Ignatius Zwirina was a big lout of a fellow. Placed on the scales he would certainly have weighed much more than Valentine. He aimed viciously at Valentine with his lance; but Valentine struck the shaft of it so sharply with his cudgel that it broke off in the middle, and at the same time with his own lance he struck his antagonist full in the breast, so that Ignatius flew backward into the air off his steed and fell flat on the ground.
Valentine immediately sprang from his horse and punched and pommeled the back and shoulders of the prostrate champion, as prescribed by the rules of the contest, till his cudgel broke; but all this belaboring did very little damage to the defeated combatant, for, besides the coat of mail he wore behind, his mother had well stuffed his clothes with horsehair. Yet, for all that, he did get one or two knocks which he did not forget in a hurry, and that was no more than his due, for he had often vexed Valentine with his evil tongue.
And there the matter would have ended had not old Fürmender thought fit to reopen it all again.
For when, after the contest was over, the defeated youth was carried home in a basket, according to ancient practice, the old man took it so to heart that he immediately buckled on his saber, took down the statutes, ran with them to the captain, and called his attention to the paragraph which strictly forbade persons serving in the army to challenge young civilians. He therefore demanded that Valentine should be punished for his challenge as being a gross breach of the law.
But the good captain diligently searched through his diary and showed the conscientious complainant that Valentine Kalondai on such and such a day, viz., on the Wednesday before the last Sunday in Advent of the past year, had been relieved of his military duties, and therefore no longer fell within the category incriminated by the statute. All that could be done therefore, suggested the captain, was for old Mr. Fürmender to well rub the blue and red bruises of his Nassy with butter, which he would find a sovereign specific.
And that not a shadow of a doubt as to Valentine's true position might remain, the count that very day publicly advertised Valentine Kalondai's appointment as castellan. Now, no doubt this post is essentially a civic office, but inasmuch as the castellan is practically the commandant's lieutenant, it had for a long time always been given to a soldier, especially since the days when one of the civic magistrates had been discovered in collusion with the castellan to betray the town into the enemy's hands. In memory of this event, the Hamor gate, through which the enemy had been admitted, was walled up in perpetuity.
Thus Kalondai's enemies were completely put to shame, and Dame Sarah experienced the joy of seeing her son's wife, the damsel from Bártfa, sitting in the first place of the front pew of the cathedral; which pew Dame Fürmender Zwirina had refused to occupy any longer, having given notice to the dean that she would henceforth take sittings in the suburb church instead.
CHAPTER XXX.
Which teaches that outward beauty, be it never so precious a property, is often most dangerous to its possessor.