rbulent fellows. The pedlar deemed
them a couple of madmen, whose ways were beyond the understanding of a
sober citizen. The others--the fishermen and the rustics--had not the
means to follow even had they had the will.

They dispersed to put abroad the news of that short furious quarrel
and to prophesy that blood would be let in the adjusting of it. This
prognostication the they based entirely upon their knowledge of the
short Tressilian way. But it was a matter in which they were entirely
wrong. It is true that Sir Oliver went galloping along that road that
follows the Penryn river and that he pounded over the bridge in the town
of Penryn in Master Godolphin's wake with murder in his heart. Men who
saw him riding wildly thus with the red wheal across his white furious
face said that he looked a very devil.

He crossed the bridge at Penryn a half-hour after sunset, as dusk was
closing into night, and it may be that the sharp, frosty air had a hand
in the cooling of his blood. For as he reached the river's eastern
bank he slackened his breakneck pace, even as he slackened the angry
galloping of his thoughts. The memory of that oath he had sworn three
months ago to Rosamund smote him like a physical blow. It checked his
purpose, and, reflecting this, his pace fell to an amble. He shivered to
think how near he had gone to wrecking all the happiness that lay ahead
of him. What was a boy's whiplash, that his resentment of it; should
set all his future life in jeopardy? Even though men should call him
a coward for submitting to it and leaving the insult unavenged, what
should that matter? Moreover, upon the body of him who did so proclaim
him he could brand the lie of a charge so foolish. Sir Oliver raised
his eyes to the deep sapphire dome of heaven where an odd star was
glittering frostily, and thanked God from a swelling heart that he had
not overtaken Peter Godolphin whilst his madness was upon him.

A mile or so below Penryn, he turned up the road that ran down to the
ferry there, and took his way home over the shoulder of the hill with
a slack rein. It was not his usual way. He was wont ever to go round by
Trefusis Point that he might take a glimpse at the walls of the house
that harboured Rosamund and a glance at the window of her bower. But
to-night he thought the shorter road over the hill would be the safer
way. If he went by Godolphin Court he might chance to meet Peter again,
and his past anger warned him again