“Dear me, nothing, Cousin Ridd; you never do anything to vex me.”

“Then I hope I shall do something now, Ruth, when I say good-bye.  God knows if we ever shall meet again, Ruth:  but I hope we may.”

“To be sure we shall,” she answered in her brightest manner.  “Try not to look wretched, John:  you are as happy as a Maypole.”

“And you as a rose in May,” I said; “and pretty nearly as pretty.  Give my love to Uncle Ben; and I trust him to keep on the winning side.”

“Of that you need have no misgivings.  Never yet has he failed of it.  Now, Cousin Ridd, why go you not?  You hurried me so at breakfast time?”

“My only reason for waiting, Ruth, is that you have not kissed me, as you are almost bound to do, for the last time perhaps of seeing me.”

“Oh, if that is all, just fetch the stool; and I will do my best, cousin.”

“I pray you be not so vexatious; you always used to do it nicely, without any stool, Ruth.”

“Ah, but you are grown since then, and become a famous man, John Ridd, and a member of the nobility.  Go your way, and win your spurs.  I want no lip-service.”

Being at the end of my wits, I did even as she ordered me.  At least I had no spurs to win, because there were big ones on my boots, paid for in the Easter bill, and made by a famous saddler, so as never to clog with marsh-weed, but prick as hard as any horse, in reason, could desire.  And Kickums never wanted spurs; but always went tail-foremost, if anybody offered them for his consideration.

[Illustration:  595.jpg Tailpiece]

CHAPTER LXIV

SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES

[Illustration:  596.jpg James I.]

We rattled away at a merry pace, out of the town of Dulverton; my horse being gaily fed, and myself quite fit again for going.  Of course I was puzzled about Cousin Ruth; for her behaviour was not at all such as I had expected; and indeed I had hoped for a far more loving and moving farewell than I got from her.  But I said to myself, “It is useless ever to count upon what a woman will do; and I think that I must have vexed her, almost as much as she vexed me.  And now to see what comes of it.”  So I put my horse across the moorland; and he threw his chest out bravely.

Now if I tried to set down at length all the things that happened to me, upon this adventure, every in and out, and up and down, and to and fro, that occupied me, together with the things I saw, and the things I heard of, however much the wiser people might applaud my narrative, it is likely enough that idle readers might exclaim, “What ails this man?  Knows he not that men of parts and of real understanding, have told us all we care to hear of that miserable business.  Let him keep to his farm, and his bacon, and his wrestling, and constant feeding.”