Thus spoke Major Blazeater, bowing and smiling elaborately under a combination of terrors—the law, public ridicule, expenses; worst of all, Mrs. Blazeater. The next morning, Mr. Garnet received from him a letter, not only apologetic, but highly eulogistic, at which Bull Garnet smiled grimly, as he tossed it into the fire. By the same post came a letter from Rufus, to the following effect:— “SIR,—I regret to find that your courage consists in mere brute force and power. I regard you as no longer worthy of the notice of a gentleman. The cowardly advantage you took of your superior animal strength, and your still more cowardly refusal to redress the brutal outrage, as is the manner of gentlemen, stamp you as no more than a navvy, of low mechanical brutishness. Do not think that, because I cannot meet you physically, and you will not meet me fairly, you are beyond my reach. I will have you yet, Bull Garnet; and I know how to do it. Your last ferocious outrage has set me thinking, and I see things which I must have been blind not to see before. I shall see you, some day, in the felonʼs dock, an object of scorn to the lowest of the low, so sure as my name is “RUFUS HUTTON. “P.S.—I shall be at Lymington to–morrow, ready to meet you, if you dare initiate the inquiry.” Mr. Garnet did not burn this letter, but twice read it through very carefully, and then stowed it away securely. Who could tell but it might be useful as a proof of animus? During these several operations his eyes had not much of triumph in them. Rufus Hutton rode to Lymington, carrying a life–preserver: he appeared in the Town Hall, at the petty sessions; but there was no charge made against him. Being a pugnacious little fellow, and no lover of a peaceful issue, he had a great mind then to apply for a warrant against Garnet for assaulting him. But he felt that he had given some provocation, and could not at present justify it; and he had in the background larger measures, which might be foiled by precipitancy. So that lively broil, being unfought out and unforgiven—at least on one side—passed into as rank a feud as ever the sun went down upon. Not that Mr. Garnet felt much bitterness about it; only he knew that he must guard against a powerful enemy. Amy had told her father, long ago, what Cradock had said to her in the churchyard, and how she had replied to him. In fact, she could not keep it to herself until she went to bed that night; but mingled her bright, flowing hair with his grey locks, while her heart was still pit–a–patting, and leaned on his shoulder for comfort, and didnʼt cry much before she got it. “My own dearest, life of my life,” cried John, forgetting both Greek and Latin, but remembering how he loved her mother, “my own and only child—now you do look so like your mother, darling—may the God who has made you my blessing bless your dear heart in this!”