"An' what the worse are ye for that?" replied the saucy mendicant; "your hounds and puppies would lick up the leavings, if I did not."
"Go to," said Alice, impatiently; "thou dost presume too far to escape correction. Begone!"
"This air, I reckon—ay, this blessed air—is as free unto my use as thine," said Noman, sullenly, and without showing any symptoms of obedience.
"My brother shall know of thine insolence, and the menials shall drive thee forth."
"Thy brother!—tell him, pretty maiden, that though he is a lawyer, and his uncle, he who built this house to boot, he hath little left in this misgoverned realm but to deal out injustice. Other folks' money sticks i' their skirts that have precious little o' their own, I wis."
"I know not the nature of thine allusions, nor care I to bandy weapons with such an adversary."
"Hark ye, lady! it was to solder down as pretty a piece of roguery as one would wish to leave to one's heirs that Theophilus Ashton, thine uncle, thy mother's brother, now deceased, went to London when he had builded this house."
"Roguery!—mine uncle Ashton! Darest thou?"——
"Ay, the same. The spoils of my patrimony built this goodly dwelling, and the battle of Marston Moor gave thy brother wherewith to buy the remainder of the inheritance. I was made a beggar by my loyalty, he a rich man by his treason."
"What means this foul charge?" said Alice, astounded by the audacity of this accusation.