‘When will you have sense enough to mind your own business, and not come here telling things you have heard by sneaking behind people’s backs?’ demanded John hotly. ‘If you can’t learn in any other way, I shall have to pull your ears again, as I did the other day!’
‘You pull my ears? How can you tell that lie, when you know ’twas somebody else pulled ’em?’
‘O no, no. I pulled your ears, and thrashed you in a mild way.’
‘You’ll swear to it? Surely ’twas another man?’
‘It was in the parlour at the public-house; you were almost in the dark.’ And John added a few details as to the particular blows, which amounted to proof itself.
‘Then I heartily ask your pardon for saying ’twas a lie!’ cried Festus, advancing with extended hand and a genial smile. ‘Sure, if I had known ’twas you, I wouldn’t have insulted you by denying it.’
‘That was why you didn’t challenge me, then?’
‘That was it! I wouldn’t for the world have hurt your nice sense of honour by letting ’ee go unchallenged, if I had known! And now, you see, unfortunately I can’t mend the mistake. So long a time has passed since it happened that the heat of my temper is gone off. I couldn’t oblige ’ee, try how I might, for I am not a man, trumpet-major, that can butcher in cold blood—no, not I, nor you neither, from what I know of ’ee. So, willy-nilly, we must fain let it pass, eh?’
‘We must, I suppose,’ said John, smiling grimly. ‘Who did you think I was, then, that night when I boxed you all round?’
‘No, don’t press me,’ replied the yeoman. ‘I can’t reveal; it would be disgracing myself to show how very wide of the truth the mockery of wine was able to lead my senses. We will let it be buried in eternal mixens of forgetfulness.’