THE FIGHT BY THE RIVER

For a while Hugh and Eve heard nothing, but Grey Dick's ears were
sharper than theirs, quick as these might be. About half a minute later,
however, they caught the sound of horses' hoofs ringing on the hard
earth, followed by that of voices and the crackle of breaking reeds.

Two of the speakers appeared and pulled up their horses near by in a
dry hollow that lay between them and the river bank. Peeping between the
reeds that grew about the mouth of the earth-dwelling, Eve saw them.

"My father and the Frenchman," she whispered. "Look!" And she slid back
a little so that Hugh might see.

Peering through the stems of the undergrowth, set as it were in a little
frame against the red and ominous sky, the eyes of Hugh de Cressi fell
upon Sir Edmund Acour, a gallant, even a splendid-looking knight--that
was his first impression of him. Broad shouldered, graceful, in age
neither young nor old, clean featured, quick eyed, with a mobile mouth
and a little, square-cut beard, soft and languid voiced, black haired,
richly dressed in a fur robe, and mounted on a fine black horse, such
was the man.

Staring at Acour, and remembering that he, too, loved Red Eve, Hugh grew
suddenly ashamed. How could a mere merchant compare himself with this
magnificent lord, this high-bred, many-titled favourite of courts and
of fortune? How could he rival him, he who had never yet travelled
a hundred miles from the place where he was born, save once, when he
sailed on a trading voyage to Calais? As well might a hooded crow try to
match a peregrine that swooped to snatch away the dove from beneath its