Part 17 (2/2)

Lancelot was blundering out something, when the squire interposed.

'Let her alone, Smith. Women will be tender-hearted, you know.

Quite right--but they don't understand these things. They fight with their tongues, and we with our fists; and then they fancy their weapons don't hurt--Ha! ha! ha!'

'Mr. Smith,' said Argemone, in a low, determined voice, 'if you have promised my father to go on this horrid business--go. But promise me, too, that you will only look on, or I will never--'

Argemone had not time to finish her sentence before Lancelot had promised seven times over, and meant to keep his promise, as we all do.

About ten o'clock that evening Lancelot and Tregarva were walking stealthily up a ride in one of the home-covers, at the head of some fifteen fine young fellows, keepers, grooms, and not extempore 'watchers,' whom old Harry was marshalling and tutoring, with exhortations as many and as animated as if their ambition was 'Mourir pour la patrie.'

'How does this sort of work suit you, Tregarva, for I don't like it at all! The fighting's all very well, but it's a poor cause.'

'Oh, sir, I have no mercy on these Londoners. If it was these poor half-starved labourers, that snare the same hares that have been eating up their garden-stuff all the week, I can't touch them, sir, and that's truth; but these ruffians--And yet, sir, wouldn't it be better for the parsons to preach to them, than for the keepers to break their heads?'

'Oh?' said Lancelot, 'the parsons say all to them that they can.'

Tregarva shook his head.

'I doubt that, sir. But, no doubt, there's a great change for the better in the parsons. I remember the time, sir, that there wasn't an earnest clergyman in the vale; and now every other man you meet is trying to do his best. But those London parsons, sir, what's the matter with them? For all their societies and their schools, the devil seems to keep ahead of them sadly. I doubt they haven't found the right fly yet for publicans and sinners to rise at.'

A distant shot in the cover.

'There they are, sir. I thought that Crawy wouldn't lead me false when I let him off.'

'Well, fight away, then, and win. I have promised Miss Lavington not to lift a hand in the business.'

'Then you're a lucky man, sir. But the squire's game is his own, and we must do our duty by our master.'

There was a rustle in the bushes, and a tramp of feet on the turf.

'There they are, sir, sure enough. The Lord keep us from murder this night!' And Tregarva pulled off his neckcloth, and shook his huge limbs, as if to feel that they were all in their places, in a way that augured ill for the man who came across him.

They turned the corner of a ride, and, in an instant, found themselves face to face with five or six armed men, with blackened faces, who, without speaking a word, dashed at them, and the fight began; reinforcements came up on each side, and the engagement became general.

'The forest-laws were sharp and stern, The forest blood was keen, They lashed together for life and death Beneath the hollies green.

'The metal good and the walnut-wood Did soon in splinters flee; They tossed the orts to south and north, And grappled knee to knee.

'They wrestled up, they wrestled down, They wrestled still and sore; The herbage sweet beneath their feet Was stamped to mud and gore.'

And all the while the broad still moon stared down on them grim and cold, as if with a saturnine sneer at the whole humbug; and the silly birds about whom all this butchery went on, slept quietly over their heads, every one with his head under his wing. Oh! if pheasants had but understanding, how they would split their sides with chuckling and crowing at the follies which civilised Christian men perpetrate for their precious sake!

Had I the pen of Homer (though they say he never used one), or even that of the worthy who wasted precious years in writing a Homer Burlesqued, what heroic exploits might not I immortalise! In every stupid serf and cunning ruffian there, there was a heart as brave as Ajax's own; but then they fought with sticks instead of lances, and hammered away on fustian jackets instead of brazen s.h.i.+elds; and, therefore, poor fellows, they were beneath 'the dignity of poetry,'

<script>