Ben tried again for peace, but it was no use. The master was gone to the house in the Broadway, and the inmates here were wild. No nails, or tugging of hair, was brought into this action, but everything settled in the true old English style of disputing.
These paragons of the tender sex then threw themselves into attitudes that would have done honour to a Mendoza; but Sawney’s wife, who was a real Lady Barrymore hussey, proved the master at arms. Tall and bony, she slashed her opponent at arm’s length, with the cutting force of a Curtis and presently ended her share of the fray.
The Welshman, after having seen his battered spouse taken care of, returned and going up to the Scotchman, very gravely said,
“Joe, I believe there is something between you and me. You were always a good ’un, but I cannot allow any man to meddle with my wife.”
“Say no more,” said the canny Scot; “it’s all right. No man ever heard me say, nay.”
“No never!” shouted the most of the company. “You were always a trump!”
“Well then,” says Taffy, “let’s have this turn over, and we’ll be friends yet.”
And with this kind of chivalrous feeling, did these two honourable blackguards prepare to maul each other, zealously encouraged by their friends. Sawney’s wife telling him, that if he did not soften that lump of goat’s flesh, she would give him a lesson herself how to fist a man.
It was curious to observe how differently these people were affected, when a violent struggle was about to take place. The most of the younkers, particularly the females, got upon the window-ledge tables, and forms, but most of the veterans in vice never moved out of their seats.