She hurried away, and I saw her afterwards seated amongst the bracken, her back turned towards the multitude, and her hands over her ears, cowering and wincing in an agony of apprehension.

Whilst this hurried scene had been taking place, the crowd had become more and more tumultuous, partly from their impatience at the delay, and partly from their exuberant spirits at the unexpected chance of seeing so celebrated a fighting man as Harrison.  His identity had already been noised abroad, and many an elderly connoisseur plucked his long net-purse out of his fob, in order to put a few guineas upon the man who would represent the school of the past against the present.  The younger men were still in favour of the west-countryman, and small odds were to be had either way in proportion to the number of the supporters of each in the different parts of the crowd.

In the mean time Sir Lothian Hume had come bustling up to the Honourable Berkeley Craven, who was still standing near our curricle.

“I beg to lodge a formal protest against these proceedings,” said he.

“On what grounds, sir?”

“Because the man produced is not the original nominee of Sir Charles Tregellis.”

“I never named one, as you are well aware,” said my uncle.

“The betting has all been upon the understanding that young Jim Harrison was my man’s opponent.  Now, at the last moment, he is withdrawn and another and more formidable man put into his place.”

“Sir Charles Tregellis is quite within his rights,” said Craven, firmly.  “He undertook to produce a man who should be within the age limits stipulated, and I understand that Harrison fulfils all the conditions.  You are over five-and-thirty, Harrison?”

“Forty-one next month, master.”

“Very good.  I direct that the fight proceed.”

But alas! there was one authority which was higher even than that of the referee, and we were destined to an experience which was the prelude, and sometimes the conclusion, also, of many an old-time fight.  Across the moor there had ridden a black-coated gentleman, with buff-topped hunting-boots and a couple of grooms behind him, the little knot of horsemen showing up clearly upon the curving swells and then dipping down into the alternate hollows.  Some of the more observant of the crowd had glanced suspiciously at this advancing figure, but the majority had not observed him at all until he reined up his horse upon a knoll which overlooked the amphitheatre, and in a stentorian voice announced that he represented the Custos rotulorum of His Majesty’s county of Sussex, that he proclaimed this assembly to be gathered together for an illegal purpose, and that he was commissioned to disperse it by force, if necessary.