n George said, "Now we must
shake hands; it's the proper thing to do," he looked bewildered for a
moment. It made George laugh in his easy way, and then Taffy laughed
too.

After this they had a bout almost every day; and he was soon able to
hold his own and treat it as sport. But somehow he always felt a
passion behind it, whispering to him to put some nastiness into his
blows, especially when Honoria came to look on. And yet he liked
George far better than he liked Honoria. Indeed, he adored George,
and the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings when George appeared
were the bright spots in his week. Lessons were over at twelve
o'clock; by one o'clock Taffy had to be home for dinner. Loneliness
filled the afternoons, but the child peopled them with extravagant
fancies. He and George were crusaders sworn to defend the Holy
Sepulchre, and bound by an oath of brotherhood, though George was a
Red Cross Knight and he a plain squire; and after the most surprising
adventures Taffy received the barbed and poisoned arrow intended for
his master, and died most impressively, with George and Honoria, and
Richard Coeur de Lion, and most of the characters from "Ivanhoe,"
sobbing round his bed. There was a Blondel variant too, with George
imprisoned in a high tower; and a monstrous conglomerate tale in
which most of the heroes of history and romance played second fiddle
to George, whose pre-eminence, though occasionally challenged by
Achilles, Sir Lancelot, or the Black Prince, was regularly vindicated
by Taffy's timely help.

This tale, with endless variations, actually lasted him for two good
years. The scene of it never lay among the towans, but round about
his old home or the well-remembered meadow at Tewkesbury. That was
his plain of Troy, his Field of Cressy, his lists of Ashby de la
Zouche. The high road at the back of the towans crossed a stream, by
a ford and a footbridge; and the travelling postman, if he had any
letters for the Parsonage, would stop by the footbridge and blow a
horn. He little guessed what challenges it sounded to the small boy
who came running for the post.

The postman came by, as a rule, at two o'clock or thereabouts.
One afternoon in early spring Mr. Raymond happened to be starting for
a walk when the horn was blown, and he and Taffy went to meet the
post together. There were three or four letters which the Vicar
opened; and one for Humility, which he put in his pocket. In the
midst