"That they can't, neighbour; nor Bob neither, as far as stand up man to man go. I give him three to one—Bob Eccles! He took 'em when a boy. He may, you know, he may have the law agin him, and by George! if he do— why, a man's no match for the law. No use bein' a hero to the law. The law masters every man alive; and there's law in everything, neighbour Eccles; eh, sir? Your friend, the Prince, owns to it, as much as you or me. But, of course, you know what Bob's been doing. What I dropped in to ask was, why did ye do it, Bob? Why pull the young gentleman off his horse? I'd ha' given pounds to be there!"
"Pounds o' tallow candles don't amount to much," quoth Robert.
"That's awful bad brandy at 'The Pilot,'" said Mr. Sedgett, venomously.
"Were you drunk when you committed this assault?" Jonathan asked his son.
"I drank afterwards," Robert replied.
"'Pilot' brandy's poor consolation," remarked Mr. Sedgett.
Jonathan had half a mind to turn his son out of the gate, but the presence of Sedgett advised him that his doings were naked to the world.
"You kicked up a shindy in the hunting-field—what about? Who mounted ye?"
Robert remarked that he had been on foot.
"On foot—eh? on foot!" Jonathan speculated, unable to realize the image of his son as a foot-man in the hunting-field, or to comprehend the insolence of a pedestrian who should dare to attack a mounted huntsman. "You were on foot? The devil you were on foot! Foot? And caught a man out of his saddle?"