"
"Marry and I am glad of it, young Audacity, (I will call you my
Audacity, and you will call me your Condescension, while we are on
these terms of unnatural equality,) I am glad of your ignorance with
all my heart. For we martialists proportion the punishments which we
inflict upon our opposites, to the length and hazard of the efforts
wherewith they oppose themselves to us. And I see not why you, being
but a tyro, may not be held sufficiently punished for your
outrecuidance, and orgillous presumption, by the loss of an ear, an
eye, or even a finger, accompanied by some flesh-wound of depth and
severity, suited to your error--whereas, had you been able to stand
more effectually on your defence, I see not how less than your life
could have atoned sufficiently for your presumption."
"Now, by God and Our Lady," said Halbert, unable any longer to
restrain himself, "thou art thyself over-presumptuous, who speakest
thus daringly of the issue of a combat which is not yet even
begun--Are you a god, that you already dispose of my life and limbs?
or are you a judge in the justice-air, telling at your ease and
without risk, how the head and quarters of a condemned criminal are to
be disposed of?"
"Not so, O thou,--whom I have well permitted to call thyself my
Audacity. I, thy Condescension, am neither a god to judge the issue
of the combat before it is fought, nor a judge to dispose at my ease
and in safety of the limbs and head of a condemned criminal; but I am
an indifferent good master of fence, being the first pupil of the
first master of the first school of fence that our royal England
affords, the said master being no other than the truly noble, and
all-unutterably skilful Vincentio Saviola, from whom I learned the
firm step, quick eye, and nimble hand--of which qualities thou, O my
most rustical Audacity, art full like to reap the fruits so soon as we
shall find a piece of ground fitting for such experiments.
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