"Well," said she, "I did exchange, and I did not. Why quarrel about a word? certainly he took my horse, and I took his; but it was only for the nonce. Mr. Neville is foreign bred, and an example to us all: he knows his piebald is worth two of my grey, and so he was too fine a gentleman man to send me back my old hunter and ask for his young charger. He waited for me to do that; and, if anybody deserves to be shot, it must be Me. But, dear heart, I did not foresee all this fuss; I said to myself, 'La, Mr. Neville will be sure to call on my father or me some day, or else I shall be out on the piebald, and meet him on the grey, and then we can each take our own again.' Was I so far out in my reckoning? Is not that my Rosinante yonder? Here, Tom Leicester, you put my side-saddle on that grey horse, and the man's saddle on the piebald there.—And now, Griffith Gaunt, it is your turn: you must withdraw your injurious terms, and end this superlative folly."
Griffith hesitated.
"Come," said Kate, "consider; Mr. Neville is esteemed by all the county: you are the only gentleman in it who have ever uttered a disparaging word against him. Are you sure you are more free from passion and prejudice, and wiser than all the county? oblige me, and do what is right. Come, Griffith Gaunt; let your reason unsay the barbarous words your passion hath uttered against a worthy gentleman, whom we all esteem."
Her habitual influence, and these last words, spoken with gentle and persuasive dignity, turned the scale. Griffith turned to Neville, and said in a low voice that he began to fear he had been hasty, and used harsher words than the occasion justified: he was going to stammer out something more, but Neville interrupted him with a noble gesture: "That is enough, Mr. Gaunt," said he. "I do not feel quite blameless in the matter: and have no wish to mortify an honorable adversary unnecessarily."
"Very handsomely said," put in Major Rickards: "and now let me have a word. I say that both gentlemen have conducted themselves like men—under fire; and that honor is satisfied, and the misunderstanding at an end. As for my principal here, he has shown he can fight, and now he has shown he can hear reason against himself, when the lips of beauty utter it. I approve his conduct from first to last, and am ready to defend it in all companies, and in the field, should it ever be impugned."
Kate colored with pleasure, and gave her hand eloquently to the Major. He bowed over it, and kissed the tips of her fingers.
"Oh! sir," she said, looking on him now as a friend, "I dreamed I saw Mr. Neville lying dead upon the snow, with the blood trickling from his temple."
At this Neville's dark cheek glowed with pleasure. So! it was her anxiety on his account had brought her here.
Griffith heard too, and sighed patiently.
Assured by Major Rickards that there neither could nor should be any more fighting, Kate made her adieux, mounted her grey horse, and rode off, discreetly declining all attendance. She beckoned Tom Leicester, however. But he pretended not to see the signal; and let her go alone. His motive for lingering behind was characteristic, and will transpire shortly.