The farmer’s great fists would have dealt out terrible punishment had the milk-stealer been unable to parry them. Even as it was, and in spite of all that he could summon of youth, activity and skill, Gervase did not get off scot free. To the huge delight of the farm hands who were shouting loud encouragement to their master, the milk-stealer received one blow on the side of the jaw that shook him terribly, while another caught the young man on the nose and drew his blood. But this was slight punishment compared with what might have been, for had Gervase been wholly without experience he had paid heavy toll for his felony. Now Gervase was enough of a man to accept and perhaps even to desire punishment for his offence. He could not help feeling that Master Gideon Partlet had received a deep wrong at his hands, so that he felt at first no very great animosity toward the farmer. But if the truth must be told, the crack on the jaw shook considerably this chivalrous desire to make payment in kind for his felony; the starting of the blood rendered it in imminent danger; and when presently he was so hard pressed that his right eye was like to be closed, the noble sense of equity of which all men do well to be jealous, was thrown to the wind. It seemed then to grow clear to the mind of Gervase that Master Gideon Partlet somehow lacked a sense of proportion. The buffets on jaw and nose were in his opinion quite as much as the milk was worth. The assault on the right eye was usury. But the farmer did not share this view. Once blooded, he fought more furiously than ever. Moreover he accompanied each blow with a savage grunt and did all he knew to pin the younger and lighter man against the wall of the byre. The distress of poor Anne was dreadful. Brave as she was, after a few moments she could endure the sight no more. Shuddering, she hid her eyes in the doublet of her champion. Would the fight never cease? She began to fear that the farmer would kill Gervase. No longer dare she look at the cruel spectacle, but the ever-recurring sound of the blows chilled and sickened her. At last there came a loud cry from the onlookers, and then the dread sounds ceased. When she ventured to look she made the discovery that a very strange thing had happened. The farmer was prone on his back in the mire of his own stackyard. He lay motionless; and Gervase and one of the hands were bending over him and were in the act of raising him up. “Oh, is he dead?” gasped Anne. “Not he,” said Gervase cheerfully. He besought her to bring a little water from the pump in the milk-pail. By the time this had been brought the farmer was sitting up rather ruefully in the straw of the yard. Gervase supported him with a shoulder; but soon finding that Gideon Partlet was little the worse for the blow on the point of the jaw that had leveled him to mother earth, the young man proceeded to clear the blood from his own face by dipping it in the bucket.