‘Why indeed?’ returned Richard.  ’Are they not, the earl and all his people, traitors, and that of the worst?  Are they not the enemies of the truth—­worshippers of idols, bowing the knee to a woman, and kissing the very toes of an old man so in love with ignorance, that he tortures the philosopher who tells him the truth about the world and its motions?’

’Go on, master Roundhead!  I can chastise you, and that you know.  This cursed knee—­’

‘I will stand unarmed within your thrust, and never budge a foot,’ said Richard.  ‘But no,’ he added, ’I dare not, lest I should further injure one I have wronged already.  Let there be a truce between us.’

‘I am no papist,’ returned Scudamore.  ’I speak only as one of the earl’s household—­true men all.  For them I cast the word in your teeth, you roundhead traitor!  For myself I am of the English church.’

‘It is but the wolf and the wolf’s cub,’ said.  Richard.  ’Prelatical episcopacy is but the old harlot veiled, or rather, forsooth, her bloody scarlet blackened in the sulphur fumes of her coming desolation.’

‘Curse on, roundhead,’ sighed the youth; ‘I must crawl home.’

Once more he rose and made an effort to walk.  But it was of no use:  walk he could not.

‘I must wait till the morning,’ he said, ’when some Christian waggoner may be passing.  Leave me in peace.’

‘Nay, I am no such boor!’ said Richard.  ’Do you think you could ride?’

‘I could try.’

’I will bring you the best mare in Gwent.  But tell me your name, that I may know with whom I have the honour of a feud.’

‘My name is Roland Scudamore,’ answered the youth.  ’Yours I know already, and round-head as you are, you have some smatch of honour in you.’

With an air of condescension he held out his hand, which his adversary, oppressed with a sense of the injury he had done him, did not refuse.

Richard hurried home, and to the stable, where he saddled his mare.  But his father, who was still in his study, heard the sound of her hoofs in the paved yard, and met him as he led her out on the road, with an inquiry as to his destination at such an hour.  Richard told him that he had had a quarrel with a certain young fellow of the name of Scudamore, a page of the earl of Worcester, whom he had met at lady Vaughan’s:  and recounted the result.

‘Was your quarrel a just one, my son?’

‘No sir.  I was in the wrong.’

’Then you are so far in the right now.  And you are going to help him home?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have you confessed yourself in the wrong?’

‘Yes, sir.’

’Then go, my son, but beware of private quarrel in such a season of strife.  This youth and thyself may meet some day in mortal conflict on the battle-field; and for my part—­I know not how it may be with another—­in such a case I would rather slay my friend than my enemy.’