"There's nothing like saving time and trouble on these occasions," said the squire. "Dick is at my house, I can arrange time and place with you this minute, and he will be on the ground with me."
"Very well," said Tom; "where is it to be?"
"Suppose we say the cross-roads halfway between this and Merryvale. There's very pretty ground there, and we shall be able to get our pistols, and all that, ready in the mean time between this and four o'clock,—and it will be pleasanter to have it all over before dinner."
"Certainly, squire," said Tom Durfy; "we'll be there at four.—Till then, good morning, squire;" and he and his man walked off; Tom having left the widow under the care of the apothecary's boy, who was applying asafœtida and other sweet-smelling things to the alleviation of the faintings which the widow thought it proper and delicate to enact on the occasion.
The squire rode immediately homewards, and told Dick Dawson the piece of work that was before them.
"And so he'll have a shot at you, instead of an action," said Dick. "Well, there's pluck in that: I wish he was more of a gentleman for your sake. It's dirty work shooting attorneys."
"He's enough of a gentleman, Dick, to make it impossible for me to refuse him."
"Certainly, Ned," said Dick.
"Do you know is he anything of a shot?"
"Faith, he makes very pretty snipe-shooting; but I don't know if he has experience of the grass before breakfast."