“Take him and lock him up,” exclaimed Lord Marrobone, perceiving that Sir Richard was too excited to speak. “A night in the watch-house will sober the drunken brute, and cool his courage. Take him away, I say,” for Ralph began to weave afresh his choicest flowers of speech--mere onion-ropes of the wickedest words--“and put the foulmouthed scoundrel into quod!” So they bore Ralph forth, not without very rough treatment, through the gates, and cast him into a small but well-secured tenement, known as “the Cage,” but so seldom used in the orderly little village, that it was in the occupation of a certain white rabbit and her family (pets of the constable's children), who had to be ejected, to make room for this very different tenant. Sir Richard Lisgard went up stairs to refit, and returned to the ball-room, where none had even remarked his absence, with an unimpeachable white cravat concealing an ugly bruise upon his windpipe; but all smiles had departed from his noble features, and it was observed by Mrs Walter Lisgard, in confidential conversation with the Honourable Poppin Jay, that her dear brother-in-law looked more like Don Quixote de la Mancha even than usual. He had made up his mind that, under the circumstances, it was impossible he could be upon the bench of magistrates while Derrick's case was being entered into, and was disturbed by the apprehension that the old general would not look upon the matter in a sufficiently important light, or punish the offender with all the rigour of the law. By no means quietly, however, had the affair passed off without doors. There was nothing, according to rumour, which drunken Derrick had not done in the way of misbehaviour towards the young baronet, from bad words to the use of a bowie-knife, and nothing which he did not deserve. The news flew from mouth to mouth like wildfire; the tenantry, the peasantry, and the household were all in possession of the facts--and of very much more than the facts, within half an hour of their real or supposed occurrence. Last of all to hear it was Mistress Forest, for whom a wholesome respect was entertained by all the domestics, and to whom, being notoriously the object of Derrick's affections, it was of course a delicate matter to communicate such intelligence. Little Anne Rees, however, stole up stairs to Mary's own room, where she knew my Lady's waiting-maid was sitting, far from all the noise and gaiety, and thinking sadly of her poor dear mistress and her troubles. “O ma'am, please ma'am, such a dreadful thing have happened!” said she. “Mr Derrick have come back again.--Don't ye faint; don't ye take on so” (for Mistress Forest had turned as white as Anne's own apron); “he's not dead. But he's gone and pitched into Sir Richard before all the company, and they fought together dreadful, I don't know how long.” “What did he say, girl?” exclaimed Mistress Forest eagerly; “I mean, what did they fight about?”