With a supreme effort Peeke succeeded in killing one of his opponents and disabling the other two. Then for a moment he feared the threatening anger of the crowd, but the nobles showed great generosity in their admiration of his pluck, whether they felt mortified or not, and he was treated with extreme kindness, both then and afterwards. He 'was kept in the Marquesse Alquenezes House, who one day ... desired I would sing. I willing to obey him (whose goodnesse I had tasted), did so, and sung this Psalme: _When as we sate in Babylon, etc._ The meaning of which being told he saide to me, _English_ Man, comfort thyself, for thou art in no Captivity.' Peeke was then sent to the King of Spain, who tried to keep him in his service, but with a becoming gratitude for the favours shown to him, Peeke begged to be allowed to return home, 'being a Subject onely to the King of England.' Whereupon the King very magnanimously gave 'one hundred Pistoletts to beare my charges.' A play has been written called 'Dick of Devonshire,' in which the adventures of 'Dick Pike' are set in the midst of a Spanish tragi-comedy. Nothing is known of Peeke's life after he came back to his own country, but there are strong reasons for believing that he returned to Tavistock. And if it was himself, and not a namesake, who flourished there, in 1638, our hero might be seen in an entirely new role, for that year Richard Peeke filled the peaceful office of people's churchwarden! Tavistock's fine church is dedicated to St Eustachius, and it has a high battlemented tower crowned with slender pinnacles. The tower is 'pierced with arches in all four sides, so that it stands on piers. It is thus a true campanile, and was never joined to the church.' There are monuments to several families in the nave and chancel, and stories and memories crowd especially round two of them. One is the tomb of John Fitz of Fitz-ford and his wife, at the back of which their son Sir John kneels at a desk with a book before him. Fitzford House is close to Tavistock, and with the property came to Sir John's daughter, Lady Howard, round whose name many tales have gathered. In Mrs Bray's time Lady Howard was regarded as 'a female Bluebeard,' but a later verdict is more charitable, and it is now thought that the unhappy lady has been much maligned. Being a great heiress, her hand was disposed of when she was only twelve years old, and she was married to Sir Alan Percy, who died three years afterwards. There is a proverb-- 'Winter-time for shoeing, Peascod-time for wooing;'