“I say so.”
“Then a pox on your profanity! Are you to arrogate to yourself the Almighty’s prerogatives? It shall rain or not as the Lord decrees.”
“Hallelujah, young sir!” boomed the Anabaptist.
“Do you say it will not rain?” demanded George, addressing him.
“Nay,” answered the Fifth-Monarchist; “but I trust it will not.”
“Then you are as bad as the other,” said George, “since you are as ready to lament the Almighty’s dispensations.” He snapped again on the luckless first speaker. “I am a man of submission, for my part, and content to accept whatever comes—even if it be a fool to spit himself on my rapier-point. I’ll take you on that question of your damned divinity.”
The landlord came up at the moment, bringing his drink, and simultaneously there appeared, on the balcony above, the figure of a young girl. A certain hush had fallen on the crowd, expectant of a fracas.
“Zoons!” said Boniface sourly; “we’ll have no talk of swords, by your leave. No swords, my lord, none. This is no hedge-tavern; we want no fire-eaters here! We’ve a reputation to maintain.”
He was a gross, club-fisted man, with a sooty underlip. It needed such to keep a grip on the sort of company he dealt with.
“A reputation for mischief, by the token,” said Hamilton derisively, “or you fly false colours.”