was made at the moment when we were
separating for the night.

I passed the greater part of the dark hours,
in writing letters of farewell to my relations, and
in composing a stinger for Miss Mary Nuttlebury,
which I trusted would embitter the whole
of her future life. Then I threw myself on my
bed—which was not wholly devoid of knobs—
and found for a few hours the oblivion I desired.

We were first on the ground. Indeed, it was
necessary that we should be, as those three
ferocious Anabaptists, Cripps, Fowler, and
Kershaw, had to be stowed away in places of
concealment whence they could see without being
seen; but even when this stowage had been
accomplished and the fatal hour had arrived, we
were still kept waiting so long that a faint hope
—misgiving, I meant to say—began to dawn in
my heart that my adversary had been seized
with a sudden panic, and had fled at the last
moment, leaving me master of the situation,
with a bloodless victory.

The sound of voices, and of laughter—laughter!
—reached me while I was musing on the prospect
of an honourable escape from my perilous
position. In another moment my antagonist,
still talking and laughing with some one who
closely followed him, jumped over a stile at the
side of the field in which we awaited him.
Grinning in the most impudent manner, my
antagonist inquired of his second, who was the
village apothecary's assistant, whether he was a
good hand at patching up bullet wounds?

It was at this moment that an incident
occurred which caused a small delay in our
proceedings. One of the Anabaptists—Cripps—
had, with a view to concealment, and also
perhaps with a view to keeping out of harm's way,
perched himself in a tree which commanded a
good view of the field of action; but not
having used sufficient caution in the choice
of his position, he had trusted his weight to
a bough which proved unequal to the task of
sustaining it. Consequently it happened that
just as the seconds were beginning their
preliminary arrangements, and during an awful
pause, the unlucky Cripps came plunging and
crashing to the ground, where he remained
seated at the foot of the tree in a state of
undignified ruin and prostration.

After this there was a prodigious row and
confusion. My opponent having thus
discovered that there was one person observing
our proceedings from a place of concealment,
concluded naturally enough that there might be
others. Accordingly a search was promptly
instituted, which ended in the unearthing of my
two other friends, who were obliged to emerge
from their hiding-places in a very humiliated
and crestfallen condition. My adversary would
not hear of fighting a duel in the presence of
so large an audience, and so it ended in the three
brutal Anabaptists being—very much to my
satisfaction—expelled from the field. The
appearance they presented as they retired along
the pathway in Indian file, was the most abject
thing I have ever beheld.

This little business disposed of, there remained
the great affair of the day to settle, and it took
a great deal of settlement. There were
diversities of opinions about every detail connected
with the murderous operations. There were
disputes about the number of paces which should
separate the combatants, about the length of
those paces, about the proper method of loading
pistols, about the best way of giving the
signal to fire—about everything. But what
disgusted me most, was the levity displayed
by my opponent, who seemed to think the whole
thing a capital joke, sneering and sniggering at
everything that was done or said. Does the man
bear a charmed life, I asked myself, that he
behaves with such sickening flippancy when about
to risk it?

At last all these endless preliminaries were
settled, and Mr. Huffell and I remained staring
defiance at each other with a distance of
only twelve paces between us. The beast was
grinning even now, and when he was asked for
the last time whether he was prepared to make
an apology, he absolutely laughed.

It had been arranged that one of the seconds,
Huffell's as it happened, should count one, two,
three, and that at the word "three" we should
both fire (if we could) at the same moment.
My heart felt so tight at about this period, that
I fancied it must have contracted to half its
usual size, and I had a sensation of being light
on my legs, and inordinately tall, such as one
has after having had a fever.

"One!" said the apothecary, and the
monosyllable was followed by quite a long pause.

"Two!"

"Stop!" cried a voice, which I recognised
as the voice of my adversary, " I have something
to say."

I whisked myself round in a moment, and
saw that Mr. Huffell had thrown his weapon
down on the ground, and had left the position
which had been assigned to him.

"What have you to say, sir?" asked the
inexorable Dewsnap, in a severe tone; " whatever
it is, you have chosen a most extraordinary
moment to say it in."

"I have changed my mind," said Mr. Huffell,
in a lachrymose tone; " I think that duelling is
sinful, and I consent to apologise."

Astounded as I was at this announcement, I
had yet leisure to observe that the apothecary
did not look in the least surprised at what had
happened.

"You consent to apologise?" asked Dewsnap,
"to resign all claim to the lady, to express your
deep contrition for the insolent expressions you
have made use of towards my friend?"

"I consent," was the reply.

"We must have it all down in writing, mind!"
stipulated my uncompromising friend.

"You shall have it all down in writing,"
said the contrite one.

"Well, this is a most extraordinary and
unsatisfactory sort of thing," said Dewsnap, turning
to me. " What are we to do?"

"It is unsatisfactory, but I suppose we must