er fists on his back. Seeing
that all was for the moment lost, I fought my desperate way hand to hand
to the lane. Through taking the back road, I was so fortunate as to meet
nobody, and arrived there uninterrupted.

[Illustration]

It seemed an age, ere the Colonel joined me. He had been to the
jobbing-tailor's to be sewn up in several places, and attributed our
defeat to the refusal of the detested Drowvey to fall. Finding her so
obstinate he had said to her in a loud voice, "Die, recreant!" but had
found her no more open to reason on that point than the other.

My blooming Bride appeared, accompanied by the Colonel's Bride, at the
Dancing-School next day. What? Was her face averted from me? Hah! Even
so. With a look of scorn she put into my hand a bit of paper, and took
another partner. On the paper was pencilled, "Heavens! Can I write the
word! Is my husband a Cow?"

[Illustration: "SEWN UP IN SEVERAL PLACES."]

In the first bewilderment of my heated brain I tried to think what
slanderer could have traced my family to the ignoble animal mentioned
above. Vain were my endeavours. At the end of that dance I whispered
the Colonel to come into the cloak-room, and I showed him the note.

[Illustration]

"There is a syllable wanting," said he, with a gloomy brow.

"Hah! What syllable?" was my inquiry.

"She asks, Can she write the word? And no; you see she couldn't," said
the Colonel, pointing out the passage.

"And the word was?" said I.

"Cow--cow--coward," hissed the Pirate-Colonel in my ear, and gave me
back the note.

Feeling that I must for ever tread the earth a branded boy--person I
mean--or that I must clear up my honour, I demanded to be tried by a
Court-Martial. The Colonel admitted my right to be tried. Some
difficulty was found in composing the court, on account of the Emperor
of France's aunt refusing to let him come out. He was to be the
President. 'Ere yet we had appointed a substitute, he made his escape
over the back wall, and stood among us, a free monarch.

[Illustration: The court was held on the grass by the pond.]

The court was held on the grass by the pond. I recognised in a certain
Admiral among my judges my deadliest foe. A cocoa-nut had given rise to
language that I could not brook. But confiding in my innocence, and also
in the knowledge that the President of the United States (who sat next
him) owed me a knife, I braced myself for the ordeal.

[Illustration: "TWO EXECUTIONER