For a few seconds Lane stood glorying, but on a sudden it occurred to him that his rival was behaving in a more dignified manner than himself, and this was a reflection not to be endured without instant action.

So he marched back into the churchyard also, and left John in the foreground. When Bertha appeared her elder lover paid his respects first, and Lane came up afterwards, looking, as she remembered later on, prodigiously gloomy and resolved.

The bell had been silent for a minute, and the curate's voice had begun to drone within the building. The rivals were alone, and n.o.body was within sight or earshot.

'Shall we walk a pace or two, Mr. Protheroe?' asked John.

Mr. Protheroe, without speaking, sauntered out at the gate, vaulted a stile opposite, and paused in a field pathway. Thistlewood followed, throwing first one leg and then the other over the rail with a sort of laboured deliberation.

'Now,' said Lane.

'We'll walk on a little bit,' answered Thistlewood, and there was silence for a minute or two as they strode along the gra.s.s. Then when they had reached the shelter of a little copse which hid them from the whole landscape on the church side, John said, 'Now,' in turn, and the two halted. Each was paler than common by this time, and Lane's eyes sparkled, whilst the other's burned steady with resentment.

''Twixt man and man as is willing to come to understand one another, Mr.

Protheroe,' said Thistlewood, 'a very few words suffices. I'll have thee nor no man else poaching on my manor.'

'Well,' Lane answered, 'if ever I should arrive at owning a manor, I'd say the same. But I'd be sure of my t.i.tle-deeds afore I took to warning other men off the ground.'

'Let's talk plain English,' said John, apparently quite untouched by this rejoinder.

'With all my heart,' said his rival, 'the plainer the better.'

'I find you very much i' my way,' Thistlewood began ponderously.

'I don't find you a little bit in mine,' Lane answered.

'You talk to sting,' said Thistlewood, with dull dignity. 'I want to talk so as to be understood. I find you very much i' my way, as I was saying, and I won't have you theer.'

'No?'

'No!'

'And how do you mean to set about getting rid of me?'

'I've set about harder jobs than that i' _my_ time, lad.'

'Like enough. But how do you mean to set about this one?'

'All in good time,' said Thistlewood. 'Sha'st find out speedily.'

'Show me now,' said Lane.

A breach of the peace seemed imminent, but, 'Afore thee and me comes to that,' the elder answered, 'I want thee to have fair warnin'. It's unbecomin' in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to marry---- I'm a man as never changed nor halted nor turned aside from anything he set his mind upon. I've been courtin' Miss Fellowes now this three year. It stands to reason as a frivolish young chap like you can mek no count of how a man feels, or of what a man 'ud do in a like case.'

'That stands to reason, does it?' 'It stands to reason,' answered Thistlewood. 'I suppose it stands to reason likewise that I am to stand to one side, and leave the road clear after this?'

'It'd be the wisest thing you ever did.' 'Well, now, Thistlewood, you'll please understand that, for all so frivolous as I may be, I'm hardly that easy to be swayed. As for who has a right on the ground, it's a mere piece of impudence to talk about it. That's neither for me nor you to choose. If ever I get straight "No" I'll go, but I'll have it before I go, for that's a man's bounden duty to himself.'

'Understand thyself as bein' warned away,' said Thistlewood.

'Understand thy warning as being laughed at,' answered Lane. 'You talk plain English? So will I. You've got the wrong pig by the ear. You're no better than a dog in the manger. You've always been spoken of up till now as a man to play fair, but now it strikes me you play very far from fair, and cut a poor figure. As for threats--a man who won't take a hiding when it's offered to him--what's _he_ good for, I should like to know?'

Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Protheroe was true to nature, and spoke with striking emphasis. He was quite red-hot with scorn at the imaginary fellow who would not take the proffered hiding, though a minute earlier, when he had told Thistlewood that he had the wrong pig by the ear, his manner had been marked by a cold and lofty superiority.

'Beest warned! 'said Thistlewood, 'that's enough.'

'Not half enough, nor yet a quarter,' cried Lane, with a bellicose air, not unmixed with swagger. 'I've taught my hands to take care of my head, sir, and they'll be ready to do it whenever the time occurs. But it always seemed a bit ridiculous to me to talk about fighting beforehand When the fight's over there _is_ something to talk about.'

'You seem to be in a hurry for that there hiding,' said Thistlewood.

'Hurry's no word for it,' the younger man responded, with cheerful alacrity.

'Very well,' said the elder, taking off his hat and bestowing it carefully upon the gra.s.s, 'sha'st have it.'

Lane, for his part, threw down his hat, flourished his coat off, dropped it behind him, rolled up his sleeves, and waited whilst Thistlewood made his preparations more slowly. Protheroe set that mellow whistle of his to work on 'The British Grenadiers,' and his enemy smiled grimly to think how soon he would silence the music.

Half a minute later they were standing foot to foot and eye to eye, the music already silenced. It would have been difficult from the mere aspect of the men to say on which side the advantage lay. In height and reach they were nearly equal, and, if Thistlewood's weight and muscle were in his favour, Protheroe was as active as a cat.

And here might have been recorded a bit of history to warm the blood of such as love and remember the old-fashioned manhood of England. We are grown too refined and civilised nowadays for the old rude arbitrament, and so fair play has ceased to be the Englishman's motto in fighting, and the English rustic shoots and stabs like the rustic of other lands. All fighting is foolish, more or less, but we had the manliest, friendliest, most honourable, and least harmful way of doing it amongst all the sons of men, and so our Legislature killed out the 'n.o.ble art'

from amongst us, and brought us to the general ugly level.

It was in the reign of the Tipton Slasher--which, as people learned in the history of manners will remember, was a longish time ago--when these two Britons stood up to arrange their differences after the fashion then in vogue. There was n.o.body to see fair play, and so they saw it for themselves, as all fighting Englishmen did when there was a code of honour to go by. It was not a mere affair of hammer and tongs, but very fair scientific fighting, the science vivified by enjoyment, and full of energy, but never forgotten for a second. The pleasure was keen on both sides, for from the beginning of their knowledge of each other these two had been in antagonism, and at the last it was a real treat to let all go and have at it.

'I was always a bit frivolous, as you said just now, Mr. Thistlewood,'

Lane remarked in the first enforced pause of the combat, 'but I'd like you to bear me witness that I stick to what I'm at while I'm at it.'

This address was delivered pantingly, whilst the speaker lay flat upon his back on the gra.s.s, with his arms thrown out crosswise. Thistlewood disdained response, and sat with one great shoulder propped against a dwarf oak, breathing fast and hard. When this sign of distress had a little abated, he arose, and said 'Time' as if he had been a mere cornerman in the affair, and rather bored by it than otherwise. Lane rolled over on to his face, rose to his hands and knees, smiled at his adversary for a little while, as if to give him an appet.i.te for the business in hand, and then got to his feet and made ready.

Now for a man to hold his own at this particular form of fighting against an equal adversary for a bare five minutes argues five grand things for him, and these are chast.i.ty, temperance, hardihood, strength, and courage. It speaks well for these admirable qualities in both of them that Messrs. Thistlewood and Protheroe made a good hour of it. The advantages and disadvantages had been so equally distributed that by this time they were pretty nearly harmless to each other, but each was sustained by the hope of victory, and each would have died, and, for the matter of that, would have gone on dying, rather than yield the precious palm to the other.

Now the clergyman who ministered to the spiritual wants of Beacon Hargate was never disposed to gorge his flock with too much doctrine at a time, and on this Sabbath had an invitation to luncheon at a great house some four or five miles away, and so treated his parishioners--to the scandal of some and the joy of others--to the shortest discourse they had ever heard from the pulpit. By this mischance it happened that the combatants were discovered by a silent male advance-guard of the home-returning congregation, who ran back--his footsteps soundless on the gra.s.s--to spread the splendid news. Sunday or week-day there was no more welcome break in the monotony of life in Beacon Hargate than that afforded by a fight. The time being church-time, and the combatants men of respectable position, lent piquancy to the event, of course, as who shall say me nay? The churchgoers, two or three farmers, Mr. Drake, the manager of Lord Barfield's estates at Heydon Hey, and a handful of labourers came up, at first stealthily, and then more boldly, and looked on at the finish.

It was plain that the fight had been severe, but it was equally plain that the best of it was over; and when Farmer Fellowes interposed as _amicus curio_, n.o.body but the two most concerned had any especial resentment against him.

Even for them Farmer Fellowes had a crumb of comfort.

'Finish it another time, lads,' he said. 'Where's the good o' goin' on wi' it i' this manner? Why a child might homber the pair on you. Get fresh an' have another turn to-morrow, if the 'casion's worth it.'

So the fight was left undecided after all, and the adversaries were led off to the neighbouring brook, where they made themselves as respectable to look at as they could before they took their several ways. They were unsightly for a week or two, and were close watched by their women folk lest they should renew the strife.

Beacon Hargate knew perfectly well the reason of the battle, and Bertha was mightily disdainful and indignant over both her lovers, who, to her fancy, had disgraced themselves and her. Six days after the fight John Thistlewood's business for once in a way, as well as his inclination, took him to Fellowes's farm, and there Bertha (who for very shame had not quitted the house since Sunday) first saw the result of the fray.

The stalwart farmer's face was discoloured, and, in places, still swollen. She saw the wicked handiwork of Lane Protheroe, and vowed within herself that she would see that dreadful young man no more. She could have cried for pity of poor Mr. Thistlewood, who had been thus shamefully treated for the crime of being faithful in love.

If John had known it, he had at this instant the best chance of being taken as Bertha's husband he had ever had, or was like to find. But he was shamefaced about the matter, as heroes not uncommonly are with regard to their achievements, and was disposed to think himself at an even unusual disadvantage.

Bertha stifled in her heart whatever tender sentiments Protheroe had inspired, and was prepared to pa.s.s him whenever she might meet him with such a manner as should indicate her new opinion of him beyond chance of mistake. Thistlewood had appeared on the Sat.u.r.day, and on the Monday the fates threw her younger lover in her way. She discerned him from a distance, herself unseen. His figure dipped down into the hollow, and she could not see him again until they met at some turning or other of the tortuous lane. If pride had not forbidden it she could have turned to fly homewards, but she hardened her heart and went on until his footsteps sounded clearly on the stony road.

Then he turned the corner, and she lifted one glance of superb disdain which melted suddenly under a terror-stricken pity. For this hero was worse battered than Number One had been, and one of those eyes, which had used to be so expressive and eloquent, was decorated by a shade.