After perhaps half an hour, we encountered Buckingham with his
lawyer-knight, Johnson. They had evidently walked out to this quiet
path to consult about the situation. As they approached, Mary spoke to
the duke with a vicious sparkle in her eyes.
"My Lord Buckingham, this shall cost you your head; remember my words
when you are on the scaffold, just when your neck fits into the hollow
of the block."
He stopped, with an evident desire to explain, but Mary pointed down
the path and said: "Go, or I will have Master Brandon spit you on his
sword. Two to one would be easy odds compared with the four to one you
put against him in Billingsgate. Go!" And the battle was over, the foe
never having struck a blow. It hurt me that Mary should speak of the
odds being two to one against Brandon when I was at hand. It is true I
was not very large, but I could have taken care of a lawyer.
Now it was that the lawyer-knight earned his bread by his wits, for it
was he, I know, who instigated the next move--a master stroke in its
way, and one which proved a checkmate to us.
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