"Thou liest foully, Edward Dotey! Thou liest even as Ananias and Sapphira lied."

"Liest, thou son of Belial! 'T is thou that liest, and art a c.o.c.k-a-hoop braggart into the bargain, Master Edward Lister! Tell me that our master's daughter gave thee that kerchief"--

"If thou couldst read, I'd show thee 'Constance Hopkins' fairly wrought upon it by the young mistress's own hand."

"Then thou stolest it, and I will straight to our master and tell him on 't!"

"Hi, hi, my springalds! what meaneth all this vaporing and noise? What's amiss, Lister?"

"It matters not what's amiss John Billington. Pa.s.s on and attend to thine own affairs."

"Lister's afraid to tell that he carrieth stolen goods in his doublet and lies about them into the bargain," sneered Edward Dotey.

"I lie do I, thou base-born coward! Lie thou there, then!"

And Edward Lister with one generous buffet stretched his opponent upon the pile of firewood they had been hewing a little way from the town.

Billington who had wandered in that direction with his gun upon his shoulder looking for game, helped the fallen man to his feet and officiously fingered a bruise rising upon his cheek.

"Hi! Hi! But here's a coil! He's wounded thee sorely, Dotey! I'm witness that he a.s.saulted thee, with intent to kill like enough. Canst stand?"

"Let me go, let me at him, leave go of my arm John Billington! I'll soon show thee"--

"Nay Ned," interposed Lister, as Billington with a malignant grin upon his face half hindered, half permitted Dotey's struggles to free himself from the poacher's sinewy arms. "Nay, man, I meant not to draw e'en so much blood as trickles down thy cheek"--

"He meant to draw it by the bucketful and not in drops," interpreted Billington. "And now he tries to crawl off. Take thy knife to him, man; nay, get ye both your swords and hack away at each other until we see which is the better bird. 'T is long since I saw a main"--

"Ay, we'll fight it out, Lister, and see which is the better man in the matter you wot of." And Dotey, who was furiously jealous lest his fellow retainer should have made more progress in the regard of Constance Hopkins than himself, nodded meaningly toward him, while Billington watched both with Mephistophilean glee.

"Agreed," replied Lister more coolly. "Although thou knowest private quarrels are forbidden by the Captain."

"Hah! Thou 'rt afraid of our peppery little Captain!" cried Billington.

"Some day thou 'lt see me take him between thumb and finger and crack him like a flea if he mells too much with me."

"I heard thee flout at his command t' other day, and I heard him tell thee the next time thou didst so let loose thy tongue, he'd take order with thee," exclaimed Lister hotly, and Billington snapping his fingers contemptuously retorted,--

"'T is no use, Dotey. Lister's afraid of thee and will not fight. 'T is a good boy, but not over-brave."

"Stay you here, you two, till I can go and come, and we will see who is the coward!" retorted Lister furiously, and before either could reply he sped away in the direction of the village.

"'T is like a bull-fight," cried Billington with a coa.r.s.e laugh. "The creature is hard to wake, but when he hath darts enough quivering in his hide he rouses up and showeth rare sport. Now let us find a fair, smooth field for our sword play. 'T is not so easy in this wild land."

"I know not why our captain should forbid the duello; 't is ever the way of gentles to settle their disputes at the point of the sword," said Dotey musingly.

"Ay, and in this place we all are gentles, or all simples, I know not which," added Billington. "Certes, one man should here count as good as another, and 't is often in my mind to say so, and to cry, Down with governors, and captains, and elders"--

"Nay, nay, such talk smacks too strong of treason to suit my ear,"

exclaimed Dotey, who was, after all, an honest, well-meaning young fellow, a little carried away just now by jealousy and by the intoxicating air of liberty and freedom, but by no means to the extent of joining or desiring a revolt against the appointed powers of Church or State.

"Well, here is Lister, and with not only swords but daggers if I can see aright. Ay, that's a good lad, that's a brave lad, Lister! There's no craven in thy skin, is there, and I shrewdly nip mine own tongue for so calling thee. Come now, my merry men, let me place you fairly, each with his shoulder to the sun, each planted firmly on sound footing. There then, that is as well as may be, and well enow. Come, one, two, three, and lay on!"

But careful as Lister had been in securing and bringing away his weapons, he had not escaped the scrutiny of two bright eyes hidden behind the curtain dividing the nook where Constance Hopkins and her sister Damaris slept, from the main room of the dwelling, and no sooner had the young man left the house than Constance hastily followed, and running lightly up the hill to where the Captain with John Alden at his side was roofing in an addition to his half-built house she cried,--

"Captain Standish, I fear me there's mischief afoot with Edward Dotey and Edward Lister!"

"Ay? And what makes thee think so, my la.s.s?" asked Standish peering down from his coign of vantage. "Where are they?"

"My father sent them afield this morning to rive and pile firewood, but a few minutes agone Edward Lister came creeping into the house and up to the loft where they two and Bartholomew sleep, and I who was below heard the clank of steel, and peeping saw that he brought down two swords and had stuck two daggers in his belt"--

"Aha! Swords and daggers, my young masters!" exclaimed the Captain, hastily descending the ladder beside which Constance stood. "John, drop thy hammer and take thy piece; nay, take a good stick in hand, and we will soon bring these springalds to order. Whereaway are they, girl?"

"That-a-way, sir; nay, see you not Lister's cap bob up and down as he runneth behind yon bushes?"

"Ay, la.s.s, thou hast a sharp eye. Go home and rest content--thou 'rt a wise and good child."

Ten minutes later the captain and his follower plunging through the underwood fringing Watson's Hill heard the clash of steel upon steel and a coa.r.s.e voice crying,--

"Well played, Dotey! Nay, 't is naught but a scratch--don't give over for that, Lister; up and at him again, boy! Get thy revenge on him!"

"That knave Billington!" growled Standish: "I could have sworn he was in it! Here you! Stop that! Drop your blades, men! Drop them!"

Lister and Dotey, nothing loth, for both were wounded, obeyed the summons, and staggering back from each other stood leaning upon their swords and panting desperately, while Billington dexterously stepping backward behind an elder bush made his way forest-ward with a stealthy footstep, and a shrewd use of cover, suggestive of his former calling.

"And now what meaneth this, ye young fools!" sternly demanded Standish.

"Are ye aping the sins of your betters and claiming the rights of the duello? Rights say I! Nay, 't is forbidden to any man in this colony, and ye know it well, ha?"

"Yea, Captain, we knew 't was forbidden, but we had a quarrel"--

"And why if ye must fight did ye take to deadly weapons? Have ye not a pair of fists apiece, or if that could not content ye, are there not single-sticks enow in these woods? I've a mind to take my ramrod in hand and show ye the virtue of a good stick, but I promise you that if not I, some other shall give you a lesson you'll not forget. Come, march!"

"I'm shrewdly slashed in the leg, Captain," expostulated Dotey; "and fear me I cannot walk."

"Ay? Sit down, then, and let me see. Thou 'st a sore wound in thy leather breeches, but--ay, there's a scratch beneath, but naught to hinder your moving. Here, I'll plaster it up in a twinkling."

And from the pocket of his doublet the old soldier produced a case containing some of the most essential requisites of surgery, and with a deftness and delicacy of touch, surprising to one who had not seen him beside a sick-bed, he soon had the wound safe and comfortable.

"There, man, thou 'rt fit to walk from here to Cape Cod. Many a mile have I marched with a worse wound than that, and no better than a rag or at best my belt bound round it. Now you sirrah! Hast a scratch, too?"

For reply Lister silently held out a hand whence the blood dripped freely from a cut across the palm.

"Tried to grasp 't other fool's dagger in thy naked hand, eh?" coolly remarked the Captain as he cut a strip of plaster to fit the wound. "Now the next time take my counsel and catch it in the leathern sleeve of thy jerkin. Better wound a dead calf than a live one."

"Next time, sayst he!" commented Dotey in a mock aside to his companion.

"So we were not so far astray this time."

"Next time thou meetest a dagger, I should have said," retorted the Captain with his grimmest smile. "I never said ye were not to fight, for I trow ye'll have chance enough at that before I'm done with ye; but when a handful of men are set as we are to garrison a little post on the frontier of a savage country, for one to fall afoul of another and to risk two lives out of a dozen for some senseless feud of their own is to my mind little short of treason to the government they've sworn to defend. Now then, march! Alden, give Dotey thy arm to lean upon if he needs it. Forward!"