"Oh! if you are enlisted under petticoat government, (replied De Clavering,) I give you up as incurable,—a deserter from the thorny paths of glory, and foresee the sword will be changed into a distaff or a ploughshare."
"Luf (cried Camelford) must not be apused; it is the best stimulus to crate and noble actions, the parent of pold atchievements; but of that same luf you know nothing: there is no heart in your pody, and you are mortified to think you cannot find a nostrum to cure the disease in others: you must therefore be caught in luf's snares, in order to learn the nature of those treadful tribulations it brings upon a man. May I go to the tevil in a high wind, if I had not as lief face a canon's mouth as meet the fire of Pertha's pright eyes, when they look indignantly upon me!"
"Don't talk so much of the devil, Hugh, (interrupted De Clavering,) but request him to do you the favour of kicking about your brains a little, till they return to a more useful station in your pericranium: in my opinion, you are in a fair way of becoming fist for the government under which you think yourself enlisted."
"May the vengeance of all womankind fall upon you! (cried Camelford:)—may you be tragged apout like a tancing pear, to make sport!—may you lead asses in the tark regions of Peelzebub, for your plasphemies against woman! and may—"
But all his farther denunciations and wishes for vengeance on De Clavering were now interrupted by a loud screaming. Soon the door was thrown open, and in bounced Audrey, her cap on one side, and her face as pale as ashes.
"I have seen him, (she exclaimed,) with my own dear eyes!—his ghost, or happorition!"
"Whose cost? (cried Camelford;) where is it?—I will teach a cost to frighten a pretty cirl, and trive her tistracted."
The manner and appearance of Audrey were such as served to confirm the suspicion in the mind of Roseline, and even De Clavering, till, offended by the supposition of her being insane, she called out in her usual peculiar stile, "Thank God! some folks are no more a lunatic than other folks. I have all my seven senses as perfect as ever I had in my life;—but, Christ Jasus, these are sad times, when one is not allowed to believe their own precious eyes.—Down dropped his horse, poor beast, all in a foam, and down tumbled the young Baron arter him, as dead as my my dear great grandmother."
"Who are you talking of? (cried Roseline, rising with the utmost emotion.)—Is the Baron?—is Walter?—is he dead?"
"He only died for a few minutes, (answered Audrey, and then he came to himself—"