the morning of my days. I can walk, ride, read or write, as nimbly as if I were a man of five and twenty years. I drink no wine when by myself; but a bottle of water stands near me on |