The supper had been as heavy and. fas diverse as suppers of the war years of the mid-seventeenth century were wont to be, Salted herrings and mustard sauce, stuffed apples and spiced cream, fat cold ham garnished by bleak and minnow laden omelettes, pickled brisket and nasturtium seeds in honeyed wine and the whole washed down by foaming marley ale the fifteen cavalier assembled in the cool dining room of Moatharrow Hall there formed a welcome sortment!
Probably deep sampling of such varied delights had made the Knight languidly morose. stronomleal skirmish was waging about the borders of his satiety, to cause an outward ebullition of warring emotions to be less surprising than Inevitable; surely it was that something hed gone amiss with him. For, as the church clock of Moatharrow village called down to the Royalist force, investing the an~ cleat place, that once more a soldier's day was ended—that it was the hour of curfew on a late summer's eve, Sir Harry Ravynsmere staggered up {in this seat, and, pitched a platter of mustarded herrings straight at, the head of a handsome and bayish officer facing him across the polished oaken board!
'A fearsome sight was that sometime gay cavaller an instant later. Out from a clinging yellow sheath of creamy condiments two wide blue eyes gazed, wetly, at the eardonieal perpetrator of the horror. Where fragments of fish did not cling pre~ anously to his oiled and exsenced brown curls they festooned his cup-like necking armour. Into this metal collar—a ring of Spanish steel, looking for all the world like a' richly burnished and upturned trumpet bell =the mustard sauce cloyed his point laces, and herrings unrolling In miserable destiny, wasted their substance flake by flake down his uncommonly full-breasted cuirass. with his sorry state. He gouged at his smarting and streaming eyes with damask napkin and tried hard to reserve some semblance of dignity before his silent companions. These, the officers of Eversleigh's column of horse, were his hosts—olherwise they would have laughed at him, he thought. He was wrong, quite wrong. The only reason their satirical glee was restrained was evidenced on Sir Harry Ravynsmere's blood ushed mask of a face. There was something s0 felty repellent about the line: of his thinly smiling mouth—something so boding and threateningly powerful expressed on his darkly handsome, hawkrun features, that they dared not give way to merrie ment.
Out of the whole wide Shire of York, they knew Sir Harry was a swordsman without compare. He would a3 lief pin a man to a panelled wall og a cockchafer to cork. As to ply, did Harry Ravynsmere know the meaning of the word? They doubted it..... best leave the Knight of Ravynsmere to his own tortuous devices, they very wisely decided.
But, they were sorry for the lad, a stranger to their boisterous company, he could not know of Ravynsmere's prowess with a S2-length of steel—they were very sorry. One Maurice Veyne-Ponsonby, of the Leicester Ponsonby's he had stated, the young cavalier had ridden up headquarters at Moatharrow Hall only an hour or so before and had asked a night's hospitality for himself and the 25 heavily -horsed troopers a him. He had told their company that he was riding North to link up with my Lord Neweastle's forces, then bivouscking ten miles north of Leols. He would fail in his fourney—pitted against Ravynemere in a duel it meant that the boyish officer would never lead his tiny troop again: bluntly, It meant murder. an of which trifling bye-play_ seemed to cause the Knight of Ravynsmere an infinite amusement. Cynically smiling he sat back in the hard backed chair and watched the bovine features of the General mottling 19 the maroon tint of rich old wine; caught the evil: glint of the men's eyee—saw the clawing of his massive bands... Sir Harry then turned and looked st Veyne-Ponsonby—and found the youth looking at him.
Pity? Men hed often said, and in hhis hearing, that Sir Harry Ravynsmere had no more pity in his soul than a flea had learning in its casement—yet, swifter than ever the swords of these two would dart, glance of pity flew across from Ravynsmere's eyes to those of Veyne-Ponsonby. The youth, incongruous yet with bedaubed sauces, caught nce and held it... looked fuster-surprised, astounded—then, flushed, Veyne-Ponsonby's face—a. hand-Jsome and finely chiselled face, as could be seen, despite enshrouding curls and condiments, high steel collar fand muffling lace—rouged as delicate-as any girl's beneath the Knight of Ravynsmere's eyes. Then there was no more pily—a curse, a briefly sneering order to the effect that conments on the face of an officer of the Royalist forces detracted from the dignity of the Cause, and would, therefore, be at once removed... Sir Harry Ravynsmere, by virile of superior rank, hed dismissed the youth to his room.
"And while above him Maurice] Veyne-Ponsonby, behind a securely locked door, divested himself of ormourings and washed and changed his linen—Harry Ravynsmere sat and thought. He wondered ah—now he knew!
Sir Harry lay back and viewed the result of +his handiwork in a mood of tolerant and mocking pride: a drunken solemnity of satisfaction, The rest of the company, those thirteen officers commanding' the Duke of Eversieigh's column of horse, sat aghast; stunned to silence by astonish ment, And at that moment a tall and powerful gute, decked in the crimson and gold blazoned dress of Royalist General—one of Prince Rupert's First Army—stalked very slowly and ponderously into the room from the lawn, through the open Yang-windows. He smiled, sneeringly, on the sorry spectacle. He had geon the contents of the dish being lung over the boy just as he was intending, a moment or so before, the entrance he now had made.
"An—a needle difference as to the food, gendiemans mine?
ry of Prince Rupert's bir ug, he questioned grumy in a voice which bespoke his nationality—a voice full of dull Netherlandic accents, "The makings of sword meat for one or the odder of you—hetn? Cod ye lollop "he turned and addressed himself to the youth with the asperity habitual to him when dealing with lessor ranks: that of loading and bullying authority—"vilt Ye not out a blade don't? Or, was Ut? 'The muster' perchance, Is hotter than yre spleen? Are thet rings stronger than thy guts bantam?"
It wocurred to the wily brain of Sir Harry Ravynsmere that, for some obscure reason, the General von Strohelm was goading the assaulted youth to make @ sword attack on his delightfully lazy and quite contented felt. 'This was most interesting! The Knight of Ravynsmere smiled to the frothing laces of his eravat—that no one else should see that smile 'He. awaited' the boy's patience; it would be just as well to gauge the lengths to which he would fo to avenge himself the insult. Yes—Sir Harry Ravynsmere was very iaterested, "There was no quarrel," the youth's voice, although steady, expressed bewilderment and some' subtle quality of "hopelessness—a mused, confuse 14 amazed hopelessness "no quarrel at all, my general, I—I shall, of a certainty, Aight on'ti"
Sir Harry Ravynsmere found that his interest was now giving way to a strange and quickening warmth about the calloused and shrivelled organism which once he hed been pleased to tell fair ladies, in the moonlight over soft lawns in the spacious days of the first Carolean court, was his heart. This time he Tooked down at the table—that none should see his eyes.
The young cavalier drew. himself up in pride, an attitude iM according "Yes, s0 thout't ght don't, my cocking?" Coldly the Knight of Ravynsmere made answer to the youth's avowed intention. " Thoul't fight wilt? In two has then—midnight down by the form garden. Well settle ti matter, alone!
"In-in two hours sir?" If it was the pride of an affronted courage that sent young Veyne-Ponsonby's voice high up in his throat to sound like that of a woman, that pride was dreadfully belied by the dumb, still agony of his eyes. The boy looked on Ravynsmere and knew that he Jooked on death. He knew he was doomed... yet, that would not have meant so much to him_as what It now entalled—he could not full his purpose: that purpose he had promised to his King that the Devil himself should not prevent him from accomplishing—wanly he remembered the boas!: looked at Ravynsmere again: thought, wildly, here was the Devil, trapped out in human flesh—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.