The latter drank it slowly, relishing every drop, and, keeping his person between Alice and the half-door, seemed to enjoy her confusion, which, obviously, from the conceited satisfaction of his countenance, he attributed to an unfortunate passion for himself. Suddenly her face brightened, a well-known footstep hastened up the passage, and the next moment Slap-Jack entered the bar.
Alice dashed away her tears, the captain assumed an attitude of profound indifference, and the new arrival looked from one to the other with a darkening brow.
“What, again?” said he, turning fiercely on the intruder, and approaching very close, in that aggressive manner which is almost equivalent to a blow. “I thought as I’d given you warning already to let this here young woman be. You think as you’re lying snug enough, may be, in smooth water, with your name painted out and a honest burgee at your truck; but I’ll larn you better afore I’ve done with you, if you comes cruising any more in my fishing-ground. There’s some here as’ll make you show your number, and we’ll soon see who’s captain then!”
Honest Jack Bold, as he called himself, was not deficient in self-command. Sipping his brandy with the utmost coolness, he turned to Alice, and, motioning towards Slap-Jack, boiling over within six inches of him, observed, in his high-quavering voice:
“Favoured lover, I presume! Visits here, I hope, with our good aunt’s sanction. Seems a domestic servant by his dress, though I gather, from the coarseness of his language, he has served before the mast!—a sad come-down, sweet Alice! for a girl with your advantages. These seaman, I fancy, are all given to liquor. Offer your bachelor something to drink, and score it, if you please, to my account. A sad come-down!—a sad come-down! Why burn me, Mistress Alice, with your good looks, you might almost have married a gentleman—you might, indeed! Sink me to the lowest depths of matrimonial perdition, if you might not!”
Slap-Jack could have stood a good deal, but to be offered a dram by a rival in this off-hand way, through the medium of his own sweetheart, was more than flesh and blood could swallow. In defiance of Alice’s entreaties, who was horribly frightened at the prospect of a quarrel, and as pale now as she had been flushed a few minutes back, he shook a broad serviceable fist in the captain’s face, and burst out—
“A gentleman! you swab! What do you know about gentlemen? All the sort as you’ve seen is them that hangs at Tyburn; and look, if you’re not rove up there yourself some fine morning, my saucy blade, with your night-cap over your ears, and a bunch of rue in your hand. Gentlemen indeed! Now look you here, Captain John Bold, or whatever other alias your papers may show when they’re overhauled, if ever I catches of you in here alone, a parsecutin’ of my Alice, or even hears o’ your so much as standing’ off-and-on, a watchin’ for her clearin’ out, or on the open moor, or homeward bound, or what not, I’ll smash that great red nose of yours as flat as a Port-Royal jelly-fish, you ugly, brandy-faced, bottle-nosed, lop-sided son of a gun!”
The captain had borne with considerable equanimity his adversary’s quarrelsome gestures and threats of actual violence, keeping very near the door, corporeally, indeed, and entrenching himself morally, as it were, in the dignity of his superior position, but at these allusions to his personal appearance he lost all self-control. His face grew livid, his very nose turned pale, his eyes blazed, and his hand stole to the short cutlass or hanger he carried at his side. Something in Slap-Jack’s face, whose glance followed the movement of his fingers, checked any resort to this weapon, and even in his fury, the captain had the presence of mind to place himself outside the half-door of the bar; but when there he caught hold of it with both hands, for he was trembling all over, and burst forth—
“You think the sun is on your side of the hedge, my fine fellow, I dare say, but you’ll know better before a week’s out. Ay, you may laugh, but you’ll laugh the other side of your mouth when the right end is uppermost, as uppermost it will be, and I take you out on the terrace with a handkerchief over your eyes, and a file of honest fellows, with carbines loaded, who are in my pay even now. Ay, you’ll sing small then, I think, for all your blare and bluster to-day. You’ll sing small, d’ye hear? on the wet grass under the windows at Hamilton Hill, and your master’ll sing small with his feet tied under his horse’s belly, riding down the north road and on his way to Tyburn, under a warrant from King Ja— Well, a warrant from the king; and that Frenchified jade, your missus’ll sing small—”