"Go again a little later in the season, and Urith will find another, and even more appropriate, adornment for your hat--a coxcomb!" Yeoman Cudlip and Surgeon Doble laughed aloud, so did the serving wench who had just brought in Anthony's ale. The young fellow, stung beyond endurance, sprang to his feet with a snort--he could not speak--and struck Fox across the face with the gloves. Crymes uttered a cry of pain and rage, and with his hand to his eye drew the hunting-knife from his belt, and struggled out of his place to get at Anthony. The surgeon and yeoman threw themselves in his way and disarmed him, the girl screamed and fled to the kitchen. "He has blinded me!" gasped Fox, as he sank back into a seat. "I cannot see." Anthony was alarmed. Water was brought, and the face of Crymes washed. One of the silver tags of the glove had struck and injured the right eyeball. CHAPTER XIII. WIDOW PENWARNE. There are epochs in the lives of most men when a sad fatality seems to dog their steps and turn athwart all that they do. Anthony had come to such an epoch suddenly since that ride and walk along the Lyke-Way. He had allowed himself to be taunted into a foolish visit to the churchyard on St. Mark's Eve, when there he had desecrated a grave, then he had thrown Madame Malvine into a fit, had disagreed with his father, and now had injured the eye of his comrade. Anthony's anger cooled down the moment he was aware of what he had done, but this was not a piece of mischief that could be put to rights at once, like the replacing of the headpiece of the grave. His presence in the room was a distraction and cause of irritation to the man he had hurt, now in the hands of the surgeon, and he deemed it advisable to leave the inn, mount his horse, and ride away to Peter Tavy Church, where he desired to have a word with the sexton and carpenter relative to the old head-post of Malvine's grave. Peter Tavy Church, or the Church of St. Peter on the Tavy, is a grey granite edifice, mottled with lichen, with moorstone pinnacles, and a cluster of fine old trees in the yard. Externally the church is eminently picturesque, it was beautiful within at the time of our tale, in spite of the havoc wrought in the period of the Directory; of more recent times it has undergone a so-called restoration which has destroyed what remained of charm. For a long time it has been matter of felicitation that the old opprobrium attaching to the men of the West Country of being wreckers has ceased to apply; the inhumanity of destroying vessels and their crews for the sake of the spoil that could be got from them has certainly ceased. But we are mistaken if we suppose that wrecking as a profession or pastime has come to an end altogether. The complaint has been driven inwards, or rather, wrecking is no longer practised on ships, which the law has taken under its protection, but on the defenceless parish churches.