first, or let
me show ye the way?"

I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him. As he went I
heard him grumble to himself about _Cot's English_ and the _King's
coat_, so that I might have supposed him to be seriously offended. But
his manner at the beginning of our interview was there to belie him. It
was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or
wrong; manifest that I was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies;
and to me (conscious as I was of my deficiencies) manifest enough that I
should be the one to fall in our encounter.

As we came into that rough, rocky desert of the King's Park I was
tempted half a dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so loath
was I to show my ignorance in fencing, and so much averse to die or even
to be wounded. But I considered if their malice went as far as this, it
would likely stick at nothing; and that to fall by the sword, however
ungracefully, was still an improvement on the gallows. I considered,
besides, that by the unguarded pertness of my words and the quickness of
my blow, I had put myself quite out of court; and that even if I ran, my
adversary would probably pursue and catch me, which would add disgrace
to my misfortune. So that, taking all in all, I continued marching
behind him, much as a man follows the hangman, and certainly with no
more hope.

We went about the end of the long craigs, and came into the Hunter's
Bog. Here, on a piece of fair turf, my adversary drew. There was nobody
there to see us but some birds; and no resource for me but to follow his
example, and stand on guard with the best face I could display. It seems
it was not good enough for Mr. Duncansby, who spied some flaw in my
manoeuvres, paused, looked upon me sharply, and came off and on, and
menaced me with his blade in the air. As I had seen no such proceedings
from Alan, and was besides a good deal affected with the proximity of
death, I grew quite bewildered, stood helpless, and could have longed to
run away.

"Fat deil ails her?" cries the lieutenant.

And suddenly engaging, he twitched the sword out of my grasp, and sent
it flying far among the rushes.

Twice was this manoevure repeated; and the third time, when I brought
back my humiliated weapon, I found he had returned his own to the
scabbard, and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger, and his hands
clasped under his skirt.

"Pe tamned if I touch you!" he cried, and asked me bitte