"I will be protected from insult in this house," began Mackworth; "twice to-day I have been insulted by Mr. Charles Ravenshoe, and I demand protection."
"What have you been doing, Charley?" said Cuthbert. "I thought you two had given up quarrelling. You will wear my life out. Sometimes, what with one thing and another, I wish I were dead. Oh! if the great problem were solved! Surely my brother may avoid brawling with a priest, a man sacred by his office, though of another faith. Surely my brother has taste enough to see the propriety of that."
"Your brother has no taste or sense, sir," said Father Mackworth. "He has no decency. He has no gentlemanly feeling. Within ten minutes he has dropped a book downstairs, and lamented, to my face, that it hadn't fallen on my head; and just now he has thrown the same book at me, and hit me with it."
"I thank God, Charles," said poor weary Cuthbert, "that our father is spared this. It would kill him. Brother, brother, why do you vex me like this? I have always stood on your side, Charley. Don't let me be killed with these ceaseless brawls."
"They will soon cease, sir," said Father Mackworth; "I leave this house to-morrow."
"Cuthbert, hear me now. I never intended to insult him."
"Why did you throw your book at him, Charley? It is not decorous. You must know when you wound him you wound me. And I have fought such battles for you, Charley."
"Cuthbert! brother! do hear me. And let him hear me. And let Father Tiernay hear me. Cuthbert, you know I love you. Father Tiernay, you are a good and honest man; hear what I have to say. You, Mackworth, you are a scoundrel. You are a double-dyed villain. What were you doing with that girl in the wood, the day you hunted the black hare a month ago? Cuthbert, tell me, like an honest gentleman, did you ever walk in the wood with Ellen?"
"I?" said Cuthbert, scared; "I never walked with Ellen there. I have walked with Mary there, brother. Why should I not?"
"There, look at the lie that this man has put into her mouth. She told me that he had found you and her walking together there."