"Who are you, I say? And what am I, that my orders are defied, and my house made a common inn, a toping house for you and your toss-pot ruffians? Go—go, I say!"
The captain was for a moment staggered; the old man's manner left no room for doubt that he was in earnest. But Aglionby was too old a campaigner to cry off so easily. In a tone half-conciliatory, half-aggrieved he said—
"Fair and softly, Squire! this is but scurvy treatment of a tired man. Look you, I've been in the saddle this livelong day; the mare's well-nigh foundered; and for myself—gads so, I could eat an ox and drink a hogshead. To-morrow, in a few hours, I'll bid ye good-bye—for a time, if ye want a change; but to-night—no, Squire, 'tis not hospitable of you, 'tis not indeed."
"You dally with me!" cried the squire, the hand that held the candle shaking with passion. "You set no foot within this door—now, nor ever again. Begone, while there is time."
"While there is time! Look ye, Master Berkeley, I will not brook insults from you. Yesterday you must put an affront on me in the presence of my lord Godolphin, shoving me out of the way as I were a leper, and at the very moment, stap me! when I might ha' paid court to his lordship, and got the chance o' my life. Adsbud, I was not good enough to approach my lord, to accost him, have speech with him——"
"An omission you have since repaired," interjected the old man with a meaning look. The captain started, and there was a perceptible interval before he resumed, in a tone still more blusterous—
"Ods my life, what mean you now? You took care I should not meet my lord in your company; and, i' faith, he showed he wanted none of that neither."
"Hold your peace and begone!" cried the squire in a fury. "You think I know nothing of your villainies? How many times have I harboured you—ay, saved you perchance from the gallows! How many times have you eat my food, rid my horses, browbeat my servants, roistered it in my house, till I could bear with you no longer, and then betaken yourself to your evil practices abroad, consorted with villains, run your neck well-nigh into the hangman's noose, and then come back with contrite face and vows of amendment, to fawn and bluster and bully again? Out upon you! Your rapscallion of a servant is even now laid by the heels, and to-morrow will have to answer to the charge of waylaying the Lord Treasurer. He's a white-livered oaf, and his tongue will wag, and you'll companion him before Fanshawe, and you'll swing on the same gibbet."
At the mention of his man's plight the captain's face had fallen; but when Mr. Berkeley's tirade was ended he broke into a laugh.
"Ha! ha! Squire, now I come to understand you. 'Tis your own skin you have a care for! Ha! ha! I might have known it. I am to be haled before Sir Godfrey, am I? and to hold my tongue, am I? and to be mum about certain little affairs in the life of Master Nicolas Berkeley—that paragon of virtue, that pampered, patched old interloper, am I? By the lord Harry, if I stand in manacles before Sir Godfrey, you shall bear me company, you painted pasteboard of a saint!"