"Nay! That shall you not do yet. Wolfe Considine, you must listen to me."
"To thee, rapscallion," said the other, looking down on him, yet noting his great frame as he did so. "To thee. Wherefore, pray, to thee? If you endeavour to stop this funeral the watch shall lay you by the heels, and my lady here shall hale you before a Justice for endeavouring to prevent the interment of her brother-in-law."
"'My lady! Her brother-in-law!'" repeated the butcher contemptuously, and glancing into the hackney carriage as he did so. "'My lady! Her brother-in-law!' Why, how can she be either?" and he smiled at the red-faced woman.
"You Irish dog," she said, now protruding her head from the window. "The law shall teach you how I am both, at the same time that it chastises you for your insolence. Let us pass, however."
"You shall not pass until you have heard me. Nay, Wolfe Considine, put not thy hand upon thy sword. There is no courage in thy craven heart to draw it. What! shall he who ran away from Oudenarde--thou knowest 'tis truth; I fought, not ran away, as a corporal there myself--threaten a brave and honest man with his sword? Nay, more, why should he wear one--? I' faith, I have a mind to take it from thee. Yet even that is not the worst, though the Duke did threaten to brand thy back if ever he clapt eyes on thee again."
Here the collegians, in spite of the halted bier with the dreary burden on it, burst into laughter, while Considine trembled with rage and was now white as a corpse himself.
"That, I say, is scarce the worst. You speak of the watch to me--you! Why! call them, call all the officers of the law and see which they shall arrest first. An honest man or a thief. Ay, a thief! I say a thief." He advanced closer to Considine as he spoke. "A thief, I say again."
"Vile wretch! the law shall punish you."
"Summon it, I tell you. Summon it. Then shall we see."
And now, changing his address, which had been up to this moment made to Considine alone, he turned half round to the crowd--which had much augmented since the altercation began and the stopping of the funeral had taken place--and addressing all assembled there, he said in a loud voice so that none but those who were stone deaf could fail to hear his words.