Before I could answer or ask what was happening, the damsel rounded
on me.

"Boy," she demanded, "is this man deceiving me?"

"As for that, ma'am," I answered, "I cannot say. But that he's a
bachelor I believe; and that he hates women I have his word over and
over."

"Then he shall marry me or fight me," she answered very coolly, and
began to strip off her short bodice.

"There's twelve o'clock," announced one of the turnkeys, as the first
stroke sounded from the clock above us over the prison gateway. "Too
late to be married to-day; so a fight it is."

"A ring! a ring!" cried the others.

I looked in Billy's face, and in all my life (as I have since often
reminded him) I never saw a man worse scared. The woman had actually
thrown off her jacket and stood up in a loose under-bodice that left
her arms free--and exceedingly red and brawny arms they were.
How he had come into this plight I could guess as little as what the
issue was like to be, when in the gateway there appeared my uncle and
Mr. Knox, and close at their heels a rabble of men and women
arm-in-arm, headed by a red-nosed clergyman with an immense white
favour pinned to his breast.

"Hey? What's to do--what's to do!" inquired Mr. Knox.