The arrogant lips of the young man tightened; he tossed up his head. “The house is mine. I am the master here. You are an outlaw.”
“An outlaw no longer,” answered the old man, “for the Protector has granted me again the home of which I was cruelly dispossessed.”
“The Protector is a rebel!” returned the young man, and his knuckles rapped petulantly upon the table. “I stand for the King—for King Charles the Second. When you were dispossessed, his late martyred Majesty made me master of this estate and a knight also.”
The old man’s hands clinched, in the effort to rule himself to quietness.
“You are welcome to the knighthood which I have never accepted,” said he; “but for these estates—” All at once a fierce anger possessed him, and the great shoulders heaved up and down with emotion—“but for these estates, sir, no law nor king can take them from me. I am John Enderby, the first son of a first son, the owner of these lands since the time my mother gave me birth. You, sir, are the first of our name that ever was a traitor to his house.”
So intent were the two that they did not see or hear three men who drew aside the curtains at the end of the room and stood spying upon them—three of Cromwell’s men. Young Enderby laughed sneeringly and answered:
“It was a King of England that gave Enderby Manor to the Enderbys. The King is the source of all estate and honour, and I am loyal to the King. He is a traitor who spurns the King’s honour and defies it. He is a traitor who links his fortunes with that vile, murderous upstart, that blethering hypocrite, Oliver Cromwell. I go to Scotland to join King Charles, and before three months are over his Majesty will have come into his own again and I also into my own here at Enderby.”
The old man trembled with the fierceness of his emotions.
“I only am master here,” he said, “and I should have died upon this threshold ere my Lord Rippingdale and the King’s men had ever crossed it, but for you, an Enderby, who deserted me in the conflict—a coward who went over to the enemies of our house.”
The young man’s face twitched with a malignant anger. He suddenly started forward, and with a sidelong blow struck his father with the flat of his sword. A red ridge of bruised flesh instantly rose upon the old man’s cheek and ear. He caught the arm of the chair by which he stood, staggering back as though he had received a mortal wound.