Mr. Force was seated in his leathern chair before a large, open fire, and beside a round table covered with books and stationery.

The squire, with his surroundings, looked as little like a magistrate in his office as could be well imagined.

Nor was his greeting of the prisoners at all magisterial.

Both young gentlemen bowed very gravely on entering his presence.

But he arose from his chair and shook hands with each in turn, with a kindly:

“Good-morning, Mr. Bayard! Good-morning, Le! Take chairs, both of you.”

The young men bowed again, and obeyed.

There was a short pause, during which the squire reseated himself, and took up a paper which lay on the table beside him, scanned it, and said:

“Here is a most serious charge laid against both of you, young gentlemen—a charge of so grave a nature, indeed, as to compel me, in my character as justice of the peace, to have you arrested and brought here to be dealt with according to the laws you have broken.”

“What is the charge, sir, who has made it, and what evidence has our accuser?” inquired Leonidas Force, with some youthful dignity.

“You shall hear,” said the squire, and he rang a hand bell on his table, which quickly brought Jake to his presence.

“Go to the parlor and ask Miss Bayard if she will be so kind as to step in here,” he said.

The old negro bowed and withdrew.

“By the holy poker, Aunt Sibby heard us yesterday!” whispered Roland to Leonidas.

“I suppose she did; that solves the mystery. But to think of her giving information!” replied Le, in the same low tone.

Miss Sibby entered the room, and closed the door behind her.

“Oh, you are here, you young varmints, are you? And you may thank me that you’re up for a simple breach of the peace, instead of for murder, so you may!” she said, as soon as she saw the two young men.

Leonidas bowed and smiled.

Roland laughed, and, rising, gave her his own chair, and then stood up against the corner of the mantelpiece, since there was no other chair in the office.

She seated herself, with a look of determination to do her duty.

The squire took up the New Testament, and, handing it toward the old lady, said:

“Miss Bayard, will you take the usual oath, and then state what you know of this case?”

“No, I won’t take no oath, because I won’t break the command of Him who said, ‘Swear not at all,’ but I will make an afformation.”

And she lifted her withered hand and made a most solemn affirmation that she would speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to the best of her knowledge and belief, concerning them young tigers and the duel they were planning to fight.

And, having done this, she cleared her throat and began her story.

Leonidas arose from his chair, and went and stood by the side of Roland, and while their accuser gave in her evidence they nudged each other and laughed to themselves like a couple of schoolboys.

“Well, squire, it was yesterday afternoon, and me and Roland was in the house together, for he had just come home from Port Tobacco after going to send that telegram to that parson ’way out yonder and waiting to get an answer ’bout the marriage out there. You know, squire.”

“Yes, I know. Proceed.”

“Well, while we was talkin’—me and Roland—up rides that young panther there,” she said, pointing to Le, who kissed his hand to her for the compliment.

“And my scamp—him there,” pointing to Roland, who bowed and smiled, “saw the horse and rider through the window, and rushed out to meet the wisiter and shut the door after him; but he didn’t shut it tight enough, and so it came ajar, and the draught come through on my back, and chilled me, and I’m so subject to lumbago that I can’t stand a draught on my back. You know, squire.”

Mr. Force merely nodded, and the witness continued:

“So I ups and goes to call them boys in out’n the cold, and to shut the door. And then I seen Mr. Le—him there—sitting in his saddle and bending down, talking werry fierce-like to Roland. And Roland—him there—listening as grim as a meat ax. And I says to myself, when two or three of them boys is gathered together, sez I, it ain’t the Lord, but the devil, that’s in the midst of them, sez I. And you know it, squire.”

Mr. Force grunted, in a non-committal sort of way, and the witness continued:

“So I just off with the table cover, and wrapped it round my head and shoulders, and I listened through the little opening of the door. I couldn’t hear much, ’cause the wind was blustering, and most of what I did hear was bad words—like—well, ‘scown-der-awl,’ and such. You know, squire.”

Mr. Force nodded.

“But at last I heard something as pretty nigh made my hair rise right up and lift the table cover offen my head. And it certainly did make ice water trickle all down my backbone! And this is what I heard: ‘To fight a duel, or to do a murder!’ Yes, squire, that was what them two young hyenas was a-planning—them two there, standing by the mantelpiece!”

The two young men bowed to the compliment, and the witness went on:

“Them was the only connected words I heard. And I heard them, ’cause they was said in such a grim, gritty way there was no preventing me from hearing of ’em. But, still, I made out as Roland—him there, a-grinning like a tomfool—was to carry a challenge from Leonidas Force—him there, a-winking like a magpie as has just hid a thimble—to Col. Anglesea, at the Calvert House. And then Mr. Leonidas rode away, and Roland ran into the house so sudden he almost tumbled over me. Yes, you did, you young rhine-horse-o-rus!” she added, shaking her finger at Roland, who dropped his eyes and smote his breast in mock penitence.

“Well, squire, you may be sure as I never let on to my young gentleman as I knowed anything about what he was up to. It wouldn’t have done no good, you see. But I watched him. He carried a folded paper in his hand, like a letter, and he put it on the mantelpiece, and went upstairs, a-saying as he was going out; that I mustn’t wait tea for him, as he mightn’t be home till late. And soon’s ever he was gone, I ups and takes that letter. The hungwallop was stuck together werry slight, and I opened it easy, without tearing, and took out the sheet of note paper, and read it. Lord, if all my skin didn’t go into goose flesh! Of all the bloody-minded, murderous notes as ever was wrote. But you saw it, squire. You know!”

“Yes,” said Mr. Force, taking up a little piece of folded paper and holding it in readiness.

“Why, she intercepted the challenge! I remember I thought the letter felt rather thin when I took it from the mantelpiece, but I had not the faintest suspicion that it had been tampered with, and never gave the matter a second thought. Yet she had intercepted the challenge,” said Roland, in a low tone.

But Miss Sibby overheard him, and answered:

“Yes, you young tiger, I did interslip it! And, if I hadn’t interslipted it, there’d ‘a’ been murder done, and the constable would have slipted a pair of handcuffs on your wrists by this time—and both of you in jail for murder! Yes, I mean you two young wolves in sheep’s clothing, a-standing up by the mantelpiece there and a-grinning like apes!”

“She’ll exhaust the menagerie on us presently,” said Le.

“Have you any more to tell us of this case?” inquired Mr. Force.

“Well, not much, squire. I tore off the challenge neat as anything, and folded up the blank leaf in its own folds and put it back in the hungwallop, and gummed it up all nice as wax, and nicer, too; and then my scamp come down in his Sunday clothes, and took it up quick and put it in his pocket, and off with him, without any suspicion that he was a-carrying away a blank and a-leaving the challenge in my hands!”

“If you had wished to stop the duel, why hadn’t you thrown the whole letter into the fire?” demanded Roland.

“Because, my fine, young chanticleer, you’d a-gone right straight off to Greenbushes and got another one writ, and took it to the colonel right off. Whereas, my letting you go on a fool’s errand give me time and chance to come to the squire and fetch the evidence along with me. And, as it was too late to start that night, and I knowed you couldn’t fight the duel till to-day noways, I waited until this morning, and I got up and eat my breakfast by candlelight, and set off on my old mule for this place afore sunrise. And I made the complaint to the squire here, and give him the evidence, and called on him to make out a warrant and have you both took up and fetched here, to answer for your misdeeds, and to be dealt with according to law. And he did what I required on him, which was no more than his duty, if you had been his own dear sons. And here you are! Yes, you two there, standing agin’ the mantelpiece! It is bad enough, the Lord knows, sez I. But it is not so bad as murder and hanging, sez I, nor yet the State prison, and working in chains! There, squire, I think that is all I have got to say about this, and may the Lord have mercy on their souls!”

“One moment,” said the squire, handing over the intercepted challenge. “Is this the written paper that you took out from the envelope directed to Col. Anglesea and left by Mr. Bayard on your mantelpiece?”

“Why, to be sure it is!” said Miss Sibby, as she took it into her hand and examined it.

“That will do! Leonidas Force, come forward.”

Le stepped up to the table.

“Are you the writer of this challenge, directed to Col. Anglesea, and bearing your signature?” queried Mr. Force, passing over the document in question to the young man.

“Yes, sir, I am the author of that challenge,” said Le, after a glance at the paper.

“You have heard the charge laid against you. What have you to say in defense?” questioned the squire.

“Nothing. The charge is substantially true, barring the bad names with which the witness has complimented me. I deny that I am a ‘warmint,’ a ‘wild cat,’ a ‘wolf,’ a ‘tiger,’ a ‘panther’ or a ‘rhine-horse-o-rus,’” said Le, laughing; “but I wrote the challenge, and I intended to fight the duel.”

“You admit this?”

“Entirely.”

“That will do. Sit down.”

Le dropped into the only vacant chair, and awaited the next move.

“Roland Bayard, come forward,” said the squire.

The young man came, and stood respectfully before the squire.

“You have heard the charges made against you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What have you to say in defense?”

“Nothing, except in some sort what my fellow prisoner there has said. In a word, I may be, as Darwin says, remotely descended from a monkey, but I certainly must decline identity, or even relationship, to the wild beasts with which my good aunt has confounded me. But I did undertake to deliver a challenge from my friend Mr. Leonidas Force to that caitiff Angus Anglesea, and I did intend to be my friend’s second in the duel.”

“You admit all this?”

“I do.”

“Leonidas Force, come forward.”

The young midshipman stepped up and stood beside his friend, both facing the squire.

And then Mr. Force began, in the most earnest and solemn manner, to speak to them of the sin and evil of dueling; of the falsehood and insanity of calling such a crime an “affair of honor,” when, in truth, it was a matter of dishonor. The very highest concern of a true man of honor is to keep the law of God, which the duelist breaks; and to keep the law of the land, which the duelist breaks. The duelist may have many motives, but “honor” cannot be one of them! A bully will fight a duel, upon occasion, to prove himself a man of brute courage, and kill or be killed for so low a cause. A coward will fight a duel, because he is afraid to refuse, on account of what bullies might say of him, and kill, or be killed, from so mean a motive. A man maddened by wrongs, and raging with wrath, will fight a duel to be revenged upon his adversary, to slay or to be slain, and is eager to risk his own life, in the hope of taking his enemy’s. But no man ever fought a duel from any motive of pure honor. There is no honor in breaking the laws of the Lord, or the laws of the land, but rather dishonor.

“You, Leonidas Force,” said the squire, coming down from generalities to point his moral in a personality, and very gravely addressing his young relative, “you, in sending your challenge to Col. Anglesea to meet you in the duel, were inspired by the spirit of wrath and revenge. In your fierce anger you were not alone. Many shared that madness with you. Neither you nor they could help feeling a frenzy of indignation against the perpetrator of outrageous wrongs. But, though you could not help feeling this frenzy of anger, you could help sinning. You should have remembered the Word of God, ‘Be ye angry, but sin not.’ ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’ and, above all, the awful command, ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’ What! shall a man break these laws, and call it honor? An infidel may, perhaps; but even an infidel, who denies the Word of God, is amenable to the laws of the land, which equally forbid the illegal taking of human life; and even an infidel cannot fight a duel and truthfully call his crime ‘an affair of honor.’

“I have tried to show you the criminal insanity of dueling, and now I will ask you to consider its consequences—as a case in point, the consequences to you two young men, had you succeeded in your unlawful design to fight this duel with Anglesea. You, Le, might have been killed. You would probably have fallen dead at the first fire, for Anglesea is a sure shot, and as vindictive as Satan, and he would have aimed at your heart. You would have dropped dead on the field. Anglesea would have promptly made his escape. But your friend here would have been arrested and held as an accessory to your murder. He would have languished many months in jail, then been brought to trial—the long and tedious trial of the present age—perhaps through many trials, appealed from court to court; perhaps, after months or years of imprisonment and suspense, he might be finally acquitted, or—sent to the State prison.

“Then, on the other hand, by the chances of war, you might, instead of being killed yourself, have killed your adversary, in which contingency, Leonidas, your fate would have been far worse. You, Le, would have been arrested for murder, and would have been thrown into prison without bail. The same tedious imprisonment and repeated trials would have been your fate; you might have escaped the worst verdict, but you would certainly have been convicted of manslaughter and sent to the State prison, for you were the challenger, which was an aggravation of the offense.

“But I will dwell no longer on the probable consequences of your meditated deed. You were, no doubt, prepared to meet all the contingencies, to bear all the penalties. I will drop that part of the subject, and only revert to the first great argument against dueling—its flagrant disregard and defiance of the laws of God and man.

“And now, Leonidas Force, I shall require you to give bonds to the amount of ten thousand dollars to keep the peace.”

“Will you receive my own for that sum, sir?” inquired the young man.

“Certainly,” said the squire. And then, turning to the second offender, he said:

“Mr. Roland Bayard, I shall require you to give bonds for one thousand dollars to keep the peace.”

“The Lord only knows where I am to pick up that sum. I reckon you’ll have to send me to prison in default of bail, squire.”

“No, you needn’t, squire. I’m assessed for fourteen thousand dollars, and so I reckon you may take me as his bail for one thousand, mayn’t you?” inquired Miss Sibby, rising from her chair and leaning over the table.

“Certainly,” replied Mr. Force.

The good magistrate had so little call to exercise his office in his peaceful neighborhood that he never required the services of a clerk, and did not possess one. He quickly drew up the necessary papers, had them signed and sealed, locked them in his desk, and discharged the prisoners in a very unmagisterial manner.

“And now, my young friends, let us forget this unpleasant scene, while you both stay and dine with us.”

And they stayed.