mention of him. This caused him to take
heart. He had humbled himself by looking
like a tipsy braggart, he would give them to
understand that if he had used bold words
overnight, he was a doughty man also when
he was sober in the morning. His courage
must not all be set down to the wine-cup.
Suddenly, therefore, he jumped out of bed
in visible wrath, threw open the window,
and called to his servant in the courtyard
for his sword and pistols. He had been put
to bed last night; he would fight the man
who had degraded him by putting him to
bed. His expectation was, that his friends
would, as they had done before, entreat him
to be reasonable, and tliat he would accordingly
be reasonable after having shown his
pluck.

But that which had been pitied in Roderick
drunk was despised in Roderick sober. The
knights only shrugged their shoulders, and
their braggart friend, bound to act out his
part, left them with a terrible air of
displeasure.

"What is this?" they said when he was
gone. "Is this endurable? Which of us
sent the man to bed? Who is it that has to
fight him?"

"The friend who first suggested sending
him to bed was I," said Gaston Cibo. "It
was I too who lighted him to bed with the
leg of a chair. Fetch me some paper!"

So Gaston had pen and paper brought and
sat up in his bed to write a challenge of
tremendous length and strength which he
was required to read to the whole chamber.
It was declared to be improperly abusive.
It would drive Roderick mad with rage and
compel a mortal issue to what ought to be a
light and cool duel ending perhaps with a
flesh wound.

"I shall not wet my pen twice for this
hero," Gaston said.

The challenge therefore was sent, but was
not opened by Roderick in the presence of
the squire who delivered it.

"Greet my Lord Gaston Cibo with all
friendship, and say I will promptly answer,"
were the words that came back by the
messenger. They were followed by a note
beginning My dear Brother, wondering
at the offence taken by one to whom no
provocation had been given, confessing that
the writer had been on the previous night
a beast, accepting Gaston's powerful abuse as
brotherly admonition that he would have
taken from no other man on earth, and
apologising to the whole company of the
bedroom for his violence that morning, when
he had not perfectly returned to his sober
senses.

Gaston would have dismissed the writer
with contempt; while, like a generous old
knight, he wished to suppress the letter.
But he had read aloud his challenge, and he
was compelled also to read aloud the answer
to it. Then he was urged to go to Roderick
and tell him that at least, for appearance
sake, a little friendly duel was required.
Roderick thought that it might suffice if they
both rode out into the wood, without seconds,
to fight, and there, instead of killing one
another, killed the time for half-an-hour. It
was enough to say that they had fought.
Treaty was, however, at last made for a fight
with pistols loaded only with their wadding
of roe's hair.

Under this compact Roderick went out to
battle. All the ladies of the castle were at
the window to see the duellists depart. The
coward's secret had not been betrayed to
them; and, for the honour of the order, never
was. He was allowed to edify them by
trying his two pistols, by making his horse
rear furiously, and by carrying two spare
horses, one, as he loudly proclaimed, to use
in the fight if his own steed was shot under
him, one to carry him to Andalusia when he
had killed his man. Gaston, as challenger,
had already ridden forth and taken his
position in the meadow.

The knights of the bedchamber, who would
not have crossed the threshold to look on at
anything so common as an ordinary duel,
kept their counsel, and suppressed their
laughter as they galloped out with their
heroic friend, who little thought that they
were in the secret of his courage. They
formed two sides, but Roderick claimed
battle without seconds. He was in fierce
mood, he said. A second might do something
to anger him, and easily compel him to
a second duel, but he had an oath in heaven
against fighting two men in a day. So the
antagonists met, and, after a short parley, in
which the young coward assured himself
that his old friend had nothing harder than
roe's hair in his pistols, and that it was
impossible they should have been changed by
any accident, the duel on horseback with
primaeval pistols was fought much after the
manner of the duel of Gaffer Jobsten,
who fired half a nightcap at his enemy and
covered him with fluff, but received in
return a bladder of pig's-blood that made a
murdered man of him before the eyes of all
beholders.

There is nothing very clever in the story
as a story, but, as a record of the good old
times, it shows pleasantly how the rough
behaviour of a brotherhood of knights was
seasoned with a restricted sense of courtesy
and of the duty of forbearance towards one
another. Judged by that modern standard
which we are so often warned against applying
to the measure of our forefathers, the
knight of old was an odd mixture of the
ruffian and the gentleman.