“Ben o’ Bill’s o’ Holme,” said the landlord.
“Well, why the devil can’t he stop at home?” said my lord. “Come, sir, your business.”
“Captain Northman,” I said civilly, and speaking my finest, nothing daunted by his captaincy, but nettled by his slack manners, for even Mr. Chew, the vicar, treated me with civility as my father’s son; “Captain Northman, you have in your Company, a soldier known as Long Tom, his proper name I know not, nor his rank.”
“Corporal Tom, well, what of him?”
“Sir, I complain that last night he did wantonly and without enticement or other warrant insult my own cousin Mary, as she was returning home late in the evening.”
“Well, sir?”
“And I lay this complaint that he may be punished as he deserves.”
“And is that all?”
“And enough too, it seems to me, Captain Northman.”
“Good God! was ever the like heard!” exclaimed the Captain. “Here I am half pulled out of my bed in the small hours by a giant boor, my head all splitting with this vile liquor not fit for hog wash, and all because Long Tom chooses to kiss a pretty girl, who ten to one was nothing loth.”