Mr Lyon began to conduct himself more outrageously than before, now that the modified restraint of a lady's presence was removed. "With boisterous horseplay", he pushed Carnegie into a deep ditch which ran beside the roadside, and from which Carnegie emerged covered with mud. "Such an insult could only be wiped out with blood"; and, drawing his sword, Carnegie rushed at Mr Lyon. The Earl, in order to avert a tragedy, imprudently threw himself between the two antagonists, and Carnegie's sword entered his body, passing clean through it and sometime later the Earl died.