'Your humble servant, sir Cavalier!' interjected Richard. 'Pray use your pleasure.'
'I tell you plainly,' Scudamore went on, without heeding the interruption, 'though I admire my cousin, as I do any young woman, if she be but a shade beyond the passable—'
'The ape! The coxcomb!' said Richard to himself.
'I am not, therefore, dying for her love; and I give you this one honest warning that, though I would rather see mistress Dorothy in her winding-sheet than dame to a roundhead, I should be—yes, I MAY be a more dangerous rival in respect of your mare, than of any lady YOU are likely to set eyes upon.'
'What do you mean?' said Richard gruffly.
'I mean that, the king having at length resolved to be more of a monarch and less of a saint—'
'A saint!' echoed Richard, but the echo was rather a loud one, for it startled his mare and shook her rider.
'Don't shout like that!' cried the cavalier, with an oath. 'Saint or sinner, I care not. He is my king, and I am his soldier. But with this knee you have given me, I shall be fitter for garrison than field-duty—damn it.'
'You do not mean that his majesty has declared open war against the parliament?' exclaimed Richard.
'Faithless puritan, I do,' answered Scudamore. 'His majesty has at length—with reluctance, I am sorry to hear—taken up arms against his rebellious subjects. Land will be cheap by-and-by.'