"For God's sake, Crawford! are you mad?" interposed Lord Paget; "what the devil is up between you?" "More than I can tell you, Paget." "With this mere lad, and you a man of the world!" "'Sblood! Yes, with him." The Master's mad pride had involved him in many quarrels, and he had paraded more than one man at the back of Montague House, in London, in the Duke's Walk at Holyrood, and elsewhere--luckless fellows who had resented his overbearing disposition--so a duel to him was nothing, and in his baffled pique and ungovernable fury he was now wicked enough to aim at one. "Cosmo Crawford," exclaimed Quentin, his dark eyes flashing through the moisture that filled them, "Master of Rohallion," he added in a choking voice, "I have too often, as a child, slept on your good old mother's breast to level a pistol at yours, else, sir--else----" "Bah!" shouted Cosmo, turning on his heel; "I thought so. Belem for ever!" "To-morrow we may be engaged with the enemy," said Quentin, in the same broken voice; "I shall be in the field, and mounted too; then let us see whether you or I ride closest to the bayonets of the French!" "Agreed--agreed!" said Cosmo, with stern energy, as his pale eyes, that shrunk and dilated, filled with more than usual of their old baleful gleam, and he wrung with savage energy the proffered hand of Quentin, who hastened away. "By Jove," said Paget, laughing, as he filled his glass with champagne, "this same beats cock-fighting! But what the devil is it all about?" CHAPTER XVII. THE COMBAT OF LUGO. "New clamours and new clangours now arise, The sound of trumpets mixed with fighting cries, With frenzy seized, I run to meet th' alarms, Resolved on death, resolved to die in arms. But first to gather friends, with them t' oppose, If fortune favoured, and repel the foes-- Spurred by my courage--by my country fired, With sense of honour and revenge inspired!" _Æneis_ ii. "Whatever may be their misery," says General Napier, "soldiers will always be found clean at a review and ready at a fight." The order to take up a position and form line of battle in front of Lugo had scarcely been issued, when a change came over the bearing, aspect, and emotions of the men. Pale, weary, and exhausted though they were, vigour and discipline were restored to the ranks, with confidence and valour! The stragglers came hurrying in to rejoin the regiments, that they might share in the battle which was to give them vengeance for the past, or, it might be, a last relief for the future. Three fresh battalions, left by Sir David Baird in his advance to Astorga, had joined Sir John Moore in rear of Villa Franca, and thus, at Lugo, he found himself at the head of nineteen thousand hardy and well-tried men.