Here Durzil would have spoken, but the old cavalier cut in before him, saying with a sneer,
“It is like thou could’st hinder him, my boy, at any time; most of all when thou art lying there bed-ridden.”
“The very reason wherefore I could hinder him the easier,” replied Jasper, who saw by Durzil’s grave and calm expression that the meaning his father had attached to his speech, was not his meaning.
“And how so, I prithee.”
“Had he, as you say he did, intended to mock me, or insult me otherwise, I would have prayed him courteously to delay his sailing until such time as my hurts would permit to draw triggers, or cross swords with him; and he would have delayed at my request, being a gentleman of courage and of honor.”
“Assuredly I should,” replied Durzil Bras-de-fer, “and you would have done very rightly to call on me in that case. But let me assure you, nothing was further from my intention than to laugh at you. I sailed myself, and smelt gunpowder in earnest, before I was old as you are by several years; and I was perfectly in earnest when I spoke, although I can now well see that my offer, though assuredly intended, could not be accepted.”
Before Jasper had time to reply to these words, his father said to him with a look of approbation,
“You have answered very well, my son; and I am glad that you have reflected, and seen so well what becomes a gentleman to ask, and to grant in such cases. For the rest, you ought to see that Master Durzil Olifaunt is perfectly in the right; and, that having offered you courteously what you asked rashly, he now perceives clearly the impossibility of your accepting his offer.”
“I do not, however, see that at all,” answered the boy moodily. “You carried a stand of colors, I have heard you say, before you were fifteen, and you deny me the only chance of winning honor that ever may be offered to me, in these degenerate times, and under this peaceful king.”
“I do not think that it would minister very much to your honor, or add to the renown of our name, that you should get yourself hanged on some sand key in the Caribbean sea, or knocked on the head in some scuffle with the Spanish guarda costas—no imputation, I pray you believe me, Master Olifaunt, on your choice of a career, the gallantry and justice of which I will not dispute, though I may not wish my son to adopt it.”