Ronald, who was the reverse of quarrelsome by disposition, laughed good temperedly at the various suggestions; but one or two of the senior officers remonstrated sharply with Crawford as to the extent to which he carried his gibes.
"You are presuming too much on Leslie's good nature, Crawford," Captain Campbell said one day. "If he were not one of the best tempered young fellows going he would resent your constant attacks upon him; and you know well that, good swordsman as you are, you would have no chances whatever if he did so."
"I am quite capable of managing my own affairs," Crawford said sullenly, "and I do not want any advice from you or any other man."
"I am speaking to you as the captain of Leslie's troop," Captain Campbell said sharply, "and I do not mean to quarrel with you. You have had more quarrels than enough in the regiment already, and you know Colonel Hume said on the last occasion that your next quarrel should be your last in the regiment. I tell you frankly, that if you continue your course of annoyance to young Leslie I shall report the matter to the colonel. I have noticed that you have the good sense to abstain from your remarks when he is present."
Three days later the regiment joined the army before Namur.
That evening, having drunk more deeply than usual, Lieutenant Crawford, after the colonel had retired from the circle round the fire and to his tent, recommenced his provocation to Ronald, and pushed matters so far that the latter felt that he could no longer treat it as a jest.
"Mr. Crawford," he said, "I warn you that you are pushing your remarks too far. On many previous occasions you have chosen to make observations which I could, if I had chosen, have resented as insulting. I did not choose, for I hate brawling, and consider that for me, who have but lately joined the regiment, to be engaged in a quarrel with an officer senior to myself would be in the highest degree unbecoming; but I am sure that my fellow officers will bear me out in saying that I have shown fully as much patience as is becoming. I, therefore, have to tell you that I will no longer be your butt, and that I shall treat any further remark of the nature of those you have just made as a deliberate insult, and shall take measures accordingly."
A murmur of approval rose among the officers sitting round, and those sitting near Crawford endeavoured to quiet him. The wine which he had taken had, however, excited his quarrelsome instinct too far for either counsel or prudence to prevail.
"I shall say what I choose," he said, rising to his feet. "I am not going to be dictated to by anyone, much less a boy who has just joined the regiment, and who calls himself Leslie, though no one knows whether he has any right to the name."
"Very well, sir," Leslie said in a quiet tone, which was, however, heard distinctly throughout the circle, for at this last outburst on the part of Crawford a dead silence had fallen on the circle, for only one termination could follow such an insult. "Captain Campbell will, I hope, act for me?"