"You would not be the first Ravenshoe who has been commanded by a priest; ay, and has had to obey too," said he.
"And you will not be the first jack-priest who has felt the weight of a Ravenshoe's wrath," replied Densil, brutally.
Lord Saltire leant back, and said to the ambient air, "I'll back the priest, five twenties to one."
This was too much. Densil would have liked to quarrel with Saltire, but that was death—he was the deadest shot in Europe. He grew furious, and beyond all control. He told the priest to go (further than purgatory); grew blasphemous, emphatically renouncing the creed of his forefathers, and, in fact, all other creeds. The priest grew hot and furious too, retaliated in no measured terms, and finally left the room with his ears stopped, shaking the dust off his feet as he went. Then Lord Saltire drew up to the table again, laughing.
"Your estates are entailed, Ravenshoe, I suppose?" said he.
"No."
"Oh! It's your deal, my dear fellow."
Densil got an angry letter from his father in a few days, demanding full apologies and recantations, and an immediate return home. Densil had no apologies to make, and did not intend to return till the end of the season. His father wrote declining the honour of his further acquaintance, and sending him a draft for fifty pounds to pay outstanding bills, which he very well knew amounted to several thousands. In a short time the great Catholic tradesmen, with whom he had been dealing, began to press for money in a somewhat insolent way; and now Densil began to see that, by defying and insulting the faith and the party to which he belonged, he had merely cut himself off from rank, wealth, and position. He had defied the partie prêtre, and had yet to feel their power. In two months he was in the Fleet prison.
His servant (the title "tiger" came in long after this), a half groom, half valet, such as men kept in those days—a simple lad from Ravenshoe, James Horton by name—for the first time in his life disobeyed orders; for, on being told to return home by Densil, he firmly declined doing so, and carried his top boots and white neckcloth triumphantly into the Fleet, there pursuing his usual avocations with the utmost nonchalance.
"A very distinguished fellow that of yours, Curly" (they all had nicknames for one another in those days), said Lord Saltire. "If I were not Saltire, I think I would be Jim. To own the only clean face among six hundred fellow-creatures is a pre-eminence, a decided pre-eminence. I'll buy him of you."