“Here comes Mowbray, dripping, by Cot, like a watering-pan,” said Captain MacTurk.
“I fear him not,” said Etherington, (we may as well still call him so,) “he has ridden too fast to have steady nerves.”
“We shall soon see that, my Lord Etherington, or rather Mr. Valentine Bulmer,” said Mowbray, springing from his horse, and throwing the bridle over the bough of a tree.
“What does this mean, Mr. Mowbray?” said Etherington, drawing himself up, while Jekyl and Captain MacTurk looked at each other in surprise.
“It means, sir, that you are a rascal and impostor,” replied Mowbray, “who have assumed a name to which you have no right.”
“That, Mr. Mowbray, is an insult I cannot carry farther than this spot,” said Etherington.
“If you had been willing to do so, you should have carried with it something still harder to be borne,” answered Mowbray.
“Enough, enough, my good sir; no use in spurring a willing horse.—Jekyl, you will have the kindness to stand by me in this matter?”
“Certainly, my lord,” said Jekyl.
“And, as there seems to be no chance of taking up the matter amicably,” said the pacific Captain MacTurk, “I will be most happy, so help me, to assist my worthy friend, Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's, with my countenance and advice.—Very goot chance that we were here with the necessary weapons, since it would have been an unpleasant thing to have such an affair long upon the stomach, any more than to settle it without witnesses.”