"Call him off,
Rufton!" he screamed.
"Call him off, man! He's worrying me!" They dragged me away
from him. Can I ever forget it?--the laughter, the cheering, the
congratulations! Even my enemy bore me no ill-will, for he shook
me by the hand. For my part I embraced him on each cheek. Five
years afterward I learned from Lord Rufton that my noble bearing
upon that evening was still fresh in the memory of my English
friends.
It is not, however, of my own exploits in sport that I wish to
speak to you to-night, but it is of the Lady Jane Dacre and the
strange adventure of which she was the cause. Lady Jane Dacre
was Lord Rufton's sister and the lady of his household. I fear
that until I came it was lonely for her, since she was a
beautiful and refined woman with nothing in common with those who
were about her. Indeed, this might be said of many women in the
England of those days, for the men were rude and rough and
coarse, with boorish habits and few accomplishments, while the
women were the most lovely and tender that I have ever known.
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