Thus was gage of battle offered and accepted betwixt Cleg Kelly and Kit Kennedy.
ADVENTURE XLIV.
CLEG RELAPSES INTO PAGANISM.
The lists of Ashby were closed. The heralds and pursuivants did their devoirs, and the trumpets rang out a haughty peal. Or at least to that effect, as followeth:
"Come on!" said Cleg Kelly.
"Come on yoursel'!" said Kit Kennedy.
"Ye're feared," cried the Knight of the City, making a hideous face.
"Wha's feared?" replied the Knight of the Country, his fists twirling like Catherine wheels. The boys slowly revolved round one another. It was like the solar system, only on a somewhat smaller scale. For first of all their fists revolved separately round each other, then each combatant revolved on his own axis, and lastly, very slowly and in a dignified manner, they revolved round one another.
All this happened in the cool of the evening, at the back of the barn at the farmhouse of Loch Spellanderie. It was after the kye had all been milked and Vara Kavannah was in the house clearing away the porridge dishes, while the mistress put the fretful children to bed with an accompanying chorus of scoldings, slappings, and wailings of the smitten.
As the lads stood stripped for fight Cleg was a little taller than Kit Kennedy, and he had all the experience which comes of many previous combats. But then he was not, like Kit Kennedy, thrice armed, in the consciousness of the justice of his quarrel.