"You damned traders think that you can buy a gentleman. Take
that for your insult." And he aimed a blow with the flat of his sword,
which Ringan easily parried.
"I had thought thee a pirate," said the mild Quaker, "but thee tells me
thee is a gentleman."
"Hold your peace, Square-Toes," cried the leader, "and let's get to
business."
"But if ye be gentlefolk," pleaded Ringan, "ye will grant a fair field.
I am no fighter, but I will stand by my friend."
I, who had said nothing, now broke in. "It is a warm evening for
sword-play, but if it is your humour, so be it."
This seemed to them hugely comic. "La!" cried one. "Sawney with a
sword!" And he plucked forth his own blade, and bent it on the floor.
Ringan smiled gently, "Thee must grant me the first favour," he said,
"for I am the challenger, if that be the right word of the carnally
minded." And standing up, he picked up the blade from beside him, and
bowed to the leader from Gracedieu.
Nothing loath he engaged, and the others stood back expecting a high
fiasco. They saw it. Ringan's sword played like lightning round the
wretched youth, it twitched the blade from his grasp, and forced him
back with a very white face to the door. In less than a minute, it
seemed, he was there, and as he yielded so did the door, and he
disappeared into the night.
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