other, at ten of the clock at night, in the middle of Bedfordshire? No, sir, that shall not pass! You are all prisoners escaping, if you are nothing worse. Consider yourselves under arrest. I have to trouble you for your papers."
"Where is your warrant, if you come to that?" said I. "My papers! A likely thing that I would show my papers on the ipse dixit of an unknown fellow in a hedge alehouse!"
"Would you resist the law?" says he.
"Not the law, sir," said I. "I hope I am too good a subject for that. But for a nameless fellow with a bald head and a pair of gingham small-clothes, why, certainly! 'Tis my birthright as an Englishman. Where's Magna Charta, else?"
"We will see about that," says he; and then, addressing the assistants, "Where does the constable live?"
"Lord love you, sir! " cried the landlord, "what are you thinking of? The constable at past ten at night! Why, he's abed and asleep, and good and drunk two hours agone!"
"Ah, that a' be!" came in chorus from the yokels.
The attorney's clerk was put to a stand. He could not think of force; there was little sign of martial ardor about the landlord, and the peasants were indifferent—they only listened, and gaped, and now scratched a head, and now would get a light to their pipe from the embers on the hearth. On the other hand, the major and I put a bold front on the business and defied him, not without some ground of law. In this state of matters he proposed I should go along with him to one Squire Merton, a great man of the neighborhood, who was in the commission of the peace, and the end of his avenue but three lanes away. I told him I would not stir a foot for him if it were to save his soul. Next he proposed that I should stay all night where I was, and the constable could see to my affair in the morning, when he was sober. I replied I should go when and where I pleased; that we were lawful travelers in the fear of God and the king, and I for one would suffer myself to be stayed by nobody. At the same time, I was thinking the matter had lasted altogether too long, and I determined to bring it to an end at once.
"See here," said I, getting up, for till now I had remained carelessly seated, "there's only one way to decide a thing like this—only one way that's right English—and that's man to man. Take off your coat, sir, and these gentlemen shall see fair play."
At this there came a look in his eye that I could not mistake. His education had been neglected in one essential and eminently British particular: he could not box. No more could I, you may say; but then I had the more impudence—and I had made the proposal.
"He says I'm no Englishman, but the proof of the pudding is the eating of it," I continued. And here I stripped my coat and fell into the proper attitude, which was just about all I knew of this barbarian art. "Why, sir, you seem to me to hang back a little," said I. "Come, I'll meet you; I'll give you an appetizer—though hang me if I can understand the man that wants any enticement to hold up his hands." I drew a bank-note out of my fob and tossed it to the landlord. "There are the stakes," said I. "I'll fight you for first blood, since you seem to make so much work about it. If you tap my claret first, there are five guineas for you, and I'll go with you to any squire you choose to mention. If I tap yours, you'll perhaps let on that I'm the better man. and allow me to go about my lawful business at my own time and convenience. Is that fair, my lads?" says I, appealing to the company.
"Ay, ay," said the chorus of chawbacons; "he can't say no fairer nor that, he can't. Take thy coat off, master!"
The limb of the law was now on the wrong side of public opinion, and, what heartened me to go on, the position was rapidly changing in our favor. Already the major was paying his shot to the very indifferent landlord, and I could see the white face of King at the back door, making signals of haste.
"Oho!" quoth my enemy, "you are as full of doubles as a fox, are you not? But I see through you; I see through and through you. You would change the venue, would you?"
"I may be transparent, sir," says I, "but if you'll do me the favor to stand up, you'll find I can hit pretty hard."
"Which is a point, if you will observe, that I have never called in question," said he. "Why, you ignorant clowns," he proceeded, addressing the company, "can't you see the fellow is gulling you before your eyes? Can't you see that he's changed the point upon me? I say he's a French prisoner, and he answers that he can box! What has that to do with it? I would not wonder but what he can dance,
