“Nay, Puritan’s luck rather, and more than enough of it,” said his companion. “You may read Puritan in his pace and in his patience.”
“Right as a pint bumper, Tom,” said his friend—“Isschar is an ass that stoopeth between two burdens.”
“I have a mind to ease long-eared Laurence of one of his encumbrances,” said the shorter fellow. “That black-eyed sparkler looks as if she had a mind to run away from him.”
“Ay,” answered the taller, “and the blue-eyed trembler looks as if she would fall behind into my loving arms.”
At these words, Alice, holding still closer by Peveril’s arm than formerly, mended her pace almost to running, in order to escape from men whose language was so alarming; and Fenella walked hastily forward in the same manner, having perhaps caught, from the men’s gestures and demeanour, that apprehension which Alice had taken from their language.
Fearful of the consequences of a fray in the streets, which must necessarily separate him from these unprotected females, Peveril endeavoured to compound betwixt the prudence necessary for their protection and his own rising resentment; and as this troublesome pair of attendants endeavoured again to pass them close to Hungerford Stairs, he said to them with constrained calmness, “Gentlemen, I owe you something for the attention you have bestowed on the affairs of a stranger. If you have any pretension to the name I have given you, you will tell me where you are to be found.”
“And with what purpose,” said the taller of the two sneeringly, “does your most rustic gravity, or your most grave rusticity, require of us such information?”
So saying, they both faced about, in such a manner as to make it impossible for Julian to advance any farther.
“Make for the stairs, Alice,” he said; “I will be with you in an instant.” Then freeing himself with difficulty from the grasp of his companions, he cast his cloak hastily round his left arm, and said, sternly, to his opponents, “Will you give me your names, sirs; or will you be pleased to make way?”
“Not till we know for whom we are to give place,” said one of them.