little back and took off his hat to me decorously.

"Enough plows I think," says he. "I will be the offended shentleman, for
who effer heard of such suffeeciency as tell a shentlemans that is the
king's officer he cannae speak Cot's English? We have swords at our
hurdies, and here is the King's Park at hand. Will ye walk first, or let
me show ye the way?"

I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him. As he went I
heard him grumble to himself about _Cot's English_ and the _King's
coat_, so that I might have supposed him to be seriously offended. But
his manner at the beginning of our interview was there to belie him. It
was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or
wrong; manifest that I was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies;
and to me (conscious as I was of my deficiencies) manifest enough that I
should be the one to fall in our encounter.

As we came into that rough rocky desert of the King's Park I was tempted
half-a-dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so loath was I to
show my ignorance in fencing, and so much averse to die or even to be
wounded. But I considered if their malice went as far as this, it would
likely stick at nothing; and that to fall by the sword, however
ungracefully, was still an improvement on the gallows. I considered
besides that by the unguarded pertness of my words and the quickness of
my blow I had put myself quite out of court; and that even if I ran, my
adversary would, probably pursue and catch me, which would add disgrace
to my misfortune. So that, taking all in all, I continued marching
behind him, much as a man follows the hangman, and certainly with no
more hope.