Chapter 27

Now, by Our Lady, Sheriff,'tis hard reckoning,
That I, with every odds of birth and barony
Should be detain'd here for the casual death
Of a wild forester, whose utmost having
Is but the brazen buckle of the belt
In which he sticks his hedge-knife.
OLD PLAY.

While Edward was making preparations for securing and punishing the
supposed murderer of his brother, with an intense thirst for
vengeance, which had not hitherto shown itself as part of his
character, Sir Piercie Shafton made such communications as it pleased
him to the Sub-Prior, who listened with great attention, though the
knight's narrative was none of the clearest, especially as his
self-conceit led him to conceal or abridge the details which were
necessary to render it intelligible.

"You are to know," he said, "reverend father, that this rustical
juvenal having chosen to offer me, in the presence of your venerable
Superior, yourself, and other excellent and worthy persons, besides
the damsel, Mary Avenel, whom I term my Discretion in all honour and
kindness, a gross insult, rendered yet more intolerable by the time
and place, my just resentment did so gain the mastery over my
discretion, that I resolved to allow him the privileges of an equal,
and to indulge him with the combat."

"But, Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, "you still leave two matters
very obscure. First, why the token he presented to you gave you so
much offence, as I with others witnessed; and then again, how the
youth, whom you then met for the first, or, at least, the second time,
knew so much of your history as enabled him so greatly to move you."

The knight coloured very deeply.

"For your first query," he said, "most reverend father, we will, if
you please, pretermit it as nothing essential to the matter in hand;
and for the second--I protest to you that I know as little of his
means of knowledge as you do, and that I am well-nigh persuaded he
deals with Sathanas, of which more anon.--Well, sir--In the evening, I
failed not to veil my purpose with a pleasant brow, as is the custom
amongst us martialists, who never display the bloody colours of
defiance in our countenance until our hand is armed to fight under
them. I amused the fair Discretion with some canzonettes, and other
toys, which could not but be ravishing to her inexperienced ears. I
arose in the morning, and met my antagonist, who, to say truth, for an
inexperienced villagio, comported himself as stoutly as I could have
desired.--So, coming to the encounter, reverend sir, I did try his
mettle with some half-a-dozen of downright passes, with any one of
which I could have been through his body, only that I was loth