Two miles from the town of Endhoven, stood a wayside hostelry, of quaint aspect, overshadowed by a gigantic oak-tree, on one of the lower branches of which swung its signboard, and under which were placed a rough table and benches for the accommodation of those who choose to loiter there, and refresh them in the open air.
Weary and athirst, Gray alighted from his horse, and knocking with his dagger hilt on the table, brought forth the tapster, who had been observing his approach, from the ivy-covered porch of the hostelry, which seemed to be literally a mass of green leaves, with quaint gablets, and chimneys sticking up in all directions, and curious little windows, peeping out, without order, regularity, or architectural design.
In a jargon, half Flemish and partly French, "eked" out with a word or two of Scottish, Gray ordered a flask of wine for himself, and a feed of corn for his horse, which was led into the stables.
While drinking his wine, and pondering whether he should halt there for the night, or push on to Endhoven, the evening bells of which were ringing in the distance, the sound of voices at an open window made him aware that several fellows of a very rough aspect were observing him from a room, where they seemed to be drinking and playing with dice, and, doubtless, they would have been smoking too, had that useful mode of spending time and money been discovered.
On turning from them, his attention was next arrested by perceiving a knife, formed somewhat like a dagger, dangling at the end of a string, from the lower branch of the tree under which he sat, and there it swung to and fro in the wind.
Each time he raised his eyes to this knife, he heard loud laughter, and a clapping of hands among those who were evidently observing him; and though resolving, if possible, to avoid all brawls, his brow flushed, and his heart beat quicker, on finding himself, as he conceived, insulted by a rabble of Flemish boors.
But in his ignorance of the customs of the country, he knew not that the knife was hung thus as a challenge to snick and snee, as it was named, a combat then common among the lower classes in Flanders, as it was in Holland, in later years.
The bravest or most rash bully of a village or district, usually hung up his knife thus, in some conspicuous place, as the knights of chivalric days were wont, in a warlike fit, to obstruct the high roads, by hanging their shields on a bridge, or by the wayside, to invite all comers, and whoever touched or took the weapon down was compelled to fight the proprietor, or be branded as a coward.
Before engaging, the combatants sometimes tested their strength of arm, by driving their knives into a deal board, and then they were only permitted to use so much of the blade as had penetrated; others broke off the points. On closing, each used his cap or hat as a shield, to protect his face; but such encounters seldom ended until one, sometimes both duellists, had their cheeks, noses, and foreheads slashed and disfigured.
The knife in question, a long, sharp, and assassin-like weapon, continued to swing to and fro within arm's-length of Gray, who, on perceiving something engraved on the buckhorn haft of it, took it in his hand for examination; on this a shout of exultation, too boisterous to pass unnoticed, came from the topers in the hostelry.