‘Curse you for a roundhead!’ he cried; ’you’ve twisted some of my tackle.  I can’t stand.’

‘I’m sorry,’ returned Richard, ’but why did you bare bilbo on a naked man?  A right malignant you are !’

‘Did I?’ returned Scudamore.  ’You laid hands on me so suddenly!  I ask your pardon.’

Accepting the offered aid of Richard, he rose; but his right knee was so much hurt that he could not walk a step without great pain.  Full of regret for the suffering he had caused, Richard lifted him in his arms, and seated him on a low wall of earth, which was all that here inclosed lady Vaughan’s shrubbery; then, breaking through the hedge on the opposite side of the way, presently returned with the rapier, and handed it to him.  Scudamore accepted it courteously, with difficulty replaced it in its sheath, rose, and once more attempted to walk, but gave a groan, and would have fallen had not Richard caught him.

‘The devil is in it!’ he cried, with more annoyance than anger.  ’If I am not in my place at my lord’s breakfast to-morrow, there will be questioning.  That I had leave to accompany my mother makes the mischief.  If I had stole away, it would be another matter.  It will be hard to bear rebuke, and no frolic.’

‘Come home with me,’ said Richard.  ’My father will do his best to atone for the wrong done by his son.’

’Set foot across the threshold of a roundhead fanatic!  In the way of hospitality!  Not if the choice lay betwixt that and my coffin!’ cried the cavalier.

‘Then let me carry you back to lady Vaughan’s,’ said Richard, with a torturing pang of jealousy, which only his sense of right, now thoroughly roused, enabled him to defy.

’I dare not.  I should terrify my mother, and perhaps kill my cousin.’

‘Your mother! your cousin!’ cried Richard.

‘Yes,’ returned Scudamore; ’my mother is there, on a visit to her cousin lady Vaughan.’

‘Alas, I am more to blame than I knew!’ said Richard.

‘No,’ Scudamore went on, heedless of Richard’s lamentation.  ’I must crawl back to Raglan as I may.  If I get there before the morning, I shall be able to show reason why I should not wait upon my lord at his breakfast.’

‘You belong to the earl’s household, then?’ said Richard.

’Yes; and I fear I shall be grey-headed before I belong to anything else.  He makes much of the ancient customs of the country:  I would he would follow them.  In the good old times I should have been a squire at least by now, if, indeed, I had not earned my spurs; but his lordship will never be content without me to hand him his buttered egg at breakfast, and fill his cup at dinner with his favourite claret.  And so I am neither more nor less than a page, which rhymes with my age better than suits it.  But the earl has a will of his own.  He is a master worth serving though.  And there is my lady Elizabeth and my lady Mary—­not to mention my lord Herbert!—­But,’ he concluded, rubbing his injured knee with both hands, ‘why do I prate of them to a roundhead?’