“You are as weak as a chewed straw, my lord,” said little insolent madam. “Get you to your bed, like a good old man, and I will send you a priest with a fresh, young voice, and he shall sing you an anthem. You have no more valiancy than an old milch cow, my lord. You are as feeble as a gnat under a willow in a wet November. It is well I am come home. I believe your lordship’s grace would deliver up this house to the Castilian the first time he set his hand upon your lattice.” It is hard to know what reply the duke would have offered to such an onslaught upon his old age, made by one of his own kith. But before he could frame it, in whatever it might consist, that huge man the Englishman entered the room with his sword drawn and snuffing like a tiger. “If I am upon an errand of good steel,” he said, coming in with a swagger that filled the whole apartment, “I hope there is a proper valiance in mine adversaries, for I am in a humour to cut and thrust, to hack and mutilate.” “Sirrah Richard Red Dragon,” said the duke, with most perfect dignity, “I would have you pull down that proud hulks off the table there, and I would have you chastise her with severity; and further I would have you seize those two malefactors by whom she is encompassed, and I would have you hang them within a quarter of an hour.” Sir Richard Pendragon made one or two ferocious passes with his sword before laying this order into execution. He then cast his eyes, which were rolling in a truly terrible manner, towards where we held our ground. But instead of making the horrible onslaught we had been led to expect, he opened his mouth in astonishment. He then turned to gaze at the duke, who stood the picture of calm pride and dignity, and then back again to the no less calm and prideful countess. “Ods my life! Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the duke, “I am minded to be severe; I will use severity. Pull her down; do not spare her. But I would have thee see to it, good coz, that she do not stab thee.” In the meantime the English giant was still looking from the old duke to the youthful countess, from the youthful countess to the old duke. At last he threw his sword on the ground, pressed his great hands to his ribs, and broke into such a report of laughter that it rolled round the tall ceiling like the voice of the giant Fierabras. “God’s tomb!” he roared. “If I do not spit blood I shall never need surgery! If a most desperate fluxion does not surmount my poor brains I am no man. If I do not perish of an overwrought mind I am a dog! By the holy ape of Barbary, I shall laugh till I shed large tears!” “Ods nig and nog!” cried the duke, resuming his querulous manners. “Sirrah Red Dragon, will you reject me! Will you not do my bidding? Must I, who am old and a parent, pull down a she-wolf and correct her with the hand of mine own indignation? Ods nig and nog! is there no manhood in Spain?”