"Keep wide from me at your peril," he cried, threateningly, to his rascal company. The three horses backed simultaneously, and Haxo, his Calf and his Killer, waited in an irregular semicircle, while Wat took out of his pocket a tinder-box and from his holster a candle. There was not a breath of air, and when Lochinvar lighted the taper the flame mounted steadily upwards, so that he had no need even to shelter it with his hand while the flame went down and then as slowly came again, as all candles do when they are first lighted. Wat glanced up at the sign of the Black Bull's Head, which was set in rude caricature over the door of the inn. His mind wandered grimly to the significance of that emblem in his own country, and to the many good men and true who had dined with the Black Bull's head on the table--and thereafter dined no more in this world. And to think that he, Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, had brought the Bull with him, together with the Bull-calf and the Killer, to keep him company to the Black Bull of Brederode! He took the conceit as an omen, and gritted his teeth to remember what an arrant gull he had been. "I shall never see my love more," he said under his breath; "well, never mind, Wat Gordon, lad--if die you must, there are some now alive who will be in a similar plight ere you turn up your toes. And at all events I am glad that I kissed her." He dismounted and drew his sword. "Stand still where you are," he cried to Haxo. "Advance an inch at your peril till I give the word." He looped his horse's rein to the iron hook at the cheek of the inn door. Then he gripped his sword tighter, and said a prayer which ended somewhat unorthodoxly: "I wish I had that glove which I threw into the canal. For, after all, she gave it to me. Also, her lips pout most adorably when she is angered." And this seemed strange enough information to give the Deity. But without doubt its sincerity carried it further heavenward than many an empty Credo. For the God who made love does not, like Jove, laugh at lovers' vows. CHAPTER IV THE DUEL AT THE INN OF BREDERODE So, thinking with all his might upon the adorable pout of his lady's lips, that right loyal lover Walter Gordon strode, not without fear, but all the braver for mastering it, into the dark passage which stretched straight before him, gloomy as a sea cave at midnight. Doors still blacker yawned on either side of him like the mouths of huge cannon. He held his candle aloft, and paused a moment at each, striving with all his might to penetrate the silence that reigned within. But the faint circle of illumination hardly passed beyond the threshold. Wat, as he held his breath and listened, only heard the rats scuttle and the mice cheep in the oaken wainscoting.