thread clipt in a tavern brawl, as thy Frenchman. But how did you escape
his pinking iron?"

"How? Had it through my left arm before I could look round; and at that
I got mad, and leapt upon him, and caught him by the wrist, and then had
a fair side-blow; and, as fortune would have it, off tumbled his head on
to the table, and there was an end of his slanders."

"So perish all her enemies!" said Frank; and Eustace, who had been
trying not to listen, rose and said--

"I trust that you do not number me among them?"

"As you speak, I do, coz," said Frank. "But for your own sake, let
me advise you to put faith in the true report of those who have daily
experience of their mistress's excellent virtue, as they have of the
sun's shining, and of the earth's bringing forth fruit, and not in the
tattle of a few cowardly back-stair rogues, who wish to curry favor with
the Guises. Come, we will say no more. Walk round with us by Appledore,
and then home to breakfast."

But Eustace declined, having immediate business, he said, in Northam
town, and then in Bideford; and so left them to lounge for another
half-hour on the beach, and then walk across the smooth sheet of turf to
the little white fishing village, which stands some two miles above the
bar, at the meeting of the Torridge and the Taw.

Now it came to pass, that Eustace Leigh, as we have seen, told his
cousins that he was going to Northam: but he did not tell them that
his point was really the same as their own, namely, Appledore; and,