Things may have changed of late years, but in those days the parish churchyard was the great meeting-place for lovers who as yet were undeclared or unaccepted. The youth and the maid were both there for a purpose altogether removed from love-making—the meeting had the advantage of being accidental and certain. It was a tacit assignation which was almost certain to be kept, and even the shyest of sweethearts would dare to walk homewards together a little of the way even in the lightest of summer evenings.

When Sunday morning came, and the one musical bell began to tinkle, Bertha stood before her open bedroom window, tying her bonnet-ribbons at the glass, in the embarrassing certainty that both her lovers would be waiting outside the church to meet her. This certainty was the less to be endured, because Bertha had the sincerest desire to close with heavenly rather than with earthly meditations on a Sunday, but she could no more help being flustered by the thought of Lane Protheroe, and being chilled by the anticipation of Thistlewood’s look of bulldog fidelity, than she could help breathing. The girl’s trouble was that she could not give her heart to the man who commanded her respect, whilst it was drawn fluttering with all manner of electric palpitations towards another whom she thought infinitely less worthy.

There was nothing in the world against Lane Protheroe in any serious sense. Nobody spoke or thought ill of him, or had ground for ill speaking or thinking. But it was generally conceded that he was a butterfly kind of young fellow, and there was a general opinion that he wanted ballast. Rural human nature is full of candour of a sort, and Lane was accustomed to criticism. He took it with a bright carelessness, and in respect to the charge of wanting ballast was apt to answer that ballast was a necessary thing for boats that carried no cargo. Thistlewood was generally admitted to be a well-ballasted personage—a man steady, resolved, serious, entirely trustworthy.

‘John Thistlewood’s word is as good as his bond,’ said one of his admirers one day in his presence.

‘John Thistlewood’s word is his bond,’ said John Thistlewood, ‘as any man’s ought to be.’

People remembered the saying, and quoted it as being characteristic of the man,—a man cut roughly out of the very granite of fidelity.

Surely, thought Bertha, a girl ought to esteem herself happy in being singled out by such a man. The cold surface covered so steady, so lasting a glow. And as for Lane—well, Lane’s heats seemed the merest flashes, intense enough to heat what was near them, but by no means enduring. There was danger that anything which was of a nature to keep on burning might catch fire at him, and when well lit might find that the creating heat had gone out, or had withdrawn itself. She knew herself, by instinct, faithful to the core, and if once she consented to love the man, she would have to go on doing it. That looked likely to be terrible, and she fought against herself continually. And she not only tried not to love the butterfly, but had tried her loyal hardest to love the bulldog. The last chance of success in the second enterprise went out finally when Thistlewood had once so far conquered his clumsy reticence of manner as actually to put his arm about her waist. Then every fibre of her body cried out against him, and she escaped him, shivering and thrilling with a repulsion so strong that it seemed like a crime to her. How dared she feel the touch of so estimable a man to be so hateful? But from that moment the thing was settled beyond a doubt. She could respect John Thistlewood, she could admire the solidity and faithfulness of his character—but, marry him? That was asking for more than nature could agree to.

If Lane had only resembled John a little—ah! there was a glow of certainty called up by that fancy which might have been altogether delicious had the fancy been well grounded. If John had only been a little more like Lane? She was hardly so sure. Obviously, John was not the man for this girl to warm her heart at.

The worst of it was that he would never find or look for another girl, and his long courtship, though it could never endear him, or even make him tolerable as a lover, served at least to have established a sort of claim upon her. The great faithful heart might break if she should throw herself away. The depth of his affection, as she realised it for herself, could only be understood by one capable of an equal passion. She never guessed, or came near to guessing, that her conception of him was the realisation of herself; but it is only great hearts which truly know what great hearts can be, and her profound conception of Thistle-wood’s fidelity was her own best certificate to faithfulness.

The little musical bell went on tinkling as she walked across the fields. It had various rates of movement to indicate to distant worshippers the progress of the time, and she gave a careful ear to its warnings, so regulating her steps as only to enter the churchyard at the last minute.

There sure enough were both John and Lane waiting to pay their morning salutation. Happily, to her own mind, there was time for no more than a mere hand-shaking and a good-morning, and she walked into the church, beautifully tranquil to look at, though she could hardly believe that all the congregation could not guess with what a startled feeling her heart had begun to beat. By and by the influences of the place and the service began to soothe her, though she only succeeded in excluding her lovers by a conscious process of forgetfulness which was not so far removed from memory as it might have been.

The Thistlewood pew was a little to the front on her right, and the Protheroe pew a little to her front on the left, but she kept her eyes so studiously downcast that she got no glimpse of either, until a strange and altogether remarkable feeling of something missing surprised her into looking up. Her eyes went first to the Protheroe pew, and Lane was not there. Then in spite of herself she listened for Thistlewood’s voice in the Responses, and not detecting it, was impelled to look for him. He also was absent, and she began to quake a little. Was it possible they had stayed outside to quarrel? This fear would have been sufficiently serious at any time, but on a Sunday, during church hours, it magnified itself, which fact is in itself enough to prove that though the idea perturbed her she foresaw no very terrible consequences. It would be hateful to be quarrelled over, but both the combatants—if combatants they were to be—would respect her too much to proceed to extremities, and thereby make the quarrel public, and her a target for all tongues.

John and Lane had met in the churchyard pretty early, and whilst there were friends to greet, and to pass the time of day with, things went smoothly enough. But as the churchgoers filed by ones and twos into the building, each began to be aware of a solitude which was peopled only by the disagreeable presence of the other. John, ostentatiously disregardful of his adversary, planted himself at the gate, so as to be before him in his greeting. Lane, rather unusually erect and martial in his walk, marched past him into the village roadway, and there loitered for the same intent. Thistlewood, recognising the meaning of this manouvre, strolled into the roadway, and doggedly planted himself a yard or two beyond the spot where his rival had halted. Lane, with an air to the full as ostentatiously and offensively dis-regardful as the other’s, marched past Thistlewood with half a dozen soldierly-looking strides, and bringing himself to an abrupt halt made a disdainful back at him. Again Thistlewood advanced, but this time he drew himself up a trifle behind his rival, and laid a finger on his shoulder.

‘Well?’ said Protheroe, without turning his head.

‘I shall want a word with thee by and by, my lad,’ Thistlewood said quietly.

‘Have it now,’ replied Lane, settling his shoulders jauntily.

‘There’s time in plenty afore us,’ Thistlewood answered, regarding him with supreme disfavour.

The younger man looked straight before him with an exasperating aspect of indifference.

‘When you like,’ he said.

‘Very well,’ replied Thistlewood. ‘In five minutes’ time from now.’

‘Church time,’ said Lane smilingly, surveying the landscape.

‘Beest that keen set on the sermon?’ John inquired.

‘Don’t know that I am,’ replied the enemy, rising a little on his toes, and then settling his shoulders anew.

‘Five minutes’ time from now.’

The jaunty airs and scornful disregard began to warm Thistlewood’s blood a little.

‘Canst look a man i’ the face when thee talk’st to him? ‘he asked.

‘Yes, bless your heart and soul alive!’ cried Lane, swaggering round and beaming on him.

For half a minute they looked at each other, the one angry, resolute, and lowering, with head bent a little forward, his glance directed upward past his down-drawn brows, the other smiling with seeming sweetness and gaiety.

Thistlewood seemed to restrain himself with something of an effort.

‘We’ll talk together by and by,’ he said, and turning, deliberately walked back into the churchyard.

For a few seconds Lane stood glorying, but on a sudden it occurred to him that his rival was behaving in a more dignified manner than himself, and this was a reflection not to be endured without instant action. So he marched back into the churchyard also, and left John in the foreground. When Bertha appeared her elder lover paid his respects first, and Lane came up afterwards, looking, as she remembered later on, prodigiously gloomy and resolved.

The bell had been silent for a minute, and the curate’s voice had begun to drone within the building. The rivals were alone, and nobody was within sight or earshot.

‘Shall we walk a pace or two, Mr. Protheroe?’ asked John.

Mr. Protheroe, without speaking, sauntered out at the gate, vaulted a stile opposite, and paused in a field pathway. Thistlewood followed, throwing first one leg and then the other over the rail with a sort of laboured deliberation.

‘Now,’ said Lane.

‘We’ll walk on a little bit,’ answered Thistlewood, and there was silence for a minute or two as they strode along the grass. Then when they had reached the shelter of a little copse which hid them from the whole landscape on the church side, John said, ‘Now,’ in turn, and the two halted. Each was paler than common by this time, and Lane’s eyes sparkled, whilst the other’s burned steady with resentment.

‘’Twixt man and man as is willing to come to understand one another, Mr. Protheroe,’ said Thistlewood, ‘a very few words suffices. I’ll have thee nor no man else poaching on my manor.’

‘Well,’ Lane answered, ‘if ever I should arrive at owning a manor, I’d say the same. But I’d be sure of my title-deeds afore I took to warning other men off the ground.’

‘Let’s talk plain English,’ said John, apparently quite untouched by this rejoinder.

‘With all my heart,’ said his rival, ‘the plainer the better.’

‘I find you very much i’ my way,’ Thistlewood began ponderously.

‘I don’t find you a little bit in mine,’ Lane answered.

‘You talk to sting,’ said Thistlewood, with dull dignity. ‘I want to talk so as to be understood. I find you very much i’ my way, as I was saying, and I won’t have you theer.’

‘No?’

‘No!’

‘And how do you mean to set about getting rid of me?’

‘I’ve set about harder jobs than that i’ my time, lad.’

‘Like enough. But how do you mean to set about this one?’

‘All in good time,’ said Thistlewood. ‘Sha’st find out speedily.’

‘Show me now,’ said Lane.

A breach of the peace seemed imminent, but, ‘Afore thee and me comes to that,’ the elder answered, ‘I want thee to have fair warnin’. It’s unbecomin’ in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to marry—— I’m a man as never changed nor halted nor turned aside from anything he set his mind upon. I’ve been courtin’ Miss Fellowes now this three year. It stands to reason as a frivolish young chap like you can mek no count of how a man feels, or of what a man ‘ud do in a like case.’

‘That stands to reason, does it?’ ‘It stands to reason,’ answered Thistlewood. ‘I suppose it stands to reason likewise that I am to stand to one side, and leave the road clear after this?’

‘It’d be the wisest thing you ever did.’ ‘Well, now, Thistlewood, you’ll please understand that, for all so frivolous as I may be, I’m hardly that easy to be swayed. As for who has a right on the ground, it’s a mere piece of impudence to talk about it. That’s neither for me nor you to choose. If ever I get straight “No” I’ll go, but I’ll have it before I go, for that’s a man’s bounden duty to himself.’

‘Understand thyself as bein’ warned away,’ said Thistlewood.

‘Understand thy warning as being laughed at,’ answered Lane. ‘You talk plain English? So will I. You’ve got the wrong pig by the ear. You’re no better than a dog in the manger. You’ve always been spoken of up till now as a man to play fair, but now it strikes me you play very far from fair, and cut a poor figure. As for threats—a man who won’t take a hiding when it’s offered to him—what’s he good for, I should like to know?’

Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Protheroe was true to nature, and spoke with striking emphasis. He was quite red-hot with scorn at the imaginary fellow who would not take the proffered hiding, though a minute earlier, when he had told Thistlewood that he had the wrong pig by the ear, his manner had been marked by a cold and lofty superiority.

‘Beest warned! ‘said Thistlewood, ‘that’s enough.’

‘Not half enough, nor yet a quarter,’ cried Lane, with a bellicose air, not unmixed with swagger. ‘I’ve taught my hands to take care of my head, sir, and they’ll be ready to do it whenever the time occurs. But it always seemed a bit ridiculous to me to talk about fighting beforehand When the fight’s over there is something to talk about.’

‘You seem to be in a hurry for that there hiding,’ said Thistlewood.

‘Hurry’s no word for it,’ the younger man responded, with cheerful alacrity.

‘Very well,’ said the elder, taking off his hat and bestowing it carefully upon the grass, ‘sha’st have it.’

Lane, for his part, threw down his hat, flourished his coat off, dropped it behind him, rolled up his sleeves, and waited whilst Thistlewood made his preparations more slowly. Protheroe set that mellow whistle of his to work on ‘The British Grenadiers,’ and his enemy smiled grimly to think how soon he would silence the music.

Half a minute later they were standing foot to foot and eye to eye, the music already silenced. It would have been difficult from the mere aspect of the men to say on which side the advantage lay. In height and reach they were nearly equal, and, if Thistlewood’s weight and muscle were in his favour, Protheroe was as active as a cat.

And here might have been recorded a bit of history to warm the blood of such as love and remember the old-fashioned manhood of England. We are grown too refined and civilised nowadays for the old rude arbitrament, and so fair play has ceased to be the Englishman’s motto in fighting, and the English rustic shoots and stabs like the rustic of other lands. All fighting is foolish, more or less, but we had the manliest, friendliest, most honourable, and least harmful way of doing it amongst all the sons of men, and so our Legislature killed out the ‘noble art’ from amongst us, and brought us to the general ugly level.

It was in the reign of the Tipton Slasher—which, as people learned in the history of manners will remember, was a longish time ago—when these two Britons stood up to arrange their differences after the fashion then in vogue. There was nobody to see fair play, and so they saw it for themselves, as all fighting Englishmen did when there was a code of honour to go by. It was not a mere affair of hammer and tongs, but very fair scientific fighting, the science vivified by enjoyment, and full of energy, but never forgotten for a second. The pleasure was keen on both sides, for from the beginning of their knowledge of each other these two had been in antagonism, and at the last it was a real treat to let all go and have at it.

‘I was always a bit frivolous, as you said just now, Mr. Thistlewood,’ Lane remarked in the first enforced pause of the combat, ‘but I’d like you to bear me witness that I stick to what I’m at while I’m at it.’

This address was delivered pantingly, whilst the speaker lay flat upon his back on the grass, with his arms thrown out crosswise. Thistlewood disdained response, and sat with one great shoulder propped against a dwarf oak, breathing fast and hard. When this sign of distress had a little abated, he arose, and said ‘Time’ as if he had been a mere cornerman in the affair, and rather bored by it than otherwise. Lane rolled over on to his face, rose to his hands and knees, smiled at his adversary for a little while, as if to give him an appetite for the business in hand, and then got to his feet and made ready.

Now for a man to hold his own at this particular form of fighting against an equal adversary for a bare five minutes argues five grand things for him, and these are chastity, temperance, hardihood, strength, and courage. It speaks well for these admirable qualities in both of them that Messrs. Thistlewood and Protheroe made a good hour of it. The advantages and disadvantages had been so equally distributed that by this time they were pretty nearly harmless to each other, but each was sustained by the hope of victory, and each would have died, and, for the matter of that, would have gone on dying, rather than yield the precious palm to the other.

Now the clergyman who ministered to the spiritual wants of Beacon Hargate was never disposed to gorge his flock with too much doctrine at a time, and on this Sabbath had an invitation to luncheon at a great house some four or five miles away, and so treated his parishioners—to the scandal of some and the joy of others—to the shortest discourse they had ever heard from the pulpit. By this mischance it happened that the combatants were discovered by a silent male advance-guard of the home-returning congregation, who ran back—his footsteps soundless on the grass—to spread the splendid news. Sunday or week-day there was no more welcome break in the monotony of life in Beacon Hargate than that afforded by a fight. The time being church-time, and the combatants men of respectable position, lent piquancy to the event, of course, as who shall say me nay? The churchgoers, two or three farmers, Mr. Drake, the manager of Lord Barfield’s estates at Heydon Hey, and a handful of labourers came up, at first stealthily, and then more boldly, and looked on at the finish.

It was plain that the fight had been severe, but it was equally plain that the best of it was over; and when Farmer Fellowes interposed as amicus curio, nobody but the two most concerned had any especial resentment against him.

Even for them Farmer Fellowes had a crumb of comfort.

‘Finish it another time, lads,’ he said. ‘Where’s the good o’ goin’ on wi’ it i’ this manner? Why a child might homber the pair on you. Get fresh an’ have another turn to-morrow, if the ‘casion’s worth it.’

So the fight was left undecided after all, and the adversaries were led off to the neighbouring brook, where they made themselves as respectable to look at as they could before they took their several ways. They were unsightly for a week or two, and were close watched by their women folk lest they should renew the strife.

Beacon Hargate knew perfectly well the reason of the battle, and Bertha was mightily disdainful and indignant over both her lovers, who, to her fancy, had disgraced themselves and her. Six days after the fight John Thistlewood’s business for once in a way, as well as his inclination, took him to Fellowes’s farm, and there Bertha (who for very shame had not quitted the house since Sunday) first saw the result of the fray. The stalwart farmer’s face was discoloured, and, in places, still swollen. She saw the wicked handiwork of Lane Protheroe, and vowed within herself that she would see that dreadful young man no more. She could have cried for pity of poor Mr. Thistlewood, who had been thus shamefully treated for the crime of being faithful in love.

If John had known it, he had at this instant the best chance of being taken as Bertha’s husband he had ever had, or was like to find. But he was shamefaced about the matter, as heroes not uncommonly are with regard to their achievements, and was disposed to think himself at an even unusual disadvantage.

Bertha stifled in her heart whatever tender sentiments Protheroe had inspired, and was prepared to pass him whenever she might meet him with such a manner as should indicate her new opinion of him beyond chance of mistake. Thistlewood had appeared on the Saturday, and on the Monday the fates threw her younger lover in her way. She discerned him from a distance, herself unseen. His figure dipped down into the hollow, and she could not see him again until they met at some turning or other of the tortuous lane. If pride had not forbidden it she could have turned to fly homewards, but she hardened her heart and went on until his footsteps sounded clearly on the stony road.

Then he turned the corner, and she lifted one glance of superb disdain which melted suddenly under a terror-stricken pity. For this hero was worse battered than Number One had been, and one of those eyes, which had used to be so expressive and eloquent, was decorated by a shade.

‘Oh, Lane!’ cried the girl, clasping her hands, and turning white with pity.

‘Did I frighten you, my dear?’ said Lane. ‘It’s nothing. It’ll all be right in a day or two.’

‘I hope so,’ she answered, recovering herself, and seizing on principle before it made away for ever. ‘I wish you to know that I think you have behaved very disgracefully, and I hope you will never speak to me again.’

‘Why,’ said Lane, ‘that’s hard measure, Bertha; and as for behaving disgracefully—if a man threatens to punch your head you must give him the chance to punch it. That’s man’s law, anyhow, whether it’s woman’s or not.’

‘I am sure Mr. Thistlewood is no quarreller,’ said Bertha, with great dignity and severity of demeanour. ‘It takes no great penetration to guess who began it.’

‘There’s one thing I will say for him,’ returned Lane; ‘he’s a truth-telling fellow, to the best of my belief. Ask him who began it. He’ll tell you. Not that I should take any particular blame or shame for having begun it myself, but since that’s how you look at it, dear—why, I should like you to be satisfied.’

‘Do you think, Mr. Protheroe,’ demanded Bertha, ‘that it’s the way to win a girl’s esteem to brawl about her in public on a Sunday?’

‘That’s what Thistlewood said,’ Lane answered, with cunning simplicity. ‘“It’s unbecoming,” said he, “in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to marry.”’

‘I was certain he would say so, and think so,’ returned Bertha, with a sinking of the heart. She wanted grounds for pardoning Lane.

‘Well,’ said Lane, with a retrospective air, ‘we talked for a while, and he was good enough to promise me a hiding if I didn’t keep out of his way—meaning, of course, at your father’s house. I didn’t seem to take it quite so meekly as he thought I ought to, and by and by says he, “You seem to be in a hurry for that hiding.” So I just made answer that hurry was no word for it, and then, the pair of us being keen set, we got to it. The day was an accident, and I daresay a piece of forgetfulness on both our sides. But you see, my dear, a man’s just as bound to guard his self-respect on a Sunday as on a week-day.’

‘I have been very deeply wounded,’ said Bertha. ‘I wished to respect you both, and now I can respect neither of you. Good-morning, Mr. Protheroe.’

Mr. Protheroe stood discomfited, and looked mournfully after her as she walked away. When she had disappeared round the bend of the road he sat down upon the bank and plucked grasses with mechanical fingers, turning the thing up and down in his mind for an hour or thereabouts. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and resumed his walk, smiling with head erect, and that mellow whistle of his rose on the air with jollity in every note of it, for it had broken upon his mind like sunshine to remember her first exclamation on seeing him. He was a young man who was in the habit of making sure of things, and he had never in his life been surer of anything than he felt about this. The name, the tone, the look, meant more than a common interest in him. She had called him ‘Lane’ for the first time in his life. She had clasped her hands, and turned pale at the sight of him. All this meant victory for his dearest hopes, and so he leapt to his feet, and marched off whistling like the throstle.