"A little fencing!" Halfman ejaculated. "A little fencing! Why, man, that botte between the eyes would have done for me, even if you had not spitted both my lungs first. No one can ever say of you that you held your sword like a dancer. Give me your hand--by God! I must grip your hand." "Sir," said Evander, as the pair clasped hands with the hearty clasp of true combatants, "you overpraise me; yet for your friendly praises I have a favor to ask of you." "Name it and it is done," Halfman asseverated, with an oath, "were it to pluck a purple hair for you from the beard of the Grand Cham himself." "'Tis no such matter," Evander answered. "I do but entreat you of your courtesy to take back your ring, for which in very truth I have no use." Halfman protested a little for form's sake, then gave way, glad enough to pouch his jewel again. "You are a gentleman," he declared. "Come, let us taste the air in the gardens." XV MY LADY'S PLEASAUNCE The gardens of Harby were captain jewels in the crown of Oxfordshire. From the terrace they spread in spaces of changeful beauty over many acres of fruitful earth. Evander had seen to it that no further harm was done to these lovely spaces than was inevitable for the conduct of the siege. There were some in his company, hissing hot zealots, who were all for laying violating hands upon the temples of Baal and the shrines of Ashtaroth, by which Evander rightly interpreted them to mean the pleasaunces of clipped yews, the rose bowers, the box hedges, and the generous autumnal orchards. They were eager to show their scorn of the Amalekites by the lopping of ancient trees and the treading of colored blossoms under the heel of Israel. But Evander was as firm as these were frantic, and the gardens of Harby smiled through familiar process of sun and rain and dew, untroubled by the daily rattle of musketry and the nightly tramp of sentinels. Evander reaped a reward for which he had not labored in his chivalry to a belligerent and besieged lady. For the gardens that a conqueror had preserved were now very fair indeed for a conquered man to walk in. The October sun shone as if the royal triumph, yonder at Edgehill and here at Harby, had rekindled summer on the chilling altar of the year, and the hues of the lingering flowers flamed in the celestial fires. If Evander's thoughts were sable, he did not allow them to stain the fair day and his companion's gayety. Halfman swam now in the extravagance of admiration for so miraculous a Puritan. Halfman loved the apostles best on spoons of silver in a sea-bag swollen with loot, but of the men he had the best word for Peter, who could use a sword on occasion. And here was one of the saints on earth playing his rapier as bravely as if he had been a gentleman born or gentleman adventurer made, and had skimmed the seas and kissed and killed and pilfered.