As he rode his fancy wrought the fairy web of a day-dream, in which he saw himself delivering the fair princess Liberty from the fiery dragon Prejudice and the stolid giant Obstruction. The knights met just where an ancient oak of mighty bulk stretched overhead a huge branch across the path, as some aged athlete might stretch out an arm rigid with gnarled and knotted muscles, to show younger generations how Olympian laurels were won when Pollux or Hercules plied the cestus. From this branch a shield hung suspended. ‘Good morrow, fair knight,’ said he of the primrose scarf; ‘prithee tell me if thou knowest what means this golden shield suspended here.’ ‘I marvel at it myself, good Sir Knight,’ responded the other; ‘but you mistake in calling the shield golden; it is of silver.’ ‘Your eyes must be of the dullest,’ said the first knight, ‘if you mistake gold for silver.’ ‘Not so dull as yours,’ retorted the other, ‘if you mistake silver for gold.’ The argument waxed hot, and, as usual in such cases, as tempers grew weak adjectives grew strong. Soon, like the old Homeric heroes when Greek met Trojan Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy, winged words of fire and fury darted from each mouth, and epithets were exchanged, of which ‘stupid old Tory’ and ‘low, vulgar Radical’ were among the least unparliamentary. At length the fatal words ‘You lie’ escaped simultaneously from both, and on the instant spears were couched, steeds spurred, and, red with rage, they encountered each other in full career. Such was the momentum that both men and horses rolled over, even as the Templar went down before the spear of Ivanhoe within the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. But, like the redoubted knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert, each sprang to his feet and drew his sword, eager to redeem the fortune of war in deadly combat. Like two surly boars with bristling backs and foaming tusks quarrelling for the right of way in Indian jungle, or tawny lions in Numidian desert tearing one another to pieces for the smiles of a leonine Helen, the heroes clashed together, cutting, slashing, parrying, foyning, and traversing, until at length, bleeding and breathless, they paused for a moment, leaning on their swords to recover second wind. Just then an aged hermit appeared on the scene, drawn thither by the sound of the combat. ‘Pause, my sons,’ he said, ‘and tell me what is the cause of this furious encounter.’ ‘Yonder false villain protests,’ said the one, ‘that the shield which hangs there is of gold.’ ‘And that lying varlet persists that it is of silver,’ said the other. The hermit smiled, and said, ‘Hold your hands, good sirs, for a single moment, and use your remaining strength to exchange places and look at the opposite side of the shield.’ They obeyed his words, and found to their confusion that they had been fighting in a quarrel in which each was right and each wrong.