"Ah, I remember; and I think I see what you are driving at, Aunt Kate. Saunders, who is only a slightly-built fellow, and almost as thin as a whipping post, got into a row with some of those canal men; he wanted them to turn out of his way, or to let him pass and go through a lock before them, and they wouldn't." "And did he ask them civilly?" "Nay, Aunt Kate, not he. No, I'm sorry to say he swore at them; for he's a very hasty fellow with his tongue is Saunders." "And were the bargemen unreasonably hindering him?" "I can't say that. They were just going into the lock when he rowed up, and he wanted them to get out of his way and let him go into the lock first. I don't think myself that he was right." "And what happened then?" "Oh, he abused them, and they wanted to throw him into the canal; at least they threatened to do so. And then he challenged the biggest of them to a stand-up fight, and a ring was made and they fought; and certainly it was a strange thing to see Saunders, with his bare arms looking no thicker than a hop-pole, tackling that great fellow, whose right arm was nearly as thick as Saunders's body. Nevertheless, Saunders didn't shrink; he stood up to the bargee, and, being a capital boxer, he managed to win the day, and to leave the man he was fighting with nearly blind with two swollen black eyes. And every one said what `pluck' little Saunders showed." "Had the bargeman a wife and children?" asked Miss Huntingdon quietly, after a few moments' silence. "What a strange question, auntie!" cried her nephew laughing. "Oh, I'm sure I don't know. I daresay he had." "But I suppose, Walter, he was a plain working-man, who got bread for himself and his family by his work on the canal." "Oh, of course, auntie; but what has that to do with it?" "A very great deal, dear boy. There may have been plenty of pluck shown by your friend Saunders on that occasion, but certainly no moral courage. Indeed _I_ should call his conduct decidedly immoral and cowardly." "Cowardly, aunt!" "Yes, cowardly, and mean. What right had he to use, or rather abuse, his superior skill as a pugilist for the purpose of carrying out an act of wrong-doing, and so to give pain and inflict loss on a plain working- man who had done him no harm, and had not had the same advantages of education as himself?" "O aunt! you _are_ severe indeed." "Not too severe, Walter. Saunders, you acknowledge, spoke and acted hastily and improperly at first, and he must have known that he had done so. Now the true moral courage would have been shown in his confessing that he was wrong, and expressing sorrow for it." "What! to a bargee!"