“What else could he do, the fool?  He had nothing to help him but his hand.  Says he, ’That’s a poor way of trying to stop me.  My business is with this gentleman;’ and Bob set his horse at Mr. Algernon, and Mrs. Lovell rode across him with her hand raised; and just at that moment up jogged the old gentleman, Squire Blancove, of Wrexby:  and Robert Eccles says to him, ’You might have saved your son something by keeping your word.’  It appears according to Bob, that the squire had promised to see his son, and settle matters.  All Mrs. Lovell could do was hardly enough to hold back Mr. Edward from laying out at Bob.  He was like a white devil, and speaking calm and polite all the time.  Says Bob, ’I’m willing to take one when I’ve done with the other;’ and the squire began talking to his son, Mrs. Lovell to Mr. Edward, and the rest of the gentlemen all round poor dear old Bob, rather bullying—­like for my blood; till Bob couldn’t help being nettled, and cried out, ’Gentlemen, I hold him in my power, and I’m silent so long as there’s a chance of my getting him to behave like a man with human feelings.’  If they’d gone at him then, I don’t think I could have let him stand alone:  an opinion’s one thing, but blood’s another, and I’m distantly related to Bob; and a man who’s always thinking of the value of his place, he ain’t worth it.  But Mrs. Lovell, she settled the case—­a lady, Farmer Wainsby, with your leave.  There’s the good of having a lady present on the field.  That’s due to a lady!”

“Happen she was at the bottom of it,” the farmer returned Stephen’s nod grumpily.

“How did it end, Stephen, my lad?” said Butcher Billing, indicating a “never mind him.”

“It ended, my boy, it ended like my glass here—­hot and strong stuff, with sugar at the bottom.  And I don’t see this, so glad as I saw that, my word of honour on it!  Boys all!” Stephen drank the dregs.

Mrs. Boulby was still in attendance.  The talk over the circumstances was sweeter than the bare facts, and the replenished glass enabled Stephen to add the picturesque bits of the affray, unspurred by a surrounding eagerness of his listeners—­too exciting for imaginative effort.  In particular, he dwelt on Robert’s dropping the reins and riding with his heels at Algernon, when Mrs. Lovell put her horse in his way, and the pair of horses rose like waves at sea, and both riders showed their horsemanship, and Robert an adroit courtesy, for which the lady thanked him with a bow of her head.

“I got among the hounds, pretending to pacify them, and call ’em together,” said Stephen, “and I heard her say—­just before all was over, and he turned off—­I heard her say:  ‘Trust this to me:  I will meet you.’  I’ll swear to them exact words, though there was more, and a ‘where’ in the bargain, and that I didn’t hear.  Aha! by George! thinks I, old Bob, you’re a lucky beggar, and be hanged if I wouldn’t go mad too for a minute or so of short, sweet, private talk with a lovely young widow lady as ever the sun did shine upon so boldly—­oho!