father's counsel that I must take the lie from none.
Therefore, as his steel was out, and I carried none, I made no more ado,
and the word of shame had scarce left his lips when I felled him with the
iron club that we use in sand.

"He is dead!" cried they of his party, while the lads of my own looked
askance on me, and had manifestly no mind to be partakers in my deed.

Now, Melville came of a great house, and, partly in fear of their feud,
partly like one amazed and without any counsel, I ran and leaped into a
boat that chanced to lie convenient on the sand, and pulled out into the
Eden. Thence I saw them raise up Melville, and bear him towards the
town, his friends lifting their hands against me, with threats and
malisons. His legs trailed and his head wagged like the legs and the
head of a dead man, and I was without hope in the world.

At first it was my thought to row up the river-mouth, land, and make
across the marshes and fields to our house at Pitcullo. But I bethought
me that my father was an austere man, whom I had vexed beyond bearing
with my late wicked follies, into which, since the death of my mother, I
had fallen. And now I was bringing him no college prize, but a blood-
feud, which he was like to find an ill heritage enough, even without an
evil and thankless son. My stepmother, too, who loved me little, would
inflame his anger against me. Many daughters he had, and of gear and
goods no more than enough. Robin, my elder brother, he had let pass to
France, where he served among the men of John Kirkmichael, Bishop of
Orleans--he that smote the Duke of Clarence in fair fight at Bauge.

Thinking of my father, and of my stepmother's ill welcome, and of Robin,
abroad in the wars against our old enemy of England, it may be that I
fell into a kind of half dream, the boat lulling me by its movement on
the waters. Suddenly I felt a crashing blow on my head. It was as if
the powder used for artillery had exploded in my mouth, with flash of
light and fiery taste, and I knew nothing. Then, how long after I could
not tell, there was water on my face, the blue sky and the blue tide were
spinning round--they spun swiftly, then slowly, then stood still. There
was a fierce pain stounding in my head, and a voice said--

"That good oar-stroke will learn you to steal boats!"

I knew the voice; it was that of a merchant sailor-man with whom, on the
day before, I had quarrelled in the market-place. Now I was