“What’s that?” cried Spears, with the quick hearing of offended affection. “You behind there—some one spoke.”
The men all turned round—the entire assembly—to see what the interruption was. Then they saw, leaning carelessly against the wall, his grey overcoat open, showing the expanse of fine linen, the silk lapels of the evening coat in which Paul had chosen to array himself, the young aristocrat, looking his part to the fullest perfection, with scorn on his face, and proud indifference, careless of them and their opinions. The mere sight of him brought an impulse of fierce hostility.
“I said, that’s not so,” said Paul, distinctly, throwing his defiance over all their heads at his old instructor. Spears was almost beside himself with pain and passion.
“Do you give me the lie,” he said, “to my face—you, Paul? Oh, you shall have your title—that’s the meaning of the change! you, Sir Paul Markham, baronet,—Do you give me the lie?”
“If you like to take it so, Spears. You know as well as I do that men are not monsters like that in one rank and heroes in another. Title or no title, that’s the truth, and you know it—whatever those men that take in everything you are saying may think. You know that’s not so.”
The excited listeners saw Spears grow pale and wince. Then he shouted out with an excited voice—
“And that’s a lie whoever said it. I! say one thing and mean another! The time has been when a man that said that to me would have rued it. He would have rued it——”
“And he shall rue it!” said a voice in the crowd. The people turned round with a common impulse. Fairfax, when he saw what was coming, had risen too, and thrown himself in front of Paul. He was not so tall a man, and Paul’s dark hair towered over his light locks. He tried to push him out into the narrow-flagged passage, and called to him to go—to go! But Paul’s blood was up; he stood and faced them all, holding his arm before him in defence against the raised fists and threatening looks. “I’m one against a hundred,” he said, perfectly calm. “You can do what you please. I will not give in, whatever you do. I tell you what Spears says is not true.”
And then the uproar got up again and raged round them. There was a hesitation about striking the first blow. Nobody liked to begin the onslaught upon one single man, or a man with but one supporter. Fairfax got his arm into his, and did his best to push and drag him away into the paved passage. But it was not till Spears himself, breaking through the angry crowd, gave him a thrust with his powerful arm that he yielded. What might have happened even then, Fairfax did not know; for the passage was narrow, and the two or three people hanging about the door sufficed to make another angry crowd in their way. While, however, he was pushing his way along by the wall, doing all he could to impel before him Paul’s reluctant figure, a door suddenly opened behind them, a light flashed out, and some one called to them to come in. Paul stumbled backwards, fortunately, over the step, and was thus got at a disadvantage; and in two minutes more Fairfax had struggled in, bringing his companion with him. The place into which they were admitted was a narrow passage, quite dark—and the contrast from the noise and crowd without to this silence bewildered the young men. Even then, however, the voice of Spears reached them over the murmur of the crowd.
“There’s a specimen for you!” cried the orator, with a harsh laugh. “The scum come uppermost! What did I tell you? that, take what pains you like, you never get the right man. I loved that lad like my son; and all I said was gospel to him. But he has come into his title, he has come into the land he swore he never would take from the people, and there’s the end. Would you like a better proof of what I said? Oh, rotten, rotten, rotten to the core!”