‘Ah, well!’ replied the guard, ’if you’ve been shot yourself, that explains.  But as for contentment, why, sir, you see, it smarts, as you say.  And then, I have a good wife, you see, and a bit of a brat—­a little thing, so high.’

‘Don’t move,’ said Mr. Archer.

‘No, sir, I will not, and thank you kindly,’ said Oglethorpe.  ’At York they are.  A very good lass is my wife—­far too good for me.  And the little rascal—­well, I don’t know how to say it, but he sort of comes round you.  If I were to go, sir, it would be hard on my poor girl—­main hard on her!’

‘Ay, you must feel bitter hardly to the rogue that laid you here,’ said Archer.

‘Why, no, sir, more against Engleton and the passengers,’ replied the guard.  ’He played his hand, if you come to look at it; and I wish he had shot worse, or me better.  And yet I’ll go to my grave but what I covered him,’ he cried.  ’It looks like witchcraft.  I’ll go to my grave but what he was drove full of slugs like a pepper-box.’

‘Quietly,’ said Mr. Archer, ’you must not excite yourself.  These deceptions are very usual in war; the eye, in the moment of alert, is hardly to be trusted, and when the smoke blows away you see the man you fired at, taking aim, it may be, at yourself.  You should observe, too, that you were in the dark night, and somewhat dazzled by the lamps, and that the sudden stopping of the mail had jolted you.  In such circumstances a man may miss, ay, even with a blunder-buss, and no blame attach to his marksmanship.’ . . .

THE YOUNG CHEVALIER

PROLOGUE—­THE WINE-SELLER’S WIFE

There was a wine-seller’s shop, as you went down to the river in the city of the Anti-popes.  There a man was served with good wine of the country and plain country fare; and the place being clean and quiet, with a prospect on the river, certain gentlemen who dwelt in that city in attendance on a great personage made it a practice (when they had any silver in their purses) to come and eat there and be private.

They called the wine-seller Paradou.  He was built more like a bullock than a man, huge in bone and brawn, high in colour, and with a hand like a baby for size.  Marie-Madeleine was the name of his wife; she was of Marseilles, a city of entrancing women, nor was any fairer than herself.  She was tall, being almost of a height with Paradou; full-girdled, point-device in every form, with an exquisite delicacy in the face; her nose and nostrils a delight to look at from the fineness of the sculpture, her eyes inclined a hair’s-breadth inward, her colour between dark and fair, and laid on even like a flower’s.  A faint rose dwelt in it, as though she had been found unawares bathing, and had blushed from head to foot.  She was of a grave countenance, rarely smiling; yet it seemed to be written upon every part of her that she rejoiced in life.  Her husband