How say you, Magdalen Proudfute, will you accept me for your champion ?" The widow answered with difficulty: "I can desire none nobler." Sir Patrick then took her right hand in his, and, kissing her forehead, for such was the ceremony, said solemnly: "So may God and St.John prosper me at my need, as I will do my devoir as your champion, knightly, truly, and manfully.

Go now, Magdalen, and choose at your will among the burgesses of the Fair City, present or absent, any one upon whom you desire to rest your challenge, if he against whom you bring plaint shall prove to be beneath my degree." All eyes were turned to Henry Smith, whom the general voice had already pointed out as in every respect the fittest to act as champion on the occasion.

But the widow waited not for the general prompting of their looks.

As soon as Sir Patrick had spoken, she crossed the floor to the place where, near the bottom of the table, the armourer stood among the men of his degree, and took him by the hand.
"Henry Gow, or Smith," she said, "good burgher and draftsman, my--my--" "Husband," she would have said, but the word would not come forth: she was obliged to change the expression.
"He who is gone, loved and prized you over all men; therefore meet it is that thou shouldst follow out the quarrel of his widow and orphans." If there had been a possibility, which in that age there was not, of Henry's rejecting or escaping from a trust for which all men seemed to destine him, every wish and idea of retreat was cut off when the widow began to address him; and a command from Heaven could hardly have made a stronger impression than did the appeal of the unfortunate Magdalen.

Her allusion to his intimacy with the deceased moved him to the soul.