to do, for the last time perhaps of seeing me.'

'Oh, if that is all, just fetch the stool; and I will do my best,
cousin.'

'I pray you be not so vexatious; you always used to do it nicely,
without any stool, Ruth.'

'Ah, but you are grown since then, and become a famous man, John Ridd,
and a member of the nobility. Go your way, and win your spurs. I want no
lip-service.'

Being at the end of my wits, I did even as she ordered me. At least I
had no spurs to win, because there were big ones on my boots, paid for
in the Easter bill, and made by a famous saddler, so as never to clog
with marsh-weed, but prick as hard as any horse, in reason, could
desire. And Kickums never wanted spurs; but always went tail-foremost,
if anybody offered them for his consideration.

CHAPTER LXIV

SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES

We rattled away at a merry pace, out of the town of Dulverton; my horse
being gaily fed, and myself quite fit again for going. Of course I was
puzzled about Cousin Ruth; for her behaviour was not at all such as I
had expected; and indeed I had hoped for a far more loving and moving
farewell than I got from her. But I said to myself, 'It is useless ever
to count upon what a woman will do; and I think that I must have vexed
her, almost as much as she vexed me. And now to see what comes of
it.' So I put my horse across the moorland; and he threw his chest out
bravely.

Now if I tried to set down at length all the things that happened to me,
upon this adventure, every in and out, and up and down, and to and fro,
that occupied me, together with the things I saw, and the things I heard
of, however much the wiser people might applaud my narrative, it is
likely enough that idle readers might exclaim, 'What ails this man?
Knows he not that men of parts and of real understanding, have told
us all we care to hear of that miserable business. Let him keep to his
farm, and his bacon, and his wrestling, and constant feeding.'

Fearing to meet with such rebuffs (which after my death would vex me), I
will try to set down only what is needful for my story, and the clearing
of my character, and the good name of our parish. But the manner in
which I was bandied about, by false information, from pillar to post, or
at other times driven quite out of my way by the presence of the King's
soldiers, may be known by the names of the following towns, to which
I was sent in succession, Bath, Frome, Wells, Wincanton, Glastonbury,
Shept