That went through the true-lover's heart like a knife, and poor little Percy leaned in despair against Hope's workshop window transfixed by the poisoned arrow of jealousy.
At this moment the voice of Colonel Clifford was heard, loud and ringing as usual. Julia Clifford had decoyed him there in hopes of falling in with Percy and making it up; and to deceive the good Colonel as to her intentions she had been running him down all the way; so the Colonel was heard to say, in a voice for all the village to hear, "Jealous is he, and suspicious? Then you take my advice and give him up at once. You will easily find a better man and a bigger." After delivering this, like the word of command upon parade, the Colonel was crossing the turf, a yard or two higher up than Hope's workshop, when the spirit of revenge moved Bartley to retort upon his insulter.
"Hy, Colonel Clifford!"
The Colonel instantly halted, and marched down with Julia on his arm, like a game-cock when another rooster crows defiance.
"And what can you have to say to me, sir?" was his haughty inquiry.
"To take you down a peg. You rode the high horse pretty hard to-day. The spotless honor of the Cliffords, eh?"
Then it was fixed bayonets and no quarter.
"Have the Cliffords ever dabbled in trade or trickery? Coal merchants, coal heavers, and coal whippers may defile our fields with coal dust and smoke, but they can not defile our honor."
"The men are brave as lions, and the women as chaste as snow?" sneered Bartley.
"I don't know about lions and snow. I have often seen a lion turn tail, and the snow is black slush wherever you are. But the Cliffords, being gentlemen, are brave, and being ladies, are chaste."