"He is a man of taste, Kincavil!" said Leslie, smiling; "but where is my horse?"
"My son holds it at the gate."
"How, the devil! is that tall fellow thy son?"
"No," replied the little man, with a grin of bitterness; "he is the son of my wife."
As Leslie slipped another crown into the hand of the host, and was turning away, a tall, swaggering cavalier—the same whom Roland Vipont had fought with and wounded near the Water Gate, as related in a preceding chapter of this history—brushed past him somewhat unceremoniously.
"Sir John of Kincavil!" said Leslie, with angry surprise.
"Well, sir! at your service," replied the other, swelling up his rose-coloured doublet, and resting his left hand in the bowl-hilt of his long rapier, as he assumed a lofty attitude.
"Is this to be taken as an insult?"
"It is to be taken just as you please," replied the other, twirling his moustache.
"Take care, sir. I am on the king's service."