’Many would take that for a declaration of war, but I know it ’s only your lordship’s diplomacy’; and then he let loose to his mad fun, astounding Lord Cressett and his gamekeeper, and vowed, as the young lord tried to relate subsequently, as well as he could recollect the words—­here I have it in print:—­’that he was a man pickled in saltpetre when an infant, like Achilles, and proof against powder and shot not marked with cross and key, and fetched up from the square magazine in the central depot of the infernal factory, third turning to the right off the grand arcade in Kingdom-come, where the night-porter has to wear wet petticoats, like a Highland chief, to make short work of the sparks flying about, otherwise this world and many another would not have to wait long for combustion.’

Kirby had the wildest way of talking when he was not issuing orders under fire, best understood by sailors.  I give it you as it stands here printed.  I do not profess to understand.

So Lord Cressett said:  ’Diplomacy and infernal factories be hanged!  Have your shot at me; it’s only fair.’  And Kirby discharged his pistol at the top twigs of an old oak tree, and called the young lord a Briton, and proposed to take him in hand and make a man of him, as nigh worthy of his wife as any one not an Alexander of Macedon could be.

So they became friendly, and the young lord confessed it was his family that had urged him to the attack; and Kirby abode at the castle, and all three were happy, in perfect honour, I am convinced:  but such was not the opinion of the Cressetts and Levelliers.  Down they trooped to Cressett Castle with a rush and a roar, crying on the disgrace of an old desperado like Kirby living there; Dukes, Marchionesses, Cabinet Ministers, leaders of fashion, and fire-eating colonels of the King’s body-guard, one of whom Captain John Peter Kirby laid on his heels at ten paces on an April morning, when the duel was fought, as early as the blessed heavens had given them light to see to do it.  Such days those were!

There was talk of shutting up the infatuated lady.  If not incarcerated, she was rigidly watched.  The earl her husband fell altogether to drinking and coaching, and other things.  The ballad makes her say: 

       ’My family my gaolers be,
        My husband is a zany;
        Naught see I clear save my bold Buccaneer
        To rescue Countess Fanny!’

and it goes on: 

       ’O little lass, at play on the grass,

        Come earn a silver penny,
        And you’ll be dear to my bold Buccaneer
        For news of his Countess Fanny.’

In spite of her bravery, that poor woman suffered!

We used to learn by heart the ballads and songs upon famous events in those old days when poetry was worshipped.