“Zounds and thunder, Sir Charles, you might have remembered, among the doings of Friend Juxon, that he has furnished right stout troopers from his own purse, and that every man in his parish, capable of bearing arms, who can be spared from home, has been sent off already to carry a pike for King Charles. I think the devil is in thee, or that yellow Margery hath crossed thy path this morning.”
The mention of yellow Margery was never pleasant to Sir Charles, and a scowl came over his brow at the sound of her name; but he answered in a dogged and sullen manner,—“Ay, that is all very well: it is good to have two strings to one’s bow. I suppose, Master Juxon will not deny that that canting fanatic, Cuthbert Noble, is his friend. My steward, who came last night from Hertfordshire, saw the vile hypocrite, with tuck and partizan, on guard in the market-place at St. Albans. Your grave tutor is a lieutenant of pikemen. I hope I shall ride over the rascal some fine day.”
“A fanatic he may be—a hypocrite he cannot be; and you say truly that I am his friend; but I will not trust myself with another word—I must return home. Sir Charles, from henceforth I shall look on you as a stranger; and did it become my cloth I would chastise you.”
“Insolent priest! thy cloth is thy protection,” said Sir Charles, advancing with a lifted hunting whip, as if to strike Juxon.
“You need not come between us, Sir Oliver,” said Juxon, with a look of quiet scorn: “in spite of the anger in his heart, he knows when to be prudent.”
“Odd’s life!” said the old knight, “I will have no more ill blood at Milverton:—look you, go your ways, both of you, and sleep over it, and come here again to-morrow, and let us make all up. You are both right, and both wrong—faults on both sides; that is always the story of a quarrel.”
With these words he took Juxon by the hand and shook it kindly, adding, “There go, man, get your horse; you’ll be yourself again before you reach home. Here, Arthur, boy, go with him, and call Richard to saddle his hobby.—I’ll make Sir Charles listen to reason.”
This easy and indolent mode of confounding right and wrong, and escaping out of the proper and severe course of honourable judgment, was by no means agreeable to the upright and manly Juxon. He coldly gave his hand, and wishing Sir Oliver a good morning, ascended the steps with Arthur, casting a look of silent and expressive indignation at Sir Charles, who regarded him in return with violent eyes and cheeks livid with rage.
As Juxon and Arthur passed round to the side of the mansion facing the court-yard, they saw Katharine Heywood and Jane Lambert standing together under the shade of a tree, in earnest conversation. At the sound of the approaching footsteps they turned their heads; and it was evident to George Juxon that the subject of their discourse was connected with what had already passed at the interview between Katharine and himself that very morning.
“Oh! what a thing is man! how far from power,