hueless cheek of his opponent, and seeing blood trickling from Randal's
lip, was seized with an instantaneous and generous remorse. "It was not
fair," he thought, "to fight one whom he could beat so easily." So,
retreating still farther, and letting his arms fall to his side, he said
mildly, "There, let's have no more of it; but go home and be good."

Randal Leslie had no remarkable degree of that constitutional quality
called physical courage; but he had some of those moral qualities which
supply its place. He was proud, he was vindictive, he had high self-
esteem, he had the destructive organ more than the combative,--what had
once provoked his wrath it became his instinct to sweep away. Therefore,
though all his nerves were quivering, and hot tears were in his eyes, he
approached Lenny with the sternness of a gladiator, and said between his
teeth, which he set hard, choking back the sob of rage and pain,--

"You have struck me--and you shall not stir from this ground till I have
made you repent it. Put up your hands,--defend yourself."

Lenny mechanically obeyed; and he had good need of the admonition; for if
before he had had the advantage, now that Randal had recovered the
surprise to his nerves, the battle was not to the strong.

Though Leslie had not been a fighting boy at Eton, still his temper had
involved him in some conflicts when he was in the lower forms, and he had
learned something of the art as well as the practice in pugilism,--an
excellent thing too, I am barbarous enough to believe, and which I hope
will never quite die out of our public schools. Ah, many a young duke
has been a better fellow for life from a fair set-to with a trader's son;
and many a trader's son has learned to look a lord more manfully in the
face on the hustings, from the recollection of the sound thrashing he