Andrew Burge was with some difficulty set on his legs, and after gazing vacantly round him appeared to recover a remnant of his scattered senses.
‘I’ll summons you, Mr. Sharpe,’ he cried. ‘The liberties of the British subject is not to be vi’lently interfered with! I leave this spot,’ he added, looking round loftily but unsteadily, ‘with contumely!’
Anyone who had subsequently seen Sam and Robert conducting the suitor to the high road would have endorsed the truth of this remark, though Mr. Burge, according to his custom, had merely used the first long word that occurred to him without any regard to its appropriateness.
Returning to the house, Isaac went to the foot of the stairs and called out Rosalie’s name in a mildly jubilant roar.
‘Come down, Mrs. Fiander; come down, my dear! He be gone, and won’t never trouble you no more, I’ll answer for ’t.’
Rosalie came tripping downstairs, smiling, in spite of a faintly alarmed expression.
‘What a noise you did make, to be sure!’ she remarked; ‘and what a mess the parlour is in!’
‘We did knock down a few things, I d’ ’low, when we was cartin’ ’en out of this,’ returned Isaac apologetically. ‘He was a-settin’ in my chair, and he up and told me to my face as he’d go on a-settin’ there till he seed ’ee—that were comin’ it a bit too strong!’
He was helping her as he spoke to pick up the scattered furniture, and to restore the table-cloth and books, which Andrew had dragged down in falling, to their places.
These tasks ended, he faced her with a jovial smile.