evil comes of this I shall testify to the grossness of your aggression.
Get you gone from here!"

"Go to the devil, sir," said Master Godolphin thickly. "Is my mother's
name to be upon the lips of that bastard? By God, man, the matter rests
not here. He shall send his friends to me, or I will horse-whip him
every time we meet. You hear, Sir Oliver?"

Sir Oliver made him no reply.

"You hear?" he roared. "There is no Sir John Killigrew this time upon
whom you can shift the quarrel. Come you to me and get the punishment of
which that whiplash is but an earnest." Then with a thick laugh he drove
spurs into his horse's flanks, so furiously that he all but sent the
parson and another sprawling.

"Stay but a little while for me," roared Sir Oliver after him. "You'll
ride no more, my drunken fool!"

And in a rage he bellowed for his horse, flinging off the parson and
Master Baine, who endeavoured to detain and calm him. He vaulted to
the saddle when the nag was brought him, and whirled away in furious
pursuit.

The parson looked at the Justice and the Justice shrugged, his lips
tight-pressed.

"The young fool is drunk," said Sir Andrew, shaking his white head.
"He's in no case to meet his Maker."

"Yet he seems very eager," quoth Master Justice Baine. "I doubt I shall
hear more of the matter." He turned and looked into the forge where the
bellows now stood idle, the smith himself grimy and aproned in leather
in the doorway, listening to the rustics account of the happening.
Master Baine it seems had a taste for analogies. "Faith," he said, "the
place was excellently well chosen. They have forged here to-day a sword
which it will need blood to temper."

CHAPTER IV. THE INTERVENER

The parson had notions of riding after Sir Oliver, and begged Master
Baine to join him. But the Justice looked down his long nose and opined
that no good purpose was to be served; that Tressilians were ever wild
and bloody men; and that an angry Tressilian was a thing to be avoided.
Sir Andrew, who was far from valorous, thought there might be wisdom in
the Justice's words, and remembered that he had troubles enough of his
own with a froward wife without taking up the burdens of others. Master
Godolphin and Sir Oliver between them, quoth the justice, had got up
this storm of theirs. A God's name let them settle it, and if in the
settling they should cut each other's throats haply the countryside
would be well rid of a brace of tu