"I’ll thank ’ee for your pistols," said Sherebiah, removing them from the holsters as he spoke. "Nay, don’t finger your sword; I be a man o’ peace, and you know my play with the quarterstaff. Jenny, old girl, crop your fill by the roadside while I have a reckonen wi’ Cap’n Aglionby." He laid a curious stress upon the title. "Now, Ralph, you be comen wi’ me into wood yonder. ’Tis there we’ll settle our score." Seizing the captain with his left hand, he led him down the lane, through a gap in the hedge, into a thin copse of larches, until he came to a narrow glade. Aglionby assumed an air of jocular resignation; but that he was ill at ease was proved by the restless glances he gave Sherebiah out of the corner of his eye. "Off wi’ your coat!" said Sherebiah, having reached the centre of the glade. "Off wi’t! I be gwine to pound ’ee; you can defend yourself, but you’m gwine to be pounded whether or no." "Confound you, man, what have I done to you? Why the——" "Off wi’t, off wi’t! Least said soonest mended. Great barkers be no biters, so it do seem; doff your coat, Cap’n Aglionby!" "Well, if you will!" cried the captain, with a burst of passion. "I’ll comb your noddle, I’ll trounce you, for an insolent canting runagate booby!" He flung his coat on the wet grass; Sherebiah laid down the cudgel and followed his example. "Come on, Cap’n Aglionby!" he said. "’Tis not, as ’ee med say, a job to my liken, trouncen a big grown man like you; but ’t ha’ got to be done, for your good and my own peace o’ mind. So the sooner ’tis over the better." To a casual onlooker the two would have seemed very unequally matched. The captain stood at least a head taller than his opponent, and was broad in proportion. But he was puffy and bloated; Sherebiah, on the other hand, though thick-set, was hard and agile. As if anxious to finish an uncongenial task with the least delay, he forced matters from the start. The captain had no lack of bull-dog courage, and he still possessed the remnant of great physical strength. To an ordinary opponent he would have proved even yet no mean antagonist; and when, after a few sharp exchanges, Sherebiah’s punishing strokes roused him to fury, he rained upon the smaller man a storm of blows any one of which, had it got home, might have felled an ox. But Sherebiah parried with easy skill, and continued to use his fists with mathematical precision. Once or twice he allowed the captain, now panting and puffing, to regain his wind, and when the burly warrior showed a disposition to lengthen the interval he brought him back to the business in hand with a cheery summons. "Now, Cap’n Aglionby," he would say, "let’s to ’t again. Come, man, ’twill soon be over!"