weapons. "By the Lord, gentlemen!
you shall go no further! Jack Laramore's down, run through the shoulder!
Major Carrington, you have drawn blood--it is enough."

"If Sir William Berkeley is content," began Carrington, bowing to his
antagonist.

"Rat me! I've no choice," said the Governor ruefully. "You've disabled
my sword arm, and the gout has the other."

"I shall be happy to wait until the wound shall have healed," said the
Surveyor-General, with another bow.

"No, no," said his Excellency, with a laugh. "We'll cry quits. And rat
me! if now that we have had it out, I do not love thee better, Miles
Carrington, than ever I did before. In the morning when thou goest home,
burn thy library, burn Milton and Bastwick, and Withers, and the rest of
the rogues, forswear such rascally company forever, and rat me! if I
will not maintain that thou art the honestest, as well as the
longest-headed, man in the colony. There's my hand on it, and to-night
we'll have a rouse such as would make old Noll turn in his grave if he
had one."

Carrington took the proffered hand courteously, if coldly. "I thank your
Excellency for your advice. Your Excellency should have your wound
attended to at once. You are losing a deal of blood."

"Tut, a trifle!" said the Governor, airily, winding a handkerchief about
the bleeding member.

"Is there ever a chirurgeon upon the place?" asked Sir Charles in his
most dulcet tones. "If not, I fear that Captain Laramore will very
shortly make his last voyage."

"Egad! that will never do!" cried the Colonel, dropping upon his knees
beside the wounded man. "A bad thrust! Charles, thou art the very
devil!"

"Shall I ride for the doctor?" cried Mr. Peyton.

"No. Anthony Nash is at the house. Run, lad, and fetch him. He is
surgeon as well as divine."

Mr. Peyton disappeared; and presently there stood in the midst of the
group gathered about the unconscious captain, a man clad in a clerical
dress and of a very dignified and scholarly demeanor.

"Ha, gentlemen!" he said gravely, looking with bright, dark eyes from
one to the other. "This is a sorry business. Shirts, drawn rapiers,
trampled turf, Sir William bleeding, Captain Laramore senseless upon the
ground! His Excellency the Governor; Major Carrington, the
Surveyor-General; Colonel Verney, the lieutenant of the
shire;--scandalous, gentlemen!"

"And Anthony Nash who would give his chance of a mitre to have been one
of us," cried the Governor.