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for my grandfather with Buck Kinsmere’s friend Roger Stainley, the head of the great Stainley banking house, which is known all over the world nowadays.
    Their destinies were to cross in singular fashion, because … but no matter for that, now. This inheritance was the precaution Mathilda Kinsmere took. You have seen her portrait in the Long Gallery, all stiff with lace after the Dutch style, with her red cheeks and merry eyes. But she died notwithstanding, of rust that got into a cut finger: she and Buck Kinsmere still loving each other so much that his was the worse heartbreak when he knew she had to go.
    Still!
    I do not wish to tell you of the ghosts and shadows you may find here, but of my grandfather growing up and going to London for his great adventure.
    He had a pleasant time of it at Blackthorn. His uncle Godfrey taught him the use of small arms, particularly the four-foot double-edged rapier and the new-style, much lighter cup-hilt—narrow of blade, without cutting edges but needle-sharp for play with the point alone. They used to practice on the bowling green, where it was shady. The serving-girls would run to the windows, and Dr. Harrison sit under a plum tree with his pipe and a jug of cold punch, to watch some pretty rapid fencing matches there.
    But what drew everybody round to shout, especially the men from the stables over the way, were the quarterstaff bouts. To see a whirl between two well-matched fellows, each with a seven-foot staff shod in iron, is a rare thing nowadays. When I was down from school once I saw Jem Lovell, the West Country champion (he was a Somerset man, though he settled in Devon), fight a Welsh challenger at the fair on Hanham Green; but today the sport has pretty well given place to boxing.
    There was small notion of social dignity at Blackthorn after Buck Kinsmere died; and, my grandfather having acquired great proficiency in the quarterstaff art, a circumstance occurred which brought him wide notoriety in the country.
    This fell out in the year 1669, when he was past his twentieth birthday: a genial, easygoing young fellow, with a knack of using long words in addition to his other accomplishments, and a nice eye for a wench.
    Of his nimbleness with the quarterstaff Uncle Godfrey was especially proud. So it fell out that one night at a magistrates’ meeting Uncle Godfrey drank a bottle too many, as old gentlemen will do. He got up on the table and offered even money on his nephew to crack the skull of any man in Somerset within half a stone of his weight. Whereupon a visiting landowner from the Mendips instantly offered two-to-one odds on a promising carter of his village, and a match was arranged—under terms of the most absolute secrecy—to take place at Blackthorn.
    It so happened that this same carter (as the Mendip gentleman well knew when he made the wager) had been accustomed to drive twenty-odd miles every week in order to ogle a certain pretty dairy maid of our village. Which dairy maid was already—most reprehensibly, I grieve to say—a safe conquest of my grandfather, and well satisfied with the arrangement. Being informed of this fact did not please the honest carter. To the contrary, he swore by all his gods he would “smash yon yoong zur’s poll for ’ee, and lay ’ee down dead, look.” The J.P.’s felt themselves justified in expecting results of a tolerably lively nature. They had arranged for the presence of a small chosen group to watch the encounter on the bowling green: all very secret and orderly, as befitted their magisterial dignity.
    You will, no doubt, anticipate what occurred.
    On the appointed date, the whole countryside roundabout bore the general aspect of fair day. The good peasantry, still exulting in the free-and-easy reign of King Charles the Second, were full of what we should nowadays describe as “beans.” Having already wagered their shirts on this bout, they were out to see fair play. They came flocking in, horse, foot, and wagon,