“Let those who find the cap fit, put it on.”
“He means it for you, Cuthbert,” said two or three voices at once.
“I suppose one can’t help being liked,” said Gregory Bell.
“Nay, but one should not curry favour at the expense of others.”
“That isn’t fair,” cried Adam Banister; “no one can say Cuthbert is a sneak.”
“Sneak! who guided the commissioners to find the Abbot? that was the part of a sneak,” said Cuthbert; “but I know one way in which I could avoid favour; by running away from school and being brought back tied between two foxhounds, on all fours.”
A general burst of laughter, and then Nicholas lost all self-control, and struck Cuthbert in the face.
“A blow!” “A fair blow!” “A fight!” “A fight!”
Yes, a fight was inevitable under the circumstances; according to the moral (or immoral) code of the fifteenth century, no one could receive a blow from an equal without returning it, unless he wished to be exiled from the society, whether of boys or men. Nothing was clearer to their eyes than that the duty of all good Christians was to fight each other.
So the blow was returned, straight between the eyes. But a fight was too good a thing to be lost in that irregular manner: a ring was formed, two seconds selected, Gregory Bell for Cuthbert, and a cousin, like-minded with himself, for Grabber.